It is becoming obvious now that carbon-based fuels exploiters in Canada are going to hang their hats on carbon-capture technologies—if they can just get governments to pay for it. For an expensive solution that really cannot do the job, it appears to be the only answer they can find. And their political lackies are expected to get on the carbon-capture band wagon. Just watch politicos like federal conservative leader Pierre Poilievre jump aboard.
You need to remember that there are multiple carbon expelling events in the life of the high-carbon bitumen from the Athabasca tar sands. There are the high amounts of carbon created by the digging or drilling for the access to the bitumen. Then there is the transport of the bitumen to the upgrader processes that brings it to a bitumen sludge that can be transported by rail or forced at high temperatures through pipelines. Eventually, the bitumen gets to a refinery that can produce ersatz crude oil from the bitumen, leaving behind tons of bitumen slag. From that stage, the crude can be refined into carbon-based fuels for heating and transport requirements. It is because of all these process stages that the actual amount of pollution caused by the bitumen is hard to compute.
But what we also know is that while oil and water really do not mix, at least oil is difficult to cleanup when it spills into water. Bitumen, because of its tar-like nature floats for a while and then sinks to become an obnoxious part of the eco-system that is impossible to cleanup.
This is also the reason for the ongoing and bitter legal battle between the State of Michigan and the Enbridge pipeline people over the Line 5 pipeline crossing the Straits of Mackinac. The State of Michigan has had the experience of a critical spill of bitumen into tributaries to the Kalamazoo River in South Michigan. In 12 years and more than a billion dollars on cleanup, there is still bitumen in the Kalamazoo.
When you get politicians on both sides of the border arguing over the issue, there is also a lot of confusion. The only comment that I will add is that if any large lake-ship accidently drags an anchor through the Straits of Mackinac when Line 5 is carrying bitumen, millions of Americans and Canadians living around the Great Lakes are going to be outraged at the economic destruction it could cause.
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