Game over for the climate
Fri, 18/05/2012 - 15:14 — dan
James Hansen: "Canada’s tar sands, deposits of sand saturated with bitumen, contain twice the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by global oil use in our entire history."
Via Leo Hickman, here's a photo essay: "The Canadian Oil Sand Mines Refused Us Access, So We Rented A Plane To See What They Were Doing". Awe-inspiring, in much the same way as watching a crack addict in a wheelchair get high.
But it's OK, because scientists are all communists, or something.
Comments
Hanson is mistaken
Perhaps rather than listening to Hansen who while well-meaning is sadly misinformed you might listen to Prof Andrew Weaver from the University of Victoria. Dr. Weaver who is one of the strongest voices for control of carbon dioxide emmissions in Canada did a study which was reported in Nature (http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v2/n3/full/nclimate1421.html) that demonstrates the emptiness of Dr. Hansen's words. No platitudes, just data.
Facts...
Thanks for that, I'll look into it and get back to you. I can certainly imagine that the actually extractable quantity of carbon is less than Hansen is saying - that's one thing to check. Then it's a question of working out what "game over for the climate" means. We all know picking one specific ppm target is relatively meaningless, but if this one project can push us up towards 450ppm...? Anyway, I'll get back to you, and thanks for the link.
The emphasis of the Weaver
The emphasis of the Weaver commentary in Nature is that 1) less than 10% of the oil sands are economically viable to be extracted 2) even if 100% of the oil sands could be extracted using new technologies the total volume of released carbon dioxide would be negligible compared to the real concern which is coal.
When you say "this one project" I think it betrays a misunderstanding of the scale, scope and complexity of oil sands extraction. The oil sands are "one project" much in the same way as "middle-eastern oil" being one project. Oil sands are complex chemically and geologically with surface extraction projects and deep subsurface extraction projects. Each project itself should be looked at since some are very carbon intensive and some are comparable to conventional oil in carbon intensity.
As for Dr. Weaver, he is a modeller (one of the originals) and using his model if all the hydrocarbons in the oil sands were mined and consumed, the carbon dioxide released would raise global temperatures by about 0.36 C. When only commercially viable oil sands are considered, the temperature increase is only 0.03 C. Coal and natural gas supplies would increase global temperatures by 15 C and 3 C respectively.
If you want cogent discussions on oil sands (both positive and negative) I would direct you to http://andrewleach.ca/ Dr. Leach has a very good set of reference links and does a decent job discussing the technicals on the subject.
This one project
Thanks again: the Canadian tar sands have been built up into the kind of "game over" picture I posted about. Clearly a simplistic take, but if it's really a distraction (compared to coal, as you say, for example, or the reach of other global projects more generally) that's an important point. I'll have a go at something more nuanced in a future post.
Coal
Well, here's a story on US coal-exporting infrastructure in development that supports your point. I'll try and get round to looking for other sources on auditing the amount of carbon output potential there is, and what's being developed.