I was very impressed with Dengre's diary, ALERT: Palin’s Pipeline is a Climate Crisis Acceleration Machine, especially the discussion about extraction of oil from the tar sands in Alberta, and the need for natural gas to do that. And the "coincidence" that the pipeline will terminate just where a huge source of natural gas is needed to extract that oil. I sent the diary to a friend of mine who is a geologist for his opinion. Here is his response, which I think makes a lot of sense, and is worth sharing. Follow over the fold
From a purely objective point of view, proposals to extract oil from tar sands and shales are bad for the environment for a number of reasons. Oil trapped in shale or sand requires energy to get it "unstuck", as pointed out. This makes it profitable only when oil is above $70 or $80 per barrel because of the recovery costs. It also has significant effects on CO2 emissions - due to the energy involved, oil from shale has an even bigger carbon footprint than "regular" oil. It also has a significant potential to deplete or contaminate nearby groundwater aquifers and there are some serious allegations about air quality emissions generated from oil shale mining. I think mining the oil sands in Alberta (where most of this gas would be going) is not in anybody's best interests. I flew over the Ft. McMurrey oil sands area this spring (on my way to a uranium mine) and it was absolutely mind boggling how many drill rigs were active up there and the scale of the mining and refining effort that is underway. Unfortunately is it also legal to do this and with the way current mining and oil and gas legislation is written, it is hard to stop. The only way I could feel good about mining these resources was if the carbon that was going to be emitted was sequestered instead of released to the atmosphere.
I am of the opinion that Oil Sands, Oil Shale, and Coal can still be used effectively as sources of power, but that we need to encourage the sequestering of CO2 into deep sub-surface sinks so that it doesn't contribute to greenhouse warming. This is totally possible to do, but it costs a little bit more money (say 30%) than generating the power without sequestration. Essentially, I have no problem with extracting the energy out of oil and coal, but I do have a problem with emitting the resulting waste products (CO2 et al) into the atmosphere. We in the geosciences profession are inadvertently responsible for the creation of the greenhouse issue by our diligence and persistence in recovering oil and mining coal, we geoscientists are also responsible for identifying global warming phenomenon. Most importantly, we geoscientists can be the ones to help stop it with the same kind of ingenuity and innovation that started the whole mess. We can stop emitting CO2 by conservation measures and by using other sources of power - nuclear, solar, geothermal, wind.
He went on to suggest:
What we need in this country (actually on a global level) is a carbon tax or carbon emission cap and trade program to discourage these kind of schemes on an economic level. I think some of the amount of money generated by a carbon tax (say 1/2) should go to offset R&D into non-carbon energy sources and some (say the other 1/2) should go toward off setting some of the corporate and personal income tax program. Such a scheme would appeal to both Dems and Republicans. I think the going rate should be about $40 or $50 per ton of carbon emitted. Yeah, your gas bill will go up, but your tax bill will go down. We also would be rewarding companies and individuals by letting them keep more profit if they acted greener.
And lastly, I love his opinion of Mrs. Drill, Baby, Drill:
As far as Palin's plan - she's got her head up her conservative dingo's arse as far as I can tell. Alaska should be focusing on exploiting uranium and renewable fuel sources, not carbon based ones.
The only commentary I've seen in the MSM about the Pipeline has not focused on the environmental impact. Any ideas of who or how to get them to look at this angle?