Canadas Oil Sands: Energy Security, or Energy Disaster? (8/30/11)
b'Canada\\u2019s Oil Sands: Energy Security, or Energy Disaster? Cassie Doyle, Consul General, Canada; Former Canadian Deputy Minister of Natural Resources Jason Mark, Earth Island Institute Carl Pope, Chairman, The Sierra Club Alex Pourbaix, President of Energy and Oil Pipelines, TransCanada The 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline would carry heavy crude oil from Alberta to America\\u2019s Gulf Coast refineries. In this Climate One debate, a panel of experts argues for and against the controversial pipeline. For Alex Pourbaix, President of Energy and Oil Pipelines, TransCanada, the pipeline builder, and Cassie Doyle, Canada\\u2019s Consul General in San Francisco, the merits of the project are clear: America would bank a stable, secure supply of crude from a friendly neighbor. Why would the United States opt to buy crude from anyone other than Canada if given a choice?, asks Pourbaix. \\u201cTo suggest that those other countries are more responsible environmental citizens than Canada begs comprehension. It is far more compelling to be getting your oil needs from Canada, rather than getting it from other countries such as Libya, Nigeria, or Venezuela,\\u201d he says. Cassie Doyle downplays the environmental impact of processing the Alberta oil sands\\u2019 heavy crude. \\u201cWe assume that the oil sands production is static when it comes to environmental performance. When, since 1990, we\\u2019ve seen a 30% improvement in the carbon intensity per barrel.\\u201d Sierra Club Chairman Carl Pope and Jason Mark, Editor of the Earth Island Journal, dismiss both claims \\u2013 that Keystone XL crude will stay in the United States and can be extracted without exacerbating climate change \\u2013 as implausible. \\u201cThis is really an export pipeline. It\\u2019s not really an import pipeline,\\u201d says Pope. \\u201cThe United States is going to be used as a transit zone and a refining zone. We\\u2019re going to take the environmental risks.\\u201d Jason Mark faults the State Department environmental review for not acknowledging the pipeline\\u2019s contribution to climate change. \\u201cThe U.S. State Department said that this pipeline would have \\u2018no significant environmental impact.\\u2019 As a journalist, that felt to me like the classic example of the headline writer not actually reading the story.\\u201d Mark highlights what is, to him, the even larger issue. \\u201cIs the United States going to be complicit in burning megatons more carbon dioxide that\\u2019s going to fuel run-away climate change?\\u201d We have a choice, he says, \\u201cDo we continue to make investments that leave us on the path of a carbon-intensive economy? Or, when do we make the hard decision that says we\\u2019re going to stop using oil?\\u201d This program was recorded in front of a live audience at the Commonwealth Club of California, San Francisco on August 30th, 2011\\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices'