On the economic and environmental folly of trying to “strangle the oil sands”

Posted on March 20, 2015 by Blair

I was in a discussion online with Dr. Andrew Weaver, “BC Green Party MLA for Oak Bay Gordon Head. Deputy Leader, BC Green Party. Lansdowne Professor, University of Victoria” and Eric Doherty, “Transportation planner & @TankerFreeBC Transportation Campaigner”, on the topic of pipeline expansion in Canada. The discussion followed a comment by Dr. Weaver about the fact that Tom Mulcair was not coming out against the Trans-Mountain pipeline expansion (ref). What appears to have angered Dr. Weaver is that Mr. Mulcair appears to want to wait until the environmental assessment process has run its course before making a decision on the Trans-Mountain pipeline expansion. While I am not a supporter of the NDP, my position on the topic is very similar to that of Mr. Mulcair. As regular readers of my blog know, I have strong reservations about the Northern Gateway pipeline. They also know I am leaning strongly towards supporting the Trans-Mountain pipeline expansion. The basis of my support is that it is the best of a bad set of alternatives. As I have discussed in a previous post, given the investment already in the ground, none of the current oil sands facilities (or facilities already well into development) are going to disappear, even in a world of $50/barrel oil (ref). Given this reality, the next question lies with how to move the outputs from these facilities in the most environmentally sensitive and least damaging manner.

At the start of the discussion Mr. Doherty emphasized that building new infrastructure to transport oil is not necessary because apparently any moment now a “phase out” is going to start and we will no longer have a need for fossil fuels. This argument falls flat in my mind because it represents wishful thinking. To date, no international plan exists for a global phase-out of fossil fuels, moreover, no reasonable plan is on the books anywhere in the world. To abandon our need to ensure for a safe, clean environment in the near future, based on a hope that a plan will be made in the far future, makes absolutely no sense to me. Maybe a phase-out of fossil fuels may happen, sometime in the future, but it is not happening in the next 10 years. So helping to ensure the environmental integrity of our province, by avoiding the transport of all that oil-by-rail, seems a reasonable choice. To supplement his argument, Dr. Weaver linked to his personal web site where he has a post describing “British Columbia and the Alberta Tar Sands”. The confusing thing about this link is that it fully supports my current understanding of the law. As described in the post, there is no method by which the government can legally stop the transportation of oil-by-rail, as long as the railways meet certain statutory requirements. This reinforces my concerns that lacking a pipeline, bitumen derived from the oil sands will move via rail. So once again, the facilities that currently exist, and are in development, are going to continue to produce bitumen, this bitumen is going to get out. So let’s make sure it moves in the most ecologically and environmentally safe manner possible.

Over the course of our wide-ranging twitter discussion, it became more and more clear that both Dr. Weaver and Mr. Doherty were ultimately ignoring the elephant in the room, specifically the law of supply and demand. In the discussion, and in other conversations, I have heard environmentalists of all stripes talk about “strangling the oil sands” by stopping the building of pipelines. The problem with this argument is twofold: first and foremost, as described above, an alternative to pipelines already exists: the railway system. Since the facilities already exist, all reducing pipeline availability does is force the bitumen to be shipped by rail, which we have already demonstrated is a less environmentally protective way to move the material. The second problem is that even if you did try and strangle the oil sands the demand would be met in some other way. The activists fighting the fossil fuel industry in Canada appear to have forgotten the lessons of the “war on drugs” and the Eighteenth Amendment of the US Constitution (prohibition). Unless you can address the demand side of the supply and demand curve you are not going to make a difference. Let’s try a thought experiment. Imagine, through some magic trick, that the Athabasca Oil Sands were made to disappear tomorrow, what do you suppose would happen? Well the quick answer is that since the demand has not been addressed, the oil would have to come from somewhere else. Instead of Fort MacMurray it will come from Guárico. You see the only way to stop oil from flowing is to price carbon so that alternative technologies become viable and global demand goes down. Anything else is simply a fool’s game. So it is time the activists stop fighting the wrong fights. If they really want to “strangle the oil sands” they have to do it via the free market. Stop risking the Canadian environment by forcing oil to be shipped by rail and deal with the underlying issue, the demand for oil. Everything else is just posturing and posing for the cameras.

As for the talking point about “protecting the Salish Sea”, well as I have written elsewhere, the Puget Sound has a refinery capacity that requires on the order of 725,000 barrels/day of crude oil. The refineries were built and tuned to use heavy oil from the Alaska North Slope, which has served as their primary source for the last 30 years. This oil has travelled from Alaska to the Puget Sound along the west coast of BC for that entire time. This oil needs to be replaced with a similar blend. A proportion of that is going to be made up with Bakken crude. Infrastructure to transport that Bakken crude by rail is being built. That oil will travel over any number of rivers including the headwaters of the Kootenay River and alongside the Columbia Rivers to the Puget Sound. The route risks both our Canadian and American ecological heritage. Since the Bakken crude is too light for the refineries, it has to be supplemented with heavier crude and that crude is going to come in via tanker. Any argument about protecting the Salish Sea has to address these facts and frankly none of the activists appear to even be aware of these facts. Finally, I hate to go back to this trope but it does ring true, until we can eliminate the demand it is better that our oil comes from an ethical source rather than the alternatives. If I have a choice between sending dollars to Alberta and Ottawa or sending it to Caracas or Moscow I am quite certain that I want those dollars going to help pay for Canadian health care and not some less ethical alternatives.

Posted in Oil Sands | 9 Comments

On K-Cups, imperfect solutions and the hubris of the environmental movement

Posted on March 18, 2015 by Blair

There has been a lot of talk in the news in the last couple weeks about the Keurig K-Cup coffee pods. As everyone knows, these pods have taken the world by storm with their ease of use and convenience. According to a “The Atlantic” article on the products, in 2014 Keurig Green Mountain “sold 9.8 billion Keurig-brewed portion packs—which include the new multiple-cup pods” (ref). In the same article the creator of the K-Cup admitted that he regretted his invention partly because of the waste associated with its use. While almost completely biodegradeable alternatives to K-Cups exist (ref), now that the patent has expired on the original K-Cup design the coffee aisle of my local grocery store is filling up with different brands of K-Cups. To my chagrin, even our company has moved to them as they allow us to serve clients coffee without having to make a big pot that just sits burning on the element through meetings.

While I am mildly embarrassed to be a regular user of K-Cups, I am not embarrassed about the fact that our company, like many, pays extra to ensure our K-Cups aren’t thrown in the trash. Rather we collect them in a special bin and they are shipped to the Lafarge Cement Plant in Kamloops where they are used as an alternative fuel source. For those of you unfamiliar with cement plants, they are ubiquitous, energy-hungry and a tremendous source of greenhouse gas emissions. They are ubiquitous because everywhere you go in our modern society we have a need for cement since it is the primary ingredient in concrete and each plant is limited in the volume it can produce. The production of cement is a very energy-intensive activity as the lime kiln needs to be heated up to 1400 oC and held there for a long period of time since the calcium carbonate (read limestone rock) needs to reach a temperature over 900 oC in order for the chemical reaction necessary to produce quicklime to occur. What most people don’t realize, though, is how this energy-intensity reflects in carbon dioxide emissions. As an Earth Institute report (ref) details:

Producing a ton of cement requires 4.7 million BTU of energy, equivalent to about 400 pounds of coal, and generates nearly a ton of CO2. Given its high emissions and critical importance to society, cement is an obvious place to look to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The cement industry has managed to keep its head down in the climate change debate but as noted in the Earth Institute report, as an industry it represents 5% of global carbon dioxide emissions and has been growing at a rate of 2.5% annually. That is not to say the industry is not trying, indeed they are (ref). The issue they face is that about half of the carbon dioxide emissions associated with the cement industry are based on the chemical processes involved (calcium carbonate is converted to qiuicklime with the release of a carbon dioxide molecule); these chemical-based emissions cannot be eliminated. Instead the industry has to concentrate on the other half of their emissions, the greatest part being associated with the fuel being burned to generate the heat. So one of the big goals of the cement industry is to move away from combustion fuels like coal or natural gas towards renewable fuels like wood waste or…you guessed it K-Pods. Ironically enough K-Pods make up a very reasonable source of combustible material for a cement kiln. They are made of hydrocarbons (which burn) and the excess coffee grounds don’t really hurt as they actually serve as useful biomass.  So here we have an industry that is producing a waste stream (K-Cups) that would otherwise clog up our waste chains and fill up our landfills and we have a second industry looking for an alternative fuel source. What we have is a good, but imperfect, solution to an otherwise intractable environmental problem. You see, K-Cups aren’t going anywhere until public perception makes it impossible for environmentally aware companies and individuals to use them; and even then they will not disappear completely as they are (as described by the creator) like a cigarette for coffee. Moreover, our society cannot operate without cement. As described in the Earth Institute report concrete is the second most consumed substance on earth after water.

One of the big fears expressed with burning plastics in cement kilns involve the off-gases from the combustion. What most people don’t recognize is that the heat and retention time needed to heat solid rock to over 900 oC is also ideal for breaking down fuel sources to their base components with few or no nasty by-products. You see the reason most engines give off nasty gases is that they do not get hot enough, long enough to get complete combustion of the fuel. Instead, in most auto or diesel engine, they get partial combustion and all sorts of interesting and distressing combustion byproducts are produced. In a cement kiln the combustion is contained to prevent loss of heat. This results in as close to an ideal combustion chamber as we will see in modern industry. These near-ideal combustion chambers were actually tested for use in eliminating PCBs and other hazardous wastes in the 1980’s and 1990’s and were determined to combust the compounds with essentially 100% efficiency (ref). The main reason the plants were not turned into giant hazardous waste disposal facilities had to do with optics and politics rather than the actual chemistry involved in the processes.

Ironically, using renewable energy sources like PCBs, K-Cups and used tires in the combustion process can actually reduce the negative emissions from the kilns. One of the historic issues with these kilns has been the release of gaseous mercury from the combustion. As many of you know, amongst their many downsides, all coals contain some mercury, with concentrations in US coals ranging from 0.08 μg g for coal in the San Juan and Uinta regions to 0.22 μg g−for the Gulf Coast lignites (ref). Mercury, unlike the coal, does not burn, so by replacing coal with renewables we actually see a reduction of mercury emissions from the cement kilns (ref).

