http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/views-expressed/2016/01/canada-doesnt-need-energy-east-pipeline-to-replace-oil-import
Canada doesn't need the Energy East pipeline to replace oil imports
By Gordon Laxer
January 21, 2016
With three proposed oil pipelines seemingly down for the count, Jeffrey
Simpson made the case last week for the last one standing --
TransCanada's Energy East pipeline to New Brunswick. Its main benefit?
It would replace imported oil with 1.1 million barrels from Alberta and
Saskatchewan and keep $8 billion in Canada.
Or would it? Is a pipeline from distant Alberta needed to replace oil
imports?
Obama killed the Keystone XL oil pipeline; Trudeau killed the Northern
Gateway line by banning oil tankers in the treacherous waters off B.C.'s
northern coast; and Christy Clark's B.C. government opposes the
expansion of Kinder Morgan's existing oil pipeline to the Vancouver area.
In contrast to those purely exporting pipelines, Energy East could
replace most of Canada's oil imports.
Ending oil imports matters a lot. Eastern Canadians could finally get
energy security. That's something Ottawa has continually promised
Americans by offering them more Canadian oil, but it has never offered
Quebeckers and Atlantic Canadians. Ending oil imports is the surest way
to their energy security.
But, although TransCanada dresses up Energy East as a nation-building
project like the Canadian Pacific Railway and the TransCanada Highway,
its main purpose is to export oil from Alberta's Sands.
The Irving oil refinery in Saint John New Brunswick is the eastern
terminus for TransCanada's line. Energy East's proposed volume is so
great, that it far exceeds Irving's capacity. According to Mark Sherman,
plant manager at the Irving Oil refinery, "It's way more than we would
ever use at this refinery, so the bulk of it would all be exported."
Irving imports and exports lots of oil. It has no track record of
displacing oil imports with domestic oil although it easily could. Big
Oil produces enough Newfoundland oil to supply all Atlantic Canadians.
Yet Newfoundlanders don't even get access to their own oil. They'll be
very vulnerable in an international oil shortage.
Would Energy East supply Quebec's two refineries? Perhaps, but not with
much at the moment. Last month Enbridge reversed the flow of its Line 9
oil pipeline from Sarnia to Montreal, so Suncor in Montreal and Valero
in Quebec City now get Alberta bitumen and Western Canadian conventional
oil. They also get a growing amount of shale oil from North Dakota.
Lest anyone thinks U.S. oil is more secure than Middle East oil, Matt
Simmons, a former energy advisor to George W. Bush warned that the U.S.
would shut Canada off in an oil supply emergency.
It could make commercial sense for Big Oil to offload domestic oil in
Canada before exporting the rest, but this incidental security would end
if exports become more profitable.
Oil on the Energy East line would go to the highest bidder unless Canada
adopts an eco-energy security plan.
U.S. oil imports should be replaced by non-fracked, non-Tar-Sands oil
from western Canada carried on a much scaled down Energy East line that
ends in Quebec.
Atlantic Canadians are particularly exposed, depending on imports for
more than 80 per cent of their oil to heat their homes and fuel their
cars through long icy winters.
But why run a pipeline 4,000 kilometres from Alberta when Ottawa could
direct that Newfoundland oil to supply all Atlantic Canadians.
Most Atlantic Canadians live on or near a coast. There is no need to
pipe it when it can be shipped. That would avoid incursions on First
Nations lands. To meet Canada's ambitious Paris climate commitments, oil
tankers could be phased out as East Coasters' oil use falls, whereas a
pipeline would need three decades of shipping Tar Sands oil at full
volume to amortize its building costs.
Alberta's Tar Sands are the fastest growing source of Canada's
greenhouse gas pollution. Canada cannot cut its GHG emissions by at
least 80 per cent by 2050, its G8 commitment, if Tar Sands emissions
grow by 43 per cent, as Alberta's latest climate action plan permits.
Alberta's Tar Sands can't be greened. They must be phased out.
Canada doesn't need the Energy East pipeline to replace oil imports. As
Canadians steadily reduce colossal energy waste, they can live on a
diminishing supply of domestic, non-fracked oil and natural gas liquids
as they transition to a socially just, low-carbon future.
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