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"Charting the Map"
Presented by Jean-Christophe Victor
Canada: Energy superpower
Today I'm at Francois Mitterand Library at the marine maps exhibition
and the map behind me shows Canada in 1559.
Today I'm going to talk about Canada
because the country has undergone a revolution of sorts in the past several years
in a major way in the area of energy.
The country is trying to become a worldwide energy superpower
affecting its GDP, exports, and its greenhouse gas emissions
and its voluntary withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol
Canada is situated in the northern part of the Americas.
It's only land-based neighbor is the United States to the south
and the American state of Alaska to the west.
The country is sandwiched between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
And if we look at a polar map,
we see that Canada also borders the Arctic Ocean,
just like Russia, and its other neighbor is Greenland.
Canada is the world's second largest country, at 10 million square kilometers,
or about 20 times that of France.
There are 34 million inhabitants, roughly half of that of France's.
Ottawa is the capital of this federal republic.
The country is divided into 10 provinces and three territories.
Canada is a rich country and has freshwater, cereal,
minerals deposits of all types since Toronto is the world's spot for mineral exchange.
Today I'd like to talk more about Canada's oil and gas deposits.
First, oil.
In Canada, as with other major oil-producing regions,
conventional oil reserves are depleting.
Production is decreasing despite rising global demand.
But, Canada also harbors non-conventional reserves.
That is, oil deposits located in bituminous sand.
Canadian production from these non-conventional deposits
is expected to progressively increase.
Look at this graph.
In 2010, bituminous sand represented 40% of oil production.
In 2020, it will represent 57%.
And 76% in 2030.
Which means that total oil production in 2030
taken via conventional and non-conventional means,
could reach as high as 5 million barrels a day,
more than Iran's current oil production.
Bituminous sand is a heavy type of oil.
It's often found in the province of Alberta, as this map shows.
Here, the total surface area of the deposits
is more than 140,000 square kilometers,
or about 1/5 of the province's surface area.
Or, about five times Belgium's surface area.
These heavy oil deposits are found in rock layers
or sand, in which the term bituminous sand derives.
It requires complex extraction technology.
Extraction is done above-ground
if the deposits are close enough to the surface.
Secondly, in areas where deposits run deep,
they drill the ground surface and inject steam to make extraction easier.
The bituminous sand must be treated in both cases.
This requires more energy than would be needed using conventional means.
Hence, profitability is lowered.
This map shows the deals made with large national and
international oil companies who exploit bituminous sand oil from Alberta.
These include the American Exxon-Mobil, the Chinese PetroChina, or European Shell.
These deals were made as a result of the following:
A slow down of oil extraction from conventional means.
That is, a decrease in production.
And a strong increase in Asian demand.
Canada holds the world's third largest oil reserve.
including heavy and non-conventional, or 174 billion barrels.
With these numbers, Canada comes after Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.
97% of it comes from bituminous sand among available reserves.
Today, only 15% of reserves are exploited.
Their size affords Canada with more than 100 years of oil.
This is all good, but where does extraction happen?
This map shows the large network of oil pipelines from Alberta's capital
of Edmonton to the United States.
But between now and 2015, with such high oil production,
exports will exceed pipeline capacity
and this will result in more traffic.
Network expansion projects are increasing.
TransCanada has a pipeline project named KeystoneXL.
It would travel between the bituminous sand deposits of Alberta
to the Gulf of Mexico to be refined and exported.
Regarding western Canada, the Enbridge company
have offered to build a pipeline between Edmonton and Kitimat in British Columbia.
Enbridge hopes to finish the project by 2017,
and hopes to access the Pacific and open a market with emerging countries, such as China.
The Kinder Morgan company hopes to extend its transmountain pipeline,
which connects Edmonton to Vancouver,
in order to have greater access to the Asian markets.
Let's take a look at gas deposits.
Canada is the 10th producer of gas worldwide.
It's the world's third largest natural gas producer,
after the United States and Russia.
But their natural gas production will also experience decline
and continued production will rely on large shale gas reserves.
Let's look at this graph.
In 2010, shale gas represented 39% of the country's gas production.
It will represent 57% in 2020.
And 64% in 2030.
The main basin areas are located between Alberta, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan.
A study by the International Energy Agency
predicts that Canada could be the world's third largest shale gas producer by 2035.
Here is a summary of Canada's hydrocarbon potential.
Obviously, there's a lot at stake in this sector.
It's the first private investor of the country
employing more than 150,000 people.
It contributes 5% to GDP.
Bituminous sand exploitation should create 900,000-1.3 million jobs between now and 2035.
And shale gas exploitation should create more than 300,000 jobs.
Therefore, it requires the unconditional support of Stephen Harper's federal government.
With the help of these maps, numbers, current investments,
that Canada is becoming one of the world's largest oil and gas powerhouses.
But these transportation infrastructure projects
as with the extraction sites raises serious environmental questions.
The shale gas production procedure utilizes hydraulic fracturing.
A process which forces water down a drilling tube
in order to free the gas trapped in the shale
and to then bring the gas up to the surface.
Estimations of methane fluid represents 8% of production.
Which results in more pollution than conventional drilling.
Mineral extraction operations also heavily consume water.
Shale gas production can lead to groundwater pollution.
For oil production, it takes 12 water barrels to produce one barrel of oil.
The procedure used to separate sand from oil
creates a toxic liquid mix of asphalt, sand, and mud.
The mix is transferred in large sedimentation tanks
to be dried and decontaminated.
This process hasn't yet been completed.
And the tank's contents are released into the environment
possibly contaminating rivers and groundwater.
In Alberta, companies annually withdraws several hundred million cubic meters of river water.
Reducing the river's output and the survival of water-based species.
Look at an extract from the Quebecois documentary, The Hole Story.
Here you can see images the consequences of bituminous oil exploitation.
Bituminous sand extraction emits 3-5 times more greenhouse gas,
compared to conventional oil extraction.
especially as a result of the complex extraction technology.
Today, bituminous sand represents 7% of Canada's total greenhouse gases.
And this will double between now and 2020.
It's estimated that bituminous sand will discharge 140,000 tons of CO2 by that time.
Or, more than Belgium's current gas emissions.
Canada's conventional hydrocarbons are a new source of energy
and will be massively exploited.
It allows for significant economic development.
But at the same time, the environmental costs are considerable.
Since we know that Canada has chosen to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol.
For Stephen Harper's conservative government,
the Kyoto Protocol's objectives were insufficient
and created "stupid targets" as quoted by him.
But Canada's decision is simple enough.
We observe that these greenhouse gases continue to rise.
Secondly, by observing the Kyoto Protocol,
Canada would have to pay a $10 billion fine
for not having respected their commitments.
So the conservative government made a choice and did arbitration
and thus decided to make a historic choice.
Bibliography
You can read 'Le Paradis sous la Terre'.
If you want to see more of the film extract of 'Trou Story'
you can visit this website www.troustory.onf.ca.
I highly recommend the Golden Age of Marine Maps exhibition
at the Francois Mitterand National Library until January 27, 2013.
You can see an incredible amount of maps on parchment paper.
These maps are scientific, historic, and artistic representations of our discovery of the world.