Climate: LNG in B.C. vs Alberta tarsands

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The deals they are making are with Indonesia, Korea, and possibly India. China is still involved in a way that they will make money from this.
The exporting of our resources does not put money in our pockets, it just gives us temporary jobs to pay for the increases on these resources that we are using because the exporting increases the demand which will drive the price up.
Let me fix this for you....
it just gives us temporary foreign worker jobs.....

Temporary foreign worker restrictions will hurt B.C.’s LNG development, minister warns

POSTMEDIA NEWSJUNE 25, 2014
CALGARY — British Columbia’s minister of natural gas urged the federal government to keep the doors open on temporary foreign workers as the province looks to head off a skill shortage tied to development of a liquefied natural gas industry.
“It’s critical, quite frankly, to the Canadian economy,” Rich Coleman said Wednesday in Calgary. “We can’t be like Australia and decide that we want to restrict the movement of labour coming in, because that really affected the cost of construction for these plants.”
A plan by the federal government to cap the number of low-wage foreign workers and impose higher fees on companies that make use of the program has raised the ire of politicians in Western Canada, which suffers from chronic labour shortages in key sectors from mining to energy.
The changes don’t target higher-skilled trades, Mr. Coleman told reporters following his address at an energy conference. But he cautioned against making broad changes to the program, warning they could jeopardize future investments in the country.
Related
LNG backers worry B.C. could see similar cost spikes as AustraliaPetronas warns Canada not to slaughter its LNG ‘golden egg’B.C. is counting on temporary foreign workers to help fill as many as 100,000 jobs if LNG projects materialize as planned.
The province is on the brink of a multi-billion-dollar resource boom as major energy companies seek to deliver natural gas by tanker to energy-hungry Asian markets, where prices are higher. As many as 14 of the export terminals are proposed, but analysts have cautioned that only a few will ultimately get built.
To meet industry workforce needs, the province has pledged to overhaul its education system and bolster local ranks of skilled tradespeople.
But an aging workforce and heated competition from rival export projects has stoked concern that B.C. is at risk of seeing the same sharp cost overruns that hampered Australia’s LNG boom.
“We can’t be like Australia and decide that we want to restrict the movement of labour coming in, because that really affected the cost of construction for these plants," Rich Coleman said Wednesday in Calgary.

Proponents of the mega-plants have put off final investment decisions while they jockey with the province over fiscal terms that may include a tax of up to 7% on export profits, once development costs are recouped. Labour availability is also a top concern, the companies say.
“I want to move a project forward as quickly as I reasonably can,” Marvin Odum, president of Royal Dutch Shell PLC’s U.S. subsidiary, told reporters in Vancouver last month.
“But until there’s some clarity on workforce issues and labour availability, you can’t make that decision.”
The European oil major is the lead partner in a joint venture with PetroChina, Mitsubishi Corp. and Korea Gas Corp.
Export rival Chevron Corp. may require as many as 4,000 workers during peak construction to build an export plant in Kitimat, B.C., plus 1,500 workers to construct a pipeline to the coast, Jeff Lehrmann, president of the company’s Canadian unit, has said.
Mr. Coleman said the companies are investing despite concerns. He said Shell has committed to spend between $1-billion and $1.5-billion as it works toward a final investment decision expected by mid-decade. A spokesperson for LNG Canada, as the project is known, was not immediately available for comment. Mr. Coleman said Chevron has begun site prep and has built a 19-kilometre industrial access road. “They’ve probably spent $1-billion,” he said.
http://www.canada.com/business/fp/T...+hurt+development+minister/9974390/story.html


Perhaps they need to change the slogan.... Jobs...Jobs...Jobs to TFWs...TFWs...TFWs
Or... 7 cents on the dollar...7 cents on the dollar...7 cents on the dollar..... for BC
I suspect when the price comes in it will be 5 cents on the dollar after 5 years.
That works out to the social cost of this project so it will be a give away.
Face Plant
 
Yep, can't disagree with that. Some waves start out as a ripple some where.
 
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/earthquakes-triggered-by-fracking-wastewater-in-oklahoma-1.2695536

Earthquakes triggered by fracking wastewater in Oklahoma
Many quakes much farther away from the wells than expected

The Associated Press Posted: Jul 03, 2014 2:34 PM ET Last Updated: Jul 03, 2014 2:36 PM ET

A new study explains how just four wells forcing massive amounts of drilling wastewater into the ground are probably shaking up Oklahoma.

Those wells seem to have triggered more than 100 small-to-medium earthquakes in the past five years, according to a study published Thursday by the journal Science. Many of the quakes were much farther away from the wells than expected.

Combined, those wells daily pour more than 19 million litres of water around two or three kilometres underground into rock formations, the study found. That buildup of fluid creates more pressure that "has to go somewhere," said study lead author Cornell University seismologist Katie Keranen.

Researchers originally figured the water diffused through underground rocks slowly. But instead, it is moving faster and farther and triggers quake fault lines that already were likely ready to move, she said.

"You really don't need to raise the pressure a great deal," she added.

The study shows the likely way in which the pressure can trigger fault lines — which already existed yet were not too active— but researchers need more detail on the liquid injections themselves to absolutely prove the case, Keranen said.

The wastewater is leftover from unconventional wells that drill for oil and gas with help of high pressure liquids — nicknamed fracking — and from the removal of water from diluted oil. These new methods mean much more wastewater has to be discarded. While there are about 8,000 deep injection wells in the region, the amount of water injected at the four wells — named Chambers, Deep Throat, Flower Power and Sweetheart — has more than doubled since the drilling boom started about a decade ago.

From 1976 to 2007, Oklahoma each year averaged about one quake of magnitude 3 or more — strong enough to feel locally but too weak to cause damage. But from 2008 to 2013, the state averaged 44 earthquakes of that size every year. So far this year there have been another 233, Keranen said, getting her earthquake figures from the U.S. Geological Survey database.

Push for restrictions

The rattling has led some Oklahomans to push for restrictions on the use of injection wells.

While past research has shown more quakes in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas and Kansas and correlated it statistically to injection wells, this study used computer simulations to identify the mechanism of how massive amounts of water travel as much as 32 kilometres from the well. The pressure then triggers existing small faults — or previously unknown ones. In the past, scientists thought wells could only jump-start quakes within five kilometres) or so.

Austin Holland, a seismologist at the Oklahoma Geological Survey said Keranen's study confirms what he is seeing in the field and will help better understand what's happening in Oklahoma.

"It's a study that needed to be done," said U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Elizabeth Cochran. "That changes how we might look at the hazard for a particular well."

© The Associated Press, 2014
 
Instead of pictures of dead, oil soaked birds, how about this piece with Jim Carrey from “In Living Color”, made not long after the Exxon Valdez spill.

[TprdMUe0hVY] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TprdMUe0hVY
 
Everybody argues for or against energy development but nobody is willing to have their lifestyle impacted. Fuel is integral to EVERY part of our lives. Want to cut emissions? Paddle your boat, sell your truck, buy a hybrid, heat with wood cut by hand, use candles instead of lights. Without fuel there is no logging industry, or any other industry at all. The energy used in the manufacture of a vehicle is enormous, who here keeps their vehicles until the bitter, unrepairable end. Not trying to start a fight but a dose of reality is needed. Our lifestyle ceases to exist without energy development. On a side note, the biggest issue of fracking isn't contaminating ground water, as western shale wells tend to be very deep, it is the injection of extreme volumes of water to do the frac. Most of this water will never be recovered and is forever stuck 3-5km underground. Many fracks are consuming 7-12,000 cubic meters of freshwater. I am in the oil and gas industry and firmly believe that the methods need to change soon. One last thing, do some homework and you'll see that the biggest polluter per GJ of energy on the planet is the Kern River oilfield in California, the Americans are very worried about oil sands while this is in their backyard. Look it up, the pictures and numbers are astounding.
 
Thanks for your comments Lank but no one is saying to give up fossil fuels tomorrow. Just start cutting back as agreed in our commitments to the rest of the world. Every sector in Canada is on track to meet or beat those commitments except two industries. Oil & Gas and cement production. Cement production is searching and working hard to find solutions and as you well know the O&G industry is looking to expand and has the backing of the Harper government to do so. They have no intention on cutting back there emissions and have spent millions making sure they don't have to. LNG is not a solution to the carbon problem, renewable energy is the solution and many countries are finding that it's better then carbon based energy. Look at Germany they have been very successful with wind and solar in meeting there need for renewable energy. The USA is also on the path to renewables. Every 4 minutes someone in the US is putting solar panels on there home. The fact is that carbon based energy is more then a little afraid of where we are heading. Will we all have 100% clean energy next year? no.... The technology is out there and perhaps more people will take advantage as it becomes evident that the carbon based energy is a mugs game.....
Yup I do put my money where my mouth is ..... Bought my wife a Prius C for her birthday. Heck of a car for her needs. Gets 4L/100km compare that to her last car that got 12L/100km. Was on a gov website the other day that you could calculate out the cost in fuel per year to run your vehicle. New car is $1000 per year and the old car was $3500 per year. So you see there is a reason to switch to the new technology. Better is just better.... Now for a new truck for me.... I hear ford is coming out with a new f100 that looks interesting. Chrysler has a new 1/2 ton diesel that claims 40 MPG. Thanks to our friends down south they have set new standards for cars and trucks that are getting better fuel mileage. Will they cost more? perhaps but the money you save in fuel will cover the cost within a few years. Same thing goes for boats and motors. Most of us out here have switched to new outboards that get way better fuel mileage. Less fishing alone and more going out with friends to divide up the costs and footprint. More fishing close to home and less trips to distance fishing locations. The world is moving forward so get use to it and be part of the solution.
The answer to our carbon problem is not more carbon...

[f4yA_kRejp0] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4yA_kRejp0
 
Lank - I wouldn't characterize opposition to Enbridge as: "Everyone arguing against energy development".

Obviously, humans need energy in many forms - including hydrocarbon energy. The issue is not that people who oppose Enbridge think we don't need hydrocarbons or energy development. It's just the rationalization over the cost/benefit analysis that we argue about.

For me: Enbridge is a short-term job generator that will remove a raw one-time resource from Canadians and remove that one-time opportunity for longer-term refining jobs. The tar/oil took 200+ million years to "grow". It is effectively a non-renewable resource. It is not "going bad" sitting in the ground - neither will oil prices decline much over the next 60+ years. If it is only "marginally" efficient/profitable due to heating costs now - that margin will grow substantially over the next 60 years or so. THERE IS NO RUSH TO GET THIS STUFF OUT OF THE GROUND! Except of course the deals the Harper regime made with the Chinese oil companies and to the changes Harper and his cronies made to their stock portfolios. This is not responsible governance. It is corruption - pure and simple.

Then there is of course all of the obvious and not-so obvious environmental risks to weigh benefits against.

It just doesn't make any sense in any realistic analysis to go ahead with Enbridge. That is not "Everyone arguing against energy development", rather it is an open honest appraisal of what is in the public's best interest over a longer time frame than quarterly shareholder profits from Chinese oil interests.
 
New report out today that shows the way forward.
Not sure I agree with it all but at least its a start.
One way or another "Business as Usual" thinking has to stop.

From Page 61
To contribute to a path that limits the global increase in temperature to less than 2°C, Canada would need to dramatically reduce CO2 emissions from energy- and industrial process-related activities. Emissions would need to be transformed from 20.616 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per capita (tCO2e/cap) in 2010 to less than 2 tCO2e/cap in 2050. This represents a nearly 90% reduction in emissions from 2010 levels by 2050.

The Canadian context presents a number of challenges related to achieving deep decarbonization:
 First, national circumstances create structural impediments to decarbonization.
Challenges include Canada’s vast land area (which drives substantial transportation demand),
climate (which drives winter heating and summer cooling demand), and the importance of the
resource extraction sector to the economy.
 Second, Canada’s natural resource development aspirations are consistent with a global
2oC pathway only if deep decarbonization technologies are deployed. Global demand for
fossil fuels and other primary resources is projected to rise even in deep decarbonization
scenarios. As a result, the continued development of Canada’s fossil fuel and mineral natural
resources for global export can be consistent with a 2°C pathway. However, this requires that
transformative GHG mitigation technologies be deployed at every stage, including extraction,
processing, and end-use.
 Third, significant political, economic, and technical barriers to deep decarbonization need
to be overcome, both in Canada and abroad. Technical constraints currently limit the
availability of many options (such as hydrogen use for personal travel), and significant research, development, and deployment efforts will be needed both domestically and internationally. Cost and competitiveness outcomes are other challenges that must be overcome for technologies to be widely deployed (such as CCS). Finally, even options that meet both of these feasibility criteria may fail to be implemented due to public opposition and political pressures.


Full Report at this link

http://unsdsn.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/DDPP_interim_2014_report.pdf
 
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Economists have studied how people cooperate in groups, but they haven't looked specifically at whether individuals are happy to cooperate with future generations who cannot reciprocate. A team led by Martin Nowak of Harvard University wanted to test whether groups of people could sustain a resource over several 'generations' of players. See what happened in this handy, candy-filled Nature Video.


[xrXyRJV96mk] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrXyRJV96mk
 
Steam Injection Fracking Caused Major Alberta Bitumen Leak
Review finds fractures spread like cracks on a frozen lake, resulting in uncontrolled seepage.
By Andrew Nikiforuk, Yesterday, TheTyee.ca

http://thetyee.ca/News/2014/07/24/C...ce=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=250714
Technical review finds that bitumen producer created uncontrollable fractures in the earth. Photo: CNLR, September 2013.

Related
The Big Seep: Gooey Alberta Mystery Solved?
CNRL admits design failure could have caused Primrose bitumen leaks.
Regulator approves more steaming at leaking oilsands site
Record Bitumen Seepage in Alberta Continues Unabated
Researchers say energy regulator and industry must do more to explain why.

A new independent technical review http://www.aer.ca/documents/reports/CNRLPrimrose_PanelReport_201407.pdf on the cause of a large and costly 2013 bitumen leak in northern Alberta found a form of hydraulic fracturing that injects steam into the ground to be the main culprit.

The panel, appointed by Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. to review its initial findings on the cause of the leak at its Primrose facility, also documented that industry frack jobs, contrary to industry claims, can break caprock, shoot out of zone, link to natural fractures and penetrate into groundwater.

Fractures made by CNRL, one of the country's largest bitumen extractors, not only connected to natural fractures in the area, but also cracked their way through several non-targeted formations.

These industry-induced fractures then penetrated "generally impermeable shales" and passed through groundwater before erupting to surface more than 500 metres from the original targeted zone in the Cold Lake oilsands region of Alberta.

All told, more than 12,000 barrels of bitumen seeped to the surface through five different fractures (one fracture opened in 2009) nearly a dozen kilometres apart. The bitumen seeped into a lake, muskeg and the forest for more than a year, killing wildlife and polluting the landscape.

The ongoing clean-up job of what amounted to the province's fourth largest oil spill has cost nearly $50 million to date.

Steam plant or "in situ" bitumen production, which accounts for half of all oilsands production, employs a form of hydraulic fracturing known as cyclic steam injection.

Using tightly spaced wells in the forest, the carbon-intensive oilsands process pumps highly-pressurized volumes of steam into cold bitumen deposits and then pumps up the melted junk crude several weeks later.

At CNRL's Primrose operation, the company injected an "excessive fluid volume" into the formation that lifted the ground by nearly a foot, fractured the protective shale cap rock, and created "vertical hydraulically induced fractures" through several different formations way above the zone containing bitumen.

Like rock splintering a windshield

According to the review, which only commented on CNRL's first causation report (there will be more), the high pressure in industry-made fractures forced natural fractures to open wider, allowing for the movement of bitumen from the Clearwater reservoir upwards into the Grand Rapids Formation.

Streams of bitumen then travelled vertically. Where the fluid encountered resistance, it simply started a new horizontal fracture in the rock. Shifting from vertical to horizontal fractures, the bitumen then seeped to the surface.

"Uncontrollable enabling conditions" for the incident included the tendency for hydraulic fractures to move vertically in one formation and then to connect to natural fractures and faults in the next. The report suggested that neither industry nor the provincial regulator sufficiently understand all the operational risks and geological hazards in the bitumen-producing region.

Anthony Ingraffea, one of the world's foremost authorities on the science of fracking as well as president of Physicians, Scientists, and Engineers for Healthy Energy, saluted the honesty of the technical review.

"This report highlights the wide-aperture fracture that exists between those in the industry that write advertisements and PR media and those in the industry, the engineers and scientists, who actually know what they don't know," the Cornell University engineer said.

"The latter are honest with each other in conferences and workshops, and with the public when they are allowed to publish on the problems associated with well stimulation. The former do a disservice to the industry and continue deepen the hole they have dug with respect to the public's declining perception of the industry."

The technical panel, which CNRL appointed last March, also found that once industry started these uncontrollable fractures -- much like a small rock shattering a car windshield -- some of the fractures connected to at least two poorly-sealed wellbores, which transported the fluids even higher.

According to industry lobbyists, all wellbores "are carefully constructed," but University of Waterloo researcher Maurice Dusseault recently warned that thousands of leaky wellbores represent potential pathways for groundwater contamination and methane air pollution, and have become a multi-billion-dollar liability for industry.

Difficult to predict

In addition, the review noted that CNRL had done a poor job of clearly identifying potential geological hazards in the region, such as pre-existing natural fractures.

"Natural fractures and faults of varying densities and properties exist in all of the geological strata at Primrose, however, it can be difficult characterizing their relative connectivities and conductivities."

In simple terms, pressures created by the industrial injection of fluids in bitumen or shale rock can create a zig-zag of traveling fractures that resemble the cracking of ice on a frozen lake.

CNRL Primose Flow to Surface Causation
Source: CNRL Primrose Flow to Surface Causation Report.

Recent studies suggest that hydraulic fracturing, which uses fluid injection to crack open hydrocarbon-bearing rocks, often works like an uncontrolled science experiment. Engineers can't always predict where their man-made fractures will travel or how they might behave once they connect to existing fractures in the ground.

A 2005 Oilfield Review article noted that "geologic discontinuities such as fractures and faults can dominate fracture geometry in a way that makes predicting hydraulic fracture behaviour difficult."

The same paper added, "All hydraulic fracture models fail to predict fracture behaviour precisely, and in many cases, models fail completely, largely because of incorrect information and assumptions used in the models."

A 2012 paper by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists emphasized the unpredictable nature of hydraulic fracturing by concluding the process doesn't make neat definable cracks in rock, but rather produces "a complex, damaged fracture network."

Review contradicts fracking safety claims

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, a powerful lobby group, has argued for years that fracking technology is safe and proven.

Despite studies showing that methane accumulations in groundwater tend to increase in heavily-drilled and fracked oil and gas fields, the industry group's website also claims that "the technology is carefully used and managed to minimize any environmental impact, particularly on groundwater."

In contrast, the technical review, written by four engineers with more than 120 years of experience in the industry, argues that industry activity can connect to natural fractures, impact groundwater, fracture beyond target zones, and induce uncontrollable reactions underground.

The review also contradicts industry claims that "the risks associated with hydraulic fracturing are very small due to government regulations and advanced technology."

The review's findings may have significant implications for bitumen mining. Steam plant operators will likely have to spend more money to collect better data, as well as perform more sophisticated geological monitoring to pinpoint natural fractures throughout the oilsands.

To date, more than 20 different environmental groups have called for a public scientific review of bitumen mining practices using hydraulic fracturing in the form of steam injection in the oilsands.

The Alberta Energy Regulator, a group 100 per cent funded by industry, has ignored their petitions. [Tyee]

Andrew Nikiforuk is an award-winning journalist who has been writing about the energy industry for two decades and is a contributing editor to The Tyee. Find his previous stories here.

This coverage of Canadian national issues is made possible because of generous financial support from our Tyee Builders.
 
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To date, more than 20 different environmental groups have called for a public scientific review of bitumen mining practices using hydraulic fracturing in the form of steam injection in the oilsands.