The inspiration for today’s post was a news story I watched last night on my local television station (ref).  It was all about the effort by Lafarge Canada to use K-Cups in their Kamloops cement plant. As I write above, while not the perfect answer it is the best, imperfect solution to an otherwise intractable environmental problem. At the end of the story the reporter interviewed a local environmental leader who tried to throw cold water on the project. He said (pardon my poor transcription):

In this case when you talking about, you know, burning plastic instead of coal it is perhaps a tiny little step in the right direction but it comes with a lot of consequences….It is not the kind of stuff you want in the atmosphere

It was clear from this answer that the environmental leader had no idea how a cement kiln works and rather than saying “I don’t know enough about this to comment, let me look into it and get back to you” he spouted off a negative answer. This hubris amongst the leaders of the environmental movement is one of the things that really turns me against the movement. One of the most important things I was taught in graduate school was the ability to admit “I don’t know” rather than trying to bluff my way through problems. Once you learn to say “I don’t know” you can learn much more quickly and oddly enough, it adds tremendously to your personal credibility. People will feel comfortable coming to you when they know that you will not set them on the wrong course rather than admit to not being fully informed.

The funny thing is that given the size and complexity of the environmental field, much of the time any one individual will not have the skills needed to accomplish a task. In our office we have civil, chemical and mechanical engineers, we have a chemist, a couple biologists, a toxicologist, a couple geographers, a couple geologists and a hydrogeological specialist. Even with all this in-house expertise we are willing to bring in outside help when the need arises. This is because we have all learned the importance of recognizing our own limitations and the perils of hubris. To maintain this culture we all have been told again-and-again stories of failures based on hubris until they were drilled into our heads. We are told stories of other companies drilling without proper daylighting and hitting tanks or utility lines, stories of consultants who tried to do it all and failed in one spectacular fashion or another because someone was not willing to admit when they needed help. We emphasize this to remind ourselves that no one is all-knowing or competent in all things. The problem with the environmental movement of today is that instead of recognizing their limitations these folks wander around in a Dunning-Kruger haze and instead of making us trust them we become less and less trusting in their knowledge or expertise. When a Council of Canadians handout tells me that benzene is a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (ref) I start to wonder what else they may be saying that is completely wrong. When an environmental group trumpets a “cancer cluster” that is ultimately proved to be no such thing I know not to trust them the next time. When an environmental leader goes on television and dumps on a win-win attempt to reduce waste going into our landfills while reducing greenhouse gas and mercury emissions from a necessary industry then I begin to wonder how anyone can trust these people on other big issues.

In high-school, like many of my peers, I read Shakespeare’s Macbeth and learned early on that hubris is a great failing. In university, and my current occupation, I have been taught that hubris can be controlled by the simple action of admitting that I don’t know everything and recognizing that sometimes I need technical help. Until the leaders of the environmental movement learn this truth they will continue to trip over their own feet, delaying good projects because those projects may not be perfect and slowing environmental improvements because they are unwilling to admit that they aren’t all-knowing.

Posted in Canadian Politics, Uncategorized | 4 Comments

On Killer Whales, the Brontosaurus and the Tar Sands

Posted on March 16, 2015 by Blair

When I was a child, growing up in Coquitlam in the 1970’s, our family had a membership at the Vancouver Aquarium. One of our favourite things was going to see the “killer whales”. We loved to go see Skana and later both Skana and Hyak. When we were little we did not know the scientific name for killer whales (Orcinus orca) until it was used in the action/horror movie “Orca”. Orca was a Canadian version of “Jaws” and featured a wild, unstoppable, killing machine. You see that is what we were taught killer whales were all about back then. In the public perception they were fish-stealing terrors that were only good for machine-gunning. For those of you not familiar with that story, at one time Fisheries and Oceans Canada mounted a 50-calibre machine gun at Seymour Narrows north of Campbell River with the aim of shooting killer whales to save more salmon for fishers (ref). The one place where we were taught differently about these “killer whales” was the Vancouver Aquarium. There we came to know and love these majestic, empathetic and clearly intelligent mammals and I was always so proud of the orca sticker on our car (the Aquarium membership came with a stylized orca sticker for your car).  Happily, thanks to organizations like the Vancouver Aquarium, our knowledge of these majestic animals has grown and we have come to learn that rather than killers, they are loving, family-oriented, animals and it is now considered passé to call them anything but Orcas. Sure there are some old fuddy-duddies who will use the old name, but their use of the name says so much more about them than it does the animal they describe.

As I child of the 1960s-1970s, I also grew up loving dinosaurs, but not in the way my kids understand dinosaurs. When I was a young boy we all knew that the greatest of all the dinosaurs was the “Thunder Lizard” known as the Brontosaurus. We watched the Flintstones who ate Brontosaurus burgers and knew that Brontosaurus ribs were so big they would tip the car over. Unlike modern kids, we only knew a few dinosaurs: the Tyrannosaurus Rex, the Triceratops, the Pterodactyl and the Brontosaurus and we loved them with the affection known only to young children and their favourite things. As most everyone these days knows, the Brontosaurus never really existed. The most famous example was actually an Apatosaurus with a mismatched Camarasaurus skull (ref). But for a kid from the 1970s this beast was a thing of grandeur and long after it was considered unscientific, I insisted on using the term Brontosaurus for any Apatosaurus that I saw on TV (just like in XKCD (ref)). Now that I have kids and they watch “Dinosaur Train” on PBS Kids, I know more about dinosaurs than I would care to admit and know that it was childish of me to have taken so long to adopt the correct technical name.

This brings us to the topic of today’s post the “Athabasca Tar Sands”. Because petroleum science is not a topic of popular discussion, most people don’t recognize that tar is not a natural product; rather it is a distillation product. The traditional method of making tar involves high temperature decomposition of wood products or coal. A cool, try-it-at-home technique to make tar is presented at this web site and should be tried by every junior chemist to see what you can make in your own backyard. Back when the first Western explorers wandered into the Athabasca region they came across the expanses of bitumen and not being chemists called them “tar sands”. In a similar way, when early settlers stumbled upon bitumen seeps full of heated, semi-liquid asphalt they called them tar pits (ref). The problem is that the “tar sands” contain absolutely no “tar”. They are not a distillation product of oil, coal or wood, but rather they are composed of bitumen mixed with sand. Bitumen is a very heavy, viscous form of crude oil, so to call a mix of bitumen and sand “tar sands” is about as accurate as calling an Apatosaurus a “Brontosaurus”.

