Energy

A crude awakening

As oil extraction increases on the Alberta tar sands, oil companies are looking toward the Great Lakes as a base for refining the world’s dirtiest petroleum.

Activists across Canada and the world have derided the environmental devastation that oil sands development is causing to northern Alberta. However, with up to 17 projects planned or underway in the Great Lakes region that seek to increase refining capabilities to process Alberta oil, the Great Lakes will not be immune to the ecological damage that development of the oil sands is wreaking.

Earlier this fall the Munk Centre at the University of Toronto released a report summarizing the various proposals across the region, and exploring the environmental toll expansion will present to the Great Lakes.

According to David Israelson, the report’s author, “[expansion] would add exponentially to emissions, greenhouse gas emissions, and water pollution.”

In Alberta, the oil that is extracted is a thick, tar-like substance called bitumen. The bitumen is mixed with sand making it an expensive, energy and water intensive process for separating and refining. These demands make bitumen crude one of the dirtiest oils in the word to produce.

Among the expansion plans investigated is that of British Petroleum’s (BP) facility in Whiting, India. The expansion would increase motor fuels production by 12 million gallons a week. As a result, pollution discharges—toxic sludge and ammonia —would increase by 35 and 45 per cent, respectively.

After a public outcry, with tens of thousands of individuals signing a petition in opposition to the permit, a resolution was passed in the U.S. House of Representatives asking Indiana to reconsider the permit they had granted to BP. After the resolution passed overwhelmingly, BP committed to upgrading the refinery in such a way that would keep pollution discharges at current levels. To date, no such technology exists.

Across the region, falling energy prices and a struggling economy have put expansion plans on hold for now. However, should the economy recover and oil prices rise again, many of these plans could see light.

In Superior, Wisconsin, activists are relieved that Murphy Oil’s $6.2 billion expansion was shelved. The project would have increased the refining capacity of the plant by nearly six times, allowing it to process over 200,000 barrels a day.

The plant was built in 1951 and currently processes 35,000 barrels of crude oil per day. According to the Zenith City Weekly, the refinery is struggling to compete with larger facilities, and is contemplating whether it is viable to continue operating.

The expansion would threaten 300 to 500 acres of Lake Superior wetlands, while withdrawing 5 million gallons of Lake Superior water every day and increasing its energy consumption 12 times.

“We hope that this plan doesn’t come back. It would risk wetlands, migratory birds and the future health of Lake Superior,” said Melissa Malott, water program director for Clean Wisconsin.

Andrew Nikiforuk, author of Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent, writes that the expansion would be “the largest wetlands filling in Wisconsin since the passage of the U.S. Clean Water Act of 1972.”

Any expansion of refining capacity means building a pipeline system to move the oil. Enbridge, one of Canada’s largest energy companies, will likely control much of the pipeline traffic into the Great Lakes region. It is currently expanding its pipeline capacity. When it is completed, the Albert Clipper pipeline, which runs 1,000 miles (1,607 km) from Hardisty Alberta to Superior, Wisconsin, is expected to carry 450,000 barrels of oil per day. At its peak capacity, the pipeline is expected to carry upwards of 800,000 barrels per day. This line is just one of many that will zig-zag across the Great Lakes and North America.

For now, the threat of refinery expansion in the Great Lakes is dormant. However, the current dependence of North Americans on oil, and the U.S. strategy to supply its oil from sources closer to home, means that oil sands production will continue to increase in the coming years. Once the economy recovers and oil prices inevitability rise again, citizens across the Great Lakes may be facing refinery expansion and the environmental consequences that come with it.

© 2009 Great Lakes News.