I am not an expert on this, but to my knowledge on the process there is no deliberate fracking involved in SAGD. This defeats the purpose of having the layers hold the material in place as they desire to have the heated bitumen flow downward into the well casing. Fissures in the layers prevent the proper effect from happening. These are naturally occurring fisures that are creating a problem and preventing a controlled recovery.
Fracking is done to break up the shale rock that is holding light oils and gasses.
When such fissures occur in the natural formation it creates an escape route for the steam which becomes a spectacular blowout. I have seen one in our area and have knowledge of a couple more.
There is no guaranteed clean method of recovering this fossel fuel but there are some more practical ways than others.
 
http://thetyee.ca/News/2014/07/28/N...ce=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=280714

New-found Threat to Oilsand Projects
TYEE EXCLUSIVE: Researchers discover ancient salt formation key factor in Alberta steam fracking disasters.
By Andrew Nikiforuk, Today, TheTyee.ca

A new study suggests that naturally occurring upward flow of groundwater in the oilsands region is creating fractures and weaknesses that may explain a series of catastrophic events for the controversial mining industry.

The findings, first published in a PhD thesis last year and soon to appear in a paper for the American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, have significant implications for worker safety, groundwater protection, the security of massive industrial wastewater disposal in the region as well as the economics and placement of more than 100 steam plants and mines.

Half of all bitumen now produced from the oilsands relies on a form of oil production that injects highly pressurized steam into deep deposits of cold bitumen.

BREAKING THE CAP ROCK
Harvard researcher and University of Calgary graduate Benjamin Cowie traces four significant and costly events in the tarsands to a newly identified geohazard: the erosion of salt formations underneath bitumen deposits by the movement of groundwater.

Cowie suspects that fractures and faults created by the new hazard have collided with industrial activity along the eastern fringes of bitumen mining in the Athabasca deposit.

1. In 2009 bitumen seeped to surface at CNRL's Primrose operation in Cold Lake. Four more seeps appeared in 2013 resulting in a $50-million cleanup operation. CNRL eventually excavated 82,508 tonnes of impacted earth and drained an entire lake. The fourth largest oil spill in Alberta history is still under investigation.

2. In 2010 Shell's Muskeg River mine hit a gusher of sulfate-rich and salty groundwater connected to the Devonian while excavating a tailing pond. It took more than a year to contain a rupture that spurted 2,000 cubic metres of salt water an hour. It cost millions of dollars to plug the leak. Researchers say that "it is almost certain that more conduits exist throughout the oilsands region, and that this will not be the last incident of brine discharge in an oilsands system."

3. In 2006 Total blasted a 75 by 125 metre surface crater in the boreal forest at its Joslyn Creek steam plant resulting in the abandonment of the project. The event rendered nearly 30 million barrels of bitumen unrecoverable. Alberta regulators, which didn't report on the event for four years, later compared the Total blowout to an uncontrolled frack job in a 2011 presentation. "Given ongoing cap rock integrity concerns associated with fracturing and hydro-fracking in the subsurface to initiate production, these findings will have relevance to other shallow thermal and non-thermal operations, including in-situ bitumen/extra-heavy oil operations, and production of other emerging unconventional commodities such as tight oil and shale gas."

4. In the 1980s Texaco created a geyser of bitumen and salt water outside of Fort McMurray. There is little literature on the blowout. But it may have connected to a Devonian aquifer too. --Andrew Nikiforuk

Recent eruptions of steam, bitumen and groundwater at oilsands operations may all represent an industrial collision with a natural process that drives salty groundwater into bitumen-bearing reservoirs where it fractures and weakens the rock near and above bitumen deposits.

The events include the massive 12,000 barrel bitumen seepage to the surface by Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (CNRL); a huge blowout at Total's Joslyn steam plant project in 2006; and a large groundwater gusher at Shell's Muskeg River mine.

That 2010 disaster turned a newly created dam for mining waste into a lake full of 7-billion litres worth of highly saline water.

These calamities cost the industry tens of millions of dollars. The disasters also required large-scale cleanup efforts or resulted in project abandonment.

Harvard researcher Benjamin Cowie, who recently presented his findings to industry, now argues that all of the events share one geological feature: they occurred along the edge of an ancient salt formation that runs in a northwest to southeast direction through the Athabasca and Cold Lake oilsands deposits.

Geologists call it the Prairie Evaporite and it is part of the Devonian formation that lies underneath the tarsand deposits.

But based on the chemistry of water samples collected by industry from the region, Cowie believes that ancient glacial water is not only eating away the rock but creating new weaknesses under these bitumen layers targeted by industry.

In some places the highly saline water has erupted into bitumen formations where industry has recorded the sudden appearance of sinkholes or seeps of highly saline water. Many of these naturally occurring seeps run directly into the Athabasca river.

In addition Cowie suspects that that aquifers with high salt content have dissolved and weakened the rock infrastructure beneath bitumen deposits and in some places created vertical fractures as the highly pressurized salty water rises toward the surface.

At this point industry-made fractures created by oilsands mining and steaming operations then collide with these up swells of water or connect to metre scale fractures created by the dissolution of salt by the groundwater movement.

"This is a big regional process and an entirely new environmental risk for the oilsands," Cowie said in an exclusive Tyee interview.

Underground saltwater can destroy seal of cap rock

The Alberta Energy Regulator (AER), which is mapping the area to identify geological factors that may affect cap rock seals, now supports Cowie's findings.

A 2013 paper presented to the American Rock Mechanics Association in San Francisco said that the regulator had identified "a complex sub-Cretaceous structure created by salt dissolution and collapse, which has implications for cap rock integrity and also for the disposal of produced and process water into Devonian strata."

The paper also warned that ancient groundwater channels can carve holes in cap rock (a shale/sandstone layer that purportedly seals bitumen formations from other rock layers). In addition this protective cap rock thins or erodes to nothing in many places in the tarsands.

In other words, no geological seal exists to prevent industry made fractures caused by high-pressurized steam injections or waste water injection from erupting to the surface.

Earlier this year the AER abruptly suspended proposed shallow steam plant operations over a large area of the tarsands, worth billions of dollars, due to concerns about punching holes through the cap rock and polluting groundwater.
 
continued...

New clues to Cold Lake disaster

The regulator's San Francisco presentation also revealed that large science gaps now exist on the issue. Stress regimes below 350 metres in the region are "not well understood and there is very little publicly available data." Nor has groundwater been properly mapped or monitored in the region.

A June 2014 preliminary report by CNRL on its large bitumen seepage in Cold Lake also underscores how poorly industry understands the complexity of rock structures in the region.

The company's first report on the causes of the headline-making event blames industry made rock fractures that allowed bitumen and steam to break through a shale barrier and then travel by natural fractures, faults or badly cemented wellbores to the surface.

Since 2009 CNRL Primrose East steam operation in Cold Lake has leaked thousands of barrels of bitumen and steam to the surface in as many as five identified distinct ground fractures contaminating both surface and groundwater.

However, the CNRL report does not mention the possibility that the erosion of a salt formation underlying its Primrose East field may also play a role in weakening local geology by inducing fractures and faults.

Nor does the CNRL's report make any reference to the 2013 AER study or Cowie's work.

But an independent technical panel, which reviewed CNRL's causation work, flags the novel geological hazard as a major concern.

The panel noted, for example, that the geological weaknesses created by dissolving unique salt formations under the bitumen deposits in Primrose East "could influence shale integrity."

Salt-related subsidence could also result in changes in rock stress and fractures that damage bitumen bearing zones, adds the technical report. "Clearly identifying these potential geologic hazards" is imperative, adds the report.

New factor in assessing risk

Some bitumen miners, however, have quietly recognized the new geohazard and have recently set up agreements to share data on what's happening in the Devonian formation and how these events might compromise industrial activity.

One recent industry presentation, for example, noted that the dramatic erosion of salt deposits by glacial waters in the eastern portion of the Athabasca tarsands deposit "has created additional complexity" for steam plant operations.

Another 2014 presentation warned, "the presence of a highly transmissive aquifer in the 'Intact' Prairie Evaporite Formation will need to be considered as part of their risk analysis and, as needed, risk mitigation plans."

Bernhard Mayer, a University of Calgary hydrologist who supervised Cowie's PhD thesis, says the government and industry need to do a "more detailed investigation of the nature of these localized pathways between the McMurray formation and underlying Devonian units."

They also need to study "the integrity of cap rocks overlying the bitumen-containing units and assess the cap rock integrity in view of the stress regime and the pressures associated with steaming operations."

Cowie adds that there is little information about the complex geological phenomena.

"The extent of recent rock dissolution beneath the oilsands region is unknown and I think the absence of information poses a real risk to oilsands producers."

By linking all these serious events to one mechanism Cowie hopes that regulators and industry "will pay more attention to it" and perform better regional mapping to study the risks.

The new geohazard has major implications for worker safety, the economics of bitumen extraction and groundwater protection in the region.

During the catastrophic Joslyn steam blowout and the bursting of the previously unknown saline aquifer at Shell's Muskeg mine, bitumen workers could have been seriously injured near the discharge sites, says Cowie.

The geohazard could also significantly affect economics by "requiring more detailed geological characterization to truly identify what's happening with groundwater in these systems, or in the worst case, substantial and expensive cleanup efforts would be required if a leak does occur."

David Schindler, a world famous water researcher and long-time critic of rapid bitumen development, called Cowie's research clear and significant and urged provincial authorities to change how projects are approved and monitored.

"Once again, the scientific homework is done after the assignment is due. When will the Alberta government ever learn?"
 
If I had a bit more education I would shoot down some of this tripe that is being spread. First even my poorly educated mind knew about the saline aquifer years before shell happened to strike it. It was one of the critical things that could cause a catatastrophy at the aurora mine site. In that bit of info was stated previously unknown. Sounds to me like the same kind of B/S the politicians give us when they get caught with their hands in the cookie jar.
How in the hell can you expect us to believe them if they lie and B/S the same way the corporates do?
Nikiforuk is blowing it out his butt. I witnessed the Texaco blowout and it was nowhere near this saline aquifer, the blowout was because the site was too close to the surface. He also tries to bring fracking into the picture. It has nothing to do with SAGD or fire flooding and least of all the heat flooding they do with steam.
After what I have read about his tripe I would put him at the same level as Ezra Levant who is at the opposite end of the spectrum.
I am also aware of the Joslyn creek blowout Which to what studies I have read places Cowie's thesis close to what is actually going on.
I am not saying that there are no problems with what is happening here but lets make sure the facts are accurate and relative.
Ever since global warming has become a household word I have heard about equal amounts of B/S both pro and con.
Even now all these severe weather incidents are being blamed on the tarsands which have not been around long enough to be the sole cause.
A lot of statements have been made about turning this around, I have a hard time believing that this could be done, I am believing more that we had better learn how to adapt PDQ. Nature already has a head start on this and mankind does not seem to be in the picture.
 