In a purely technical sense, the material should really be called “bituminous sands” as bituminous means “containing bitumen”. Thankfully, for folks like me they didn’t choose this term as “bituminous” is quite the tongue-twister (I had a childhood stutter and still struggle with certain word combinations). Alternatively, one might consider calling the material “bitumen sands” (or “bit sands” as suggested by a person on Twitter). That being said, the Alberta Government didn’t go that route. As described above, bitumen is a form of crude oil. Since the material is made up of crude oil mixed with sand, the material could also be called “oil sands” and still be chemically correct. Ultimately this is the direction the Alberta government chose and similarly, the area was re-named the “Athabasca Oil Sands”. I’m not sure about my readers, but I am of the opinion that you call a person by the name they ask to be called. So even though someone might have a given name, I will use the name they ask me to use.  As such, based on the wishes of the Alberta Government, I call the material “oil sand” and the area the “Athabasca Oil Sands”. In a perfect world, the material should be called “bituminous sands” (or bitumen sands) but failing that, it is technically correct to call them “oil sands” and it is not to call them “tar sands”.  While I would love to rename the material it is really not my place to do so. That being said, if someone with some standing suggested a name-change (particularly to Bitumen Sands), I would be an early adopter, much in the same way as I use the term “Tyndall Gas” rather than the chemically incorrect term “Greenhouse Gas”.

The funny thing about the “oil sands” versus “tar sands” debate is that based on recent research, the name might not actually have the effect some people hope it will. As described in this article depending on where you live “oil sands” may have a more negative connotation than “tar sands”. This is very ironic given that the people who use “tar sands” are almost always the people who most strongly want the material to be left in the ground. What is even more counter-intuitive is that the activists who call bitumen sands “tar sands” are the same ones who will explain to you, in excruciating detail, that “it is not a killer whale, it is an orca”. Meanwhile a scientist who would never walk up to a paleontologist and call their Apatosaurus a “Brontosaurus” will attend a presentation and tell an Albertan that bituminous sands are “tar sands”. Frankly, I am pretty tired of the discussion. As suggested in this article, the term isn’t doing what it was supposed to, which is to tarnish the industry. Instead, whenever I hear the term it just serves as an indication of the motivation of the individual doing the talking and their lack of insight and chemical knowledge.

Addendum: Several readers have suggested that the renaming of the “tar sands” to the “oil sands” was part of a formalized public relations campaign or “strategy”. Every reference to this strategy I have been able to locate, to date, has gone back to a single reference prepared by the Pembina Institute in 2005 (ref) that had the following line:

The strategy also called for efforts to improve public perception of the dirty sounding “tar sands.” The term “oil sands” was selected as the new brand name for tar sands, and they were framed as “a national prize.”

As indicated, the Pembina Institute report references an Endnote (number 14) as support of this line. Endnote 14 references page 5 of a 2005 Report prepared by the National Task Force of Oil Sands Strategies of the Alberta Chamber of Resources (ref). A read of page 5 of the 2005 Alberta Report does indicate that the oil sands represent “a national prize” but says absolutely nothing about any “strategy” to rename the oil sands. If anyone can direct me to any original documentation about this public relations campaign I would appreciate it, but until they do so, I will suggest that the claim of some formal public relations campaign, while interesting and compelling, remains unproven in my eyes.

Posted in Oil Sands | 6 Comments

The Energy East Pipeline: Dispelling Some Myths

Posted on March 10, 2015 by Blair

Another couple oil train derailments (Gogama and Galena) in the last week have brought my attention back to the topic of oil pipelines. As I have written elsewhere, the safety record of oil-by-rail is one of the reasons why I have supported moving as much oil as possible by pipeline. Put in the simplest terms, pipelines are the lowest cost, safest and least environmentally damaging method of transporting fuel across North America (ref). I know, I know, someone is going to point out the reference that came out a while ago that said that the normalized amount of oil spilled in the US indicates that trucks are worse than a pipeline are worse than rail are worse than boats (Congressional Research Service). That research, however, is dated and is heavily influenced by two significant pipeline spills (Kalamazoo and Yellowstone River) that occurred over the time period covered by the report and by the date of the report. Specifically, the research underpinning the report mostly pre-dates the explosive rise in oil-by-rail across the US and does not include the most recent spate of rail incidents (ref). This means that it was influenced by the small sample size of the oil-by-rail sector at the time it was being prepared. As the volume of oil-by-rail has increased, oil-by-rail safety has regressed to its mean and the recognition of it as being a less than optimal method of transport has become more apparent. Based on my research, I would suggest that in order of pure safety (human health and ecological harm) the optimum methods to get oil from a source to the market go: double-hulled tanker, pipeline, rail/barge and truck. From an energy-efficiency point of view, pipelines also win out big time over oil-by-rail as in order to move oil-by-rail you have to expend a tremendous amount of energy to move the heavy rail cars. The energy expenditure involved in moving oil-by-pipeline is substantially smaller and thus oil-by-pipeline wins out in that respect as well.

As far as I can tell, the majority of the activists trying to stop pipeline development in Canada are doing so based on their concerns over climate change. For these people, pipelines aren’t really an issue, per se, but rather represent the only opportunity they have to fight the battle they actually want to fight, against climate change. It is in effect a proxy war. The activists have been told that if they can block the pipelines in Canada they can choke off the further development of oil sands as a resource. They have been told they can strand this resource and in doing so kill off the “tar sands”. The funny part is that they believe this because that is what the proponents of the pipelines told them when they initially pushed for the development of these pipelines. The problem is that this was never the truth. As indicated in the Maclean’s article by Dr. Andrew Leach (ref), given the investment already in the ground the best these protestors can do is to choke off some theoretical further growth of the oil sands. With the money invested to date, existing oil sands facilities, and the majority of underway developments, are not going to stop, even with $50/barrel oil and no pipelines.

There are also those who believe that the transportation of fossil fuels for export must be restricted due to dangers of spills. I tend to agree with the people protesting the Northern Gateway project in that I think it is heading in the wrong direction. I would be amenable to a Northern Gateway that connected to a refinery that shipped refined products out of the north but I admit to not being the biggest fan of bitumen being shipped out of the Port of Kitimat. As I have mentioned previously, I am less concerned about the Trans-Mountain twinning project. This is somewhat ironic since, as I have pointed out elsewhere, I live less than 50 m from that pipeline and cross it by foot on a daily basis. I see it as a realistic and safe way to get crude to the West Coast and as a source of raw material for the refineries in the Puget Sound that have been tuned to the lower API gravity crude from Alaska rather than the lighter crudes that are being supplied by rail from the Bakken fields. However, of all the pipeline proposals out there the one I think has the greatest likelihood of being built is the Energy East pipeline.

For those of you not familiar with the project, Energy East is a 4,600-kilometre pipeline designed to carry 1.1-million barrels of crude oil per day from Alberta and Saskatchewan to refineries in Eastern Canada (ref). It is unique amongst the eastward pipeline proposals in that its entire length remains within Canadian boundaries (does not cross the US border) and would thus not be affected by US political concerns. Backers of Energy East point out that Quebec and New Brunswick currently import more than 700,000 barrels of oil every day – or 86 percent of their refinery needs – from countries such as Algeria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria. (ref). For a full breakdown of the countries of origin of Canadian oil imports see Table 7.2a of CAPP Stats Handbook (ref). As indicated in the Handbook, the direction is swinging towards the US but it still represents imports. While the supporters of the pipeline are predicting over 700,000 barrels/day (b/d), CAPP reports that refineries in Québec and Atlantic Canada currently import 90 per cent of their requirements. This translates to a potential 640,000 b/d domestic market opportunity for Canadian suppliers (ref).

While there are a lot of people fighting Energy East, by far the most entertaining group, and the one I will concentrate on in this post, is the Council of Canadians who present what I feel are some truly intellectually inconsistent arguments in their battle against the Energy East pipeline (ref). Let’s start by remembering who the Council of Canadians are. They are the people who have fought relentlessly against free trade with the US or anyone else for that matter (ref). They have demanded that we never consider the idea of bulk export of water (ref). They rail constantly about the threat of two-tiered medical care (ref). Most entertainingly they have called for an immediate halt to crude shipments by rail (ref). Why is this entertaining? Well let’s look at their talking points (ref) against the Energy East pipeline. We will ignore their factual errors, although being a chemist I would be remiss if I did not point out to their writers that benzene is not a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) as indicated on page three. Benzene is a monocyclic aromatic hydrocarbon. This may sound like a minor concern to the non-chemist but to me it shouts out their ignorance of the topic in that they don’t have the expertise to catch even the simplest error in their talking points.

Their headline talking point is that Eastern refineries would only have room for 122,000 b/day of oil from Energy East. This is based on a “report” prepared in combination with Environmental Defence Canada (ref). The “report” relies on two major assumptions, 1) that the Line 9b reversal will occur resulting in 250,000 b/day going to the eastern refineries and 2) that US oil-by-rail will supply a further 200,000 b/day. So to be clear, to counter the Energy East Proposal they are arguing that the Line 9b proposal (which they are also fighting) will go through. If they win their Line 9b reversal battle they will actually weaken their anti-Energy East argument? Can you be any more disingenuous? Actually you can, because in order to produce numbers against Energy East they are arguing that it is better to have 200,000 b/day of US sourced oil shipped by rail to the eastern refineries.

So the people against free trade are demanding that Canadian refineries depend on US imports to function. Eastern Canadians are asked to rely on US imports for the fuel they need to run their businesses and keep their homes warm during cold winters. Most incoherently, they acknowledge that this oil will be shipped via a route (oil-by-rail) that they are, in the same breath, demanding be halted immediately?  To continue the thought, in the Globe and Mail newspaper Maude Barlow (ref) suggests that Energy East will not stop oil-by-rail, insisting that Bakken crude will still be shipped by rail if the Energy East pipeline is built. She apparently misses the fact that if the Canadian refineries are getting their crude supply via Canadian pipelines then there will be no need for Bakken crude to travel by rail in Canada. As I have written elsewhere, refining capacity in Canada is limited. If the refineries can be supplied with their crude by Canadian pipeline there will be no reason for Bakken crude to be shipped through Canada to them. So when she says it will not reduce oil-by-rail she may be correct in an absolute sense but from a Canadian perspective, that crude will not be crossing the border. It will be shipped via US railways, across the US countryside and exported by US ports. This is something you would expect the Council of Canadians to praise: a system that reduces the risk to the Canadian human health and the environment while building a stronger, more unified Canadian industry. They want 100% government-financed health care, but want to undercut the Canadian industries that provide the financial support for that health care.