Both LNG and oil sands have risks but you can't say no to energy extraction unless you have an alternative. All of us can't say anything we all use oil everywhere. Boating is one of the worst offenders for using oil and gas. I have been up in Fort Mcmurray and seen what goes on up there. Many of you haven't. I don't like it but it has to be done to keep up with consumer demand. Consumers are what drive Fort McMurray.

To be truthful we need to work on getting vehicles and boats off of fossil base fuels..than these things would not exist. That is the bigger issue.
 
Hear, here spring velocity. We need to support some alternatives. I am dead set against the gateway pipeline as it does not support our canadian needs.
And as long as we think we are fooling people with our lies, and I do mean both sides we are not going anywhere.
 
There are only two industries in Canada that are having problems meeting our international commitments to reducing GHG emissions. One is the cement industry and the other is Oil & Gas. The cement industry is working hard to solve their problems and I'm not sure they can do it. I am hopeful with enough hard work and perhaps some clever people they may prevail. The other (O&G) prefers the state of denial of the problem and actively funds third parties to create doubt and confusion or buy our leaders so they can continue business as usual. Sure we see O&G companies put on their websites and TV how they want develop their products in a environmental sustainable way. It's all talk or as some put it... "green washing". Actions speak louder then words.... Expand the tar-sands..... WTF.... we should be ramping it down, not up. LNG the cleanest burning fossil fuel. Yea the answer to our carbon problem is more carbon. What a bunch of clowns. Cut the crap and get on with it. Everyone else is doing something about it. We all like to talk about how our transportation is the problem. It's not and if you have been watching you would have seen how they have a clear path to zero carbon. You don't see the car manufactures complaining that they can't do it. In fact everyone of them is on board working for that goal. The US has regulations for improved gas mileage and lower GHG. Canada has signed on as is riding on their coat tails. California is leading the pack and as they say when California leads the rest will follow.

We are seeing a revolution in energy. Old energy industries see the future and they are not prepared. They have a ton of money in old technology that may become stranded. Take a look at solar panels and the drop in prices. I have heard that "Moores Law" has started to kick in with production. Not sure if it is so but you can't deny that the prices have fallen. They say that once every four minutes someone installs a set of panels on their house in the US today. Next year double that. Year after that, double it again...... and the costs come down.

What would our sport look like in 5 to 10 years. Would we have electric boats? Would we charge them at night for use the next day? I could see a least our trolling motors going to electric. If you think on it that would be kind of nice. No more kicker noise coming from the rear. Might even be pleasant. Only use you kicker on the weekends... Charge your system with a solar panel during the week. Good for 2 or 3 days of trolling. Why not...

I was reading the other day about some new Tugs being used that have lithium batteries in them. Tugs have huge horse power motors in them and 90% of the time they don't need that kind of power. The motors run generators and the propulsion is electric. Add some batteries and you need less horse power and they can be charged when sitting there doing nothing. Fuel savings in the 20 to 30% range. It's a Vancouver company that builds the battery packs for them.... clever guys.

My whole point is that we can do it if we try. We have a goal and a clear target. What we lack is leadership. We have clever people with tools that no other generation has been lucky enough to have. Hell we can now 3D print parts and have computing power in a phone that only ten years ago I would have said it was impossible. Never say never... Back in the 60's they put a man on the moon and returned him safely using slide rule and pencil for technology. Like I said we only lack leadership.

Look at our homes. Energy efficient heat pumps rather then natural gas furnace. Put solar panels on the house and become net zero. That means at the end of the year your energy bill is a wash. Sure you use power in the winter when there is not much sun but in the summer you put power onto the grid. Can this be done? Why yes it's being done across Canada right now. Like I said we just lack leadership. What can you expect with a leader that has his head up O&G's butt. It's time to separate oil and state.

Don't know about you guy's but I'm hopeful that we can some how beat this problem. I'm impressed by some of the young people I have meet through my kid. I see signs that the tide is turning and there is nothing that can stop it. Tipping points with the public have been reached and the way forward will be filled with challenges and we have the people and the tools to overcome. Will it be easy?... no, but it is do able.

We only lack leadership.
 
We not only lack leadership, we also lack the will to sacrifice our certain excesses for the advancement of new technologies.
 
http://thetyee.ca/News/2014/08/02/M...ce=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=020814

Gas Minister's Leaky Well Comments 'Ignorant,' Scientist Says
Cornell engineer takes issue with Coleman's claim that BC is leak-free.
By Andrew Nikiforuk, Today, TheTyee.ca

One of North America's top experts on well oil integrity and the mechanics of hydraulic fracturing says recent comments by Rich Coleman, British Columbia's minister of natural gas development, are not only ignorant but delusional.

In May, Coleman told the Vancouver Sun that oil and gas wells in British Columbia don't leak. He also hinted that scientists who made such statements just wanted more money for unnecessary studies.

"The reality is we've been doing this for over 50 years, we've never had contamination from a drill, we've never had a drill stem leak or fail. We do it as well or better than anybody else in the word," protested Coleman.

The deputy premier made the comments in response to a scientific report http://thetyee.ca/News/2014/05/01/Frack-Slow-Report/ that recommended a go-slow approach to fracking unconventional shale resources due to large science gaps, leaky wellbores and increasing climate liabilities.

"The minister's statements are ignorant," said Anthony Ingraffea, an engineering professor at Cornell University and the author of a new study on leaking oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania.

"The minister does not understand the vulnerability of the technology, nor the history of the industry and its valiant and long-lasting attempts to address well integrity," added Ingraffea.


"Leaky wells happen everywhere. It doesn't matter whether the wells are in British Columbia or Pennsylvania."

The process for drilling and cementing a well are basically the same around the world, he said, and "it is very difficult to adequately gasket a well with a material like cement."

According to a report by three University of Waterloo engineers, http://thetyee.ca/News/2014/06/05/Canada-Leaky-Energy-Wells/ more than 10 per cent of B.C.'s existing 20,000 active and abandoned wells now leak. In addition, some of the province's shale gas wells have become "super emitters" of methane.

One energy company recently spent $8 million in northern B.C. to repair a badly leaking shale gas well.

"Wellbore leakage will likely only become worse with time as new wells are completed and old wells are abandoned," warned the Waterloo report. http://www.geofirma.com/Links/Wellbore_Leakage_Study compressed.pdf

In the last two years, University of Alberta geochemist Karlis Muehlenbachs has fingerprinted gases from hundreds of leaking shale gas wells in British Columbia. He said that many of the migrating gases, including methane, ethane and propane from Horn River wells, didn't necessarily come from the production zone.

The gas migration expert concluded in a 2013 presentation that "future regulations and baseline surveys should anticipate that potential contaminants to groundwater from hydraulic fracturing need not originate in the target shales, but rather from shallower and intermediate horizons."

Some regions are more prone to leaks "but no region is immune," said Muehlenbachs. "Much better cements and sealing techniques need to be developed and employed."

'Chronic and ubiquitous'

Leaking wells are "a chronic and ubiquitous problem and it's one the industry has had for 100 years," said Ingraffea in a Tyee interview.

Steel casings corrode and cement seals that are designed to keep methane moving up the wellbore into groundwater degrade overtime.

As a result, gas can stray from leaky wells through natural fractures as far as 14 kilometres underground before daylighting into basements, water wells, ponds, rivers and groundwater.

Ingraffea's most recent study http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/06/25/1323422111.abstract found significant leakage problems with 41,000 wells drilled between 2000 and 2013 in Pennsylvania.

By analyzing 70,000 compliance reports, Ingraffea determined that unconventional shale gas wells leaked as much as 6.2 per cent. In one part of the state, violation rates (confirmed visible leakage of gas from the well site) reached 9.8 per cent.

Hazard modelling suggested the actual rate of failure might be as high as 12 per cent for the state's 6,000 multi-stage horizontal shale gas wells.

Conventional vertical wells didn't leak as much but were not inspected as frequently. In some cases there were no inspection records at all for 8,000 conventional wells, said Ingraffea.

The study also found a greater risk of failure rates in wells drilled after 2009, perhaps due to rushed drilling programs.

Oil and gas operations have polluted or reduced the flow of groundwater 209 times in 77 Pennsylvania communities since the end of 2007.

Last week, the state's auditor general reported that the Department of Environmental Protection had failed to properly regulate the industry and uphold the public interest.

More wells add to methane leakage

Hydraulic fracturing, a technology that blasts fluid, water and chemicals at tight rock formations to release small amounts of oil and gas over vast areas, aggravates the leaky well issue, Ingraffea said.

Only 6,000 horizontal wells have been drilled in Pennsylvania to date, but industry plans to drill another 90,000 in the years ahead. Given that the large Marcellus shale formation lies under several other northeastern states, as many as 500,000 horizontal wells could be drilled in the future.

Similar figures have been cited for Canada's Montney formation in Alberta and B.C., where industry could drill another 400,000 wells.

The density of wells required by fracturing, which barely captures between five and 10 per cent of the actual resource, will add to an already significant methane leakage problem in the industry, Ingraffea said.

The Cornell University engineer, who used to perform sponsored research and act as a consultant for Schlumberger, Exxon, BP and others, favours rigorous regulation of the fracking industry where oil and gas wells already exist.

Increased well density not only means more leaks but more industrial accidents in which companies frack into neighbouring wells operated by other companies. More than 20 so-called "interwell communication events" have occurred in B.C., but most are not reported to the regulator.

Given the vast literature on well leakage, Ingraffea can't understand why politicians such as Coleman deny such a well-documented liability.

"What I find surprising is that a politician is trying to convince the public otherwise."
 
The guy finds it "surprising" that politicians say delusional stuff trying to lie to the public? Hmmm....me thinks Ingraffea never comes out of the classroom at Cornell University.
 
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