The part I find most confusing in the Council of Canadians talking points is that they are particularly angry that Energy East may increase oil exports? I am not sure why this is a bad thing? I suppose from a climate change perspective there might be a case but from a Canadian perspective a stronger national economy can only be better for Canada. If the Council of Canadians really cared about climate change they would not be fighting pipelines they would be fighting for carbon pricing. The only way to reduce fossil fuel use (and resultant carbon emissions) is to cut the demand side of the ledger. In a world with plentiful oil supplies, from numerous markets, cutting off the Canadian industry from its markets represents cutting off your nose to spite your face. The only realistic way to reduce carbon emissions has to be on the demand side of the ledger. But I suppose a group that fights against freer international trade would not understand that the world represents one big market and unless you treat it as such, any work done in Canada can be just as easily undone in Nigeria, Kuwait or Algeria. It is time the climate change activists stopped fighting these proxy wars and started fighting the actual war they want to fight. Don’t fight against the safest, most environmentally protective form of transport for this necessary resource, fight to reduce the market for the resource. If the demand exists then supply will be found to meet that demand. The only way to address the issue of fossil fuels is on the demand side of the ledger.

Posted in Canadian Politics, Energy East, Pipelines | 6 Comments

Wind Energy and Avian Mortality: Why Can’t We get any Straight Numbers?

Posted on March 3, 2015 by Blair

In my writing on renewable energy, I have not yet spent much time on wind energy. I did establish that a single large wind turbine (rated at about 3.5 megawatts) typically contains around 600 kilograms of rare earth metals (ref) and that the production of rare earth metals has pretty major environmental consequences. As well, I noted in my post on energy and power density that wind is strongly limited by its energy density. A study of wind farms in England, Scotland and Wales indicated that most efficient systems have trouble generating more that a maximum of about 4 W/m2 (ref). My lack of commentary shouldn’t be read as a negative since I cannot foresee a future, free of fossil fuels for energy production that does not include a significant use of wind as a source of energy. Moreover, when combined with less intermittent power generating technologies (hydro, geothermal, nuclear or if necessary natural gas) wind can add nicely to a good power mix.

Wind energy does have some drawbacks. As mentioned, wind is notoriously intermittent and needs to be paired with a comparable generating capacity that can cut in when the wind chooses not to blow. In British Columbia, we also have a disadvantage in that our best wind resources are not necessarily located convenient to our population centers. This means that major wind projects will often entail transmission lines. As I wrote in my post on geothermal energy, transmission lines can be very expensive to build and maintain but are a necessary compromise in the goal to move away from fossil fuels. I will note that these two sources (geothermal and wind) seem to be obvious next options for British Columbia power production. Admittedly nothing is going to push hydro to the backseat and between run-of-the-river and Site C there may not be a lot of room on the grid for wind and geothermal, but any reasonable economy does better when it is diversified and having an excess of energy (to export?) is always better than having a shortage of energy and suffering from brown-outs.

Having dealt with the introduction, I want to consider the most repeated complaint in any discussion about wind power, that of bat and avian mortality. The topic is a very heated one, but one that is of tremendous interest to me as it hits at the heart of my research on how data is used in environmental decision-making. Depending on whose research you read the avian and bat effects of wind energy are either a major concern or a trivial non-consideration. The estimates of bird mortality in the US (I will stick with US bird data in this discussion as it is the source of much of the debate and there is not enough space to consider bats) can vary wildly with figures ranging from as few as 20,000 birds per year to over 573,000 birds per year (ref). The low number comes from a paper by Benjamin Sovacool (2013). The high number comes from a paper by Smallwood (2013). I have not had the time to deal with the high number but would like to spend a little time analyzing where that low number comes from.

The 2013 paper by Sovacool (which due to publishing schedules is titled “The avian benefits of wind energy: A 2009 update”) and a second paper “The Avian and Wildlife Costs of Fossil Fuels and Nuclear Power” (which is dated 2012 (ref) but once again thanks to publishing schedules includes data from the 2013 paper) serve as a fascinating example of science on the edge. Neither paper crosses the line but both present the science with just enough of a question mark to make you wonder. The 2012 paper has a pretty inauspicious start with the following appearing in the first paragraph of the Introduction:

Use of wind turbines means less consumption and pollution of water resources – a real concern since about half of water use in the United States involves producing electricity in thermoelectric plants (US Geological Survey 2005).

Now this quotation is technically correct, but might be construed as being a tad misleading. Most people interpret “consumption” as using something up. In the case of thermoelectric plants the Geological Service points out that “[a]bout 195 Bgal/d, or 48 percent of all freshwater and saline-water withdrawals for 2000, were used for thermoelectric power. Most of this water was derived from surface water and used for once-through cooling at power plants (ref)” So yes, the water was “used”, but it was not “consumed”. Rather it was borrowed for an hour or two and then returned to the same surface water body from whence it came (albeit marginally warmer than when it went in). The paper can leave the reader with a misconception that all that water is being consumed. Later in the same paper, comes another interesting line:

“Unlike fossil fuel and nuclear power plants, which spread their avian-related impacts across an entire fuel cycle, most of a wind farm’s impact occurs in one location. (p 257)”

This struck me as missing some very important data. You see in the paper the author considers the entire life-cycle for nuclear plants including the mining of the uranium and effects of the tailings ponds or as put at another web site:

The most dominant contribution to Sovacool’s analysis of nuclear power impacts comes from uranium mining and milling operations which he claims “can poison and kill hundreds of birds per facility per year” (ref).

Now as I pointed out in my previous post on rare earth metals, rare earths are incredibly environmentally damaging to mine, extract and refine. For the author to suggest that 600 kilograms of rare earth metals (not to mention all the incredibly energy-intensive aluminum), do not pose a risk to birds is simply inconsistent with environmental reality (for a terrifying description consider this reference). Any analysis that includes the mining, extraction, refining and decommissioning of uranium facilities should, by all measures, do the same for the aluminum and rare earth metals used in the production of wind turbines.

The meat of the two papers, however, is the calculation of an estimate for average number of birds killed per gigawatt/hour (GWh) by wind (0.279 in one paper and 0.269 in the second paper. I am not sure what serves as the basis for difference between the two numbers). This is the number upon which the entire paper builds and was the number that really perked up my ears. I immediately went to the original source material used to generate the number (Erickson 2004 in this ref). Looking at the figures from the source material I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation that resulted in a value of almost 0.700 avian fatalities per GWh. Recognizing that I may have missed something I looked around to see if I was alone in this calculation and found a reply in the same journal by Willis et. al. (ref). They did a more detailed calculation than me and came up with the following:

Sovacool’s (2009) estimate of the average number of birds killed per GWh of.wind power is incorrect and omits a large body of easily. accessible, published data. For five of the six sites listed in his Table 2, Sovacool used fatality estimates that were uncorrected for searcher efficiency and scavenger losses, despite the fact that corrected data are available. Surprisingly, he then points out that failure to correct for searcher efficiency and scavenging is a flaw in published mortality surveys. Using corrected estimates (Barclay et al., 2007 and references therein), and Sovacool’s estimated capacity factor (33%), the actual estimated number of birds killed at those 6 sites is 0.653/GWh, more than double Sovacool’s estimate of 0.269/GWh. Using all 21 sites for which data are presented in Barclay et al. (2007), the average number of birds killed is 1.46/GWh, or over five times Sovacool’s estimate.

What this tells me is that the results from this paper have to be considered in light of other evidence. I was somewhat surprised to see that the number (0.269) has already appeared in the Wikipedia article on the topic. To be clear, the author clearly qualifies his numbers (he is entirely upfront but in a way that is hard for outsiders to understand) but as indicated by Willis (et. al.), the better numbers were all readily available. In my case, I simply went to the his referenced source (the Erickson paper) and then sought the original references that Erickson had used. It was neither taxing, nor challenging as the Erickson paper actually included many of the corrected values and virtually all of the reports were in the public domain. Moreover, the Erickson paper included additional information that was not included in the analysis. As an example, in the Sovacool paper the following was presented by the author:

Finally, the seventy-three 300 kW wind turbines in Buffalo Ridge, Minnesota, were responsible for 14 deaths per year.

But the Erickson report had the following text:

The Buffalo Ridge, Minnesota site is comprised of 73 300-kW turbines with 33-m rotor diameters and a maximum height of 52.5 m. A four-year study at this site yielded 55 fatalities representing 31 species, with 71% being migrants and just 2% raptors (Johnson et al. 2002). …Fatality rates ranged from 1 fatality per turbine per year (f/t/y) for Phase I to 4.45 f/t/y for Phase III. (The Phase III f/t/y was heavily influenced by one incident involving 14 birds at two adjacent turbines one night.)

The reference thus had two numbers, one based on the uncorrected search data for the Phase I facility only (55 fatalities/4 years = 14) and a second based on the corrected rate for the Phase I facility only (1 f/t/y times number of turbines = 75). Going to the original reference (Johnson et al 2002) I discovered reported data on all three phases of the facility. They reported a corrected fatality rate of 72 birds a year for Phase I (versus the 14 presented in the paper) while Phase II was reported to kill 324 birds a year and Phase II 613 birds a year for a total of 1009 birds a year. This is a pretty significant step up from the 14 birds/year used in the calculations or the 75 birds a year based on the annual rate. While you might say 14 birds/72 birds/1009 birds what is the difference, but remember, he used those numbers to extrapolate national number; this makes the potential difference a pretty substantial thing.

So what does all this mean in the end? Well I’m going to make a wildly impolitic comment here. In my mind the biggest hindrance to the advancement of wind power in Canada may, ironically, be the people pushing hardest for its implementation. They are a very ardent lot and can be aggressive in support of their technology. Unfortunately, their aggressive tendencies can result in them downplaying the necessary compromises associated with, and limitations of, the technology. When I read papers like those of Dr. Sovacool it leads me to wonder what other information is not being discussed? I know that cats kill tens of millions of birds a year in North America and that wind energy is a necessary next advancement in the goal to reduce fossil fuel use, but I am less than confident that there aren’t other skeletons hiding in the darkness waiting to pounce? When the seminal papers in the field ignore the life-cycle analysis for the wind turbines but include it for the nuclear plants, and then compare the two? what am I supposed to think about the output of the analyses?

Posted in Renewable Energy | 6 Comments

On “Bullies”, “shills” and using labels to shut down legitimate debate

Posted on March 1, 2015 by Blair

Last Wednesday was “Pink Shirt Day”, which for those of you not familiar with the event, is a day to “take a stand against bullying”. The day started as two boys’ response to bullying of a classmate and has become a laudable cultural phenomenon. One of the early proponents of Pink Shirt Day was our current British Columbia Premier Christy Clark, who at the time was a radio talk show host on an extremely popular local radio station. She used the power of her microphone to get the word out and championed the cause during its early years. As noted, Ms. Clark is now the Premier of British Columbia and on Pink Shirt Day this year was called out as “bully” by an otherwise highly-accomplished political opponent (NDP MLA Selina Robinson). Here is what Ms. Robinson is quoted as saying:

The Liberals have power, they won government, and they are making lots of decisions, and order to hang on to the power, they make everyone else, those whose jobs it is to hold them accountable … feel bad, so that they are less capable of doing their job, which is holding government accountable. It’s bullying, and it certainly feels that way. (ref)

Now no one will deny that Premier Clark has an abrasive political style and part of that style is to use the tricks of her radio days on her opponents. This includes using anecdotes (often about her family) that she then turns around on her opponents. Most recently, she compared her opponents (the NDP) to a teenager (her son) who is “still sitting on the couch and he’s asking you to clean up after him and he doesn’t want to get up and do anything” (ref). Premier Clark’s other main sin is that upon receiving a majority of seats in the last provincial election she has chosen to govern the province as if she won a majority of seats in the last provincial election. That is, she treats the mandate of the electorate as an indication of their desires and thus tends to not follow the desires of the opposition (the NDP). For these transgressions (and making the NDP feel bad about themselves?) Premier Clark was called out as a “bully”.

I questioned this use of the term “bullying” on Twitter, and was directed to a web site that nominally provided a definition of bullying as: “one person, or group of persons, being deliberately cruel to another person or group, for any reason”. I will readily admit to not being an expert on bullying, but I would suggest that the definition, as presented, and its use by Ms. Robinson, totally diminishes the power of the word. The definition could encompass my three-year old daughter getting angry at her siblings as easily as it would the prototypical schoolyard bully picking on the smaller kids to make himself feel bigger. It ignores any context or indication of relative power dynamics which form the basis of virtually every definition of bully out there (see Wikipedia, Merriam-Webster, Oxford English).

The English language has any number of words to describe the Premier’s behaviour. She has clearly been unkind and can be condescending but is she really a bully? So the question must be asked, with all the alternatives available to her in the English language why did Ms. Robinson use the word “bully”? Well that is because it has become one of words activists use not to stimulate debate or discussion but rather to shut down debate. Words, like “fascist” which used to refer to “radical authoritarian nationalism” but is now used by activists whenever a policeman politely asks them to make way so others can make use of a public street or sidewalk.

Another word I read often these days is the word “shill”. This too, is usually used in an attempt to diminish the ideas and information provided by someone who holds an opposing point of view. The funny part is that the term “shill” is pretty much reserved for people who tend to agree with the status quo. In its correct form, a “shill” is “someone who pretends to give an impartial endorsement of something in which they themselves have an interest” (ref). The two people most likely to be called “shills”, in my social network (people I follow or who follow me), are Dr. Andrew Leach and Mr. Cody Battershill. The funny thing is that there has never been an iota of evidence to suggest that either has received a cent from any of the organizations or causes about which they communicate. Dr. Leach has had the good fortune to have earned a Professorship in Energy Policy via the Alberta School of Business and funded by Enbridge (ref). As anyone who knows anything about how Professorships works knows, the receiving academic is very much insulated from the philanthropic donor. To do otherwise would violate university policies and would taint any research conducted under the Professorship. That being said, whenever Dr. Leach strikes a chord on the internet you can predict, like the ticking of a clock, that someone will bring up his Professorship. These folks cannot assail his arguments so they attack the man (and his title). This is the textbook definition of an ad hominem attack but is repeated relentlessly by activists who cannot muster the information to counter his data. Mr. Battershill is somewhat different case. He is a self-taught activist who has become a thorn in the side of anti-oil sands activists. He is a real estate agent by training but spends his spare time informing the public about energy literacy with a definite pro-oil sands bent. Unlike most of the activists who attack him constantly, Mr. Battershill reportedly receives no stipend from any third parties to do his work. Based on interviews (ref) it would appear that Mr. Battershill actually loses money doing his blogging. That doesn’t stop activists from impugning his motives because they lack the data to impugn his information. Information that is typically well-researched and on point.

The common thread in the use of these terms is that the activists yell “shill”, “bully” etc.. when they have no case to present, nor data to support their point of view. Ad hominems and name-calling are used by the desperate to distract and to interfere with or stop all debate. They are not used by people who can marshal facts in defense of their opinions. As interested parties we should call out this practice for what it is. We should not allow the smearing of good people and should demand that organizations and individuals who use these terms are sent scurrying to find data to support their opinions rather than being allowed to throw out smears without repercussion or penalty.

Author’s note: I cannot believe that in writing this post I forgot to mention my personal favourite “shill” Ms.Vivian Krause who has had nothing but kind words for this blog and has done some of the most insightful research into energy and finance that money did not buy. After working for years on her own dime, she accepted one honorarium and in doing so earned her own personal poltergeist. The perfect example of a citizen researcher and someone we can all strive to emulate.

Posted in Climate Change | 4 Comments

Public Sector Compensation – You Get What You Pay for

Posted on February 23, 2015 by Blair

Today I am going to provide a bit of a change of pace from my normal postings. Up until now I have written primarily on the topics of renewable energy and climate change. A glance at my earliest postings shows that I started my blogging talking about pipelines. What most of my readers don’t know is that the event that actually pulled me out of my shell and into talking about science on the public stage was the Mount Polley Tailings pond failure. For those of you not familiar with the event, in August 2014 the tailings pond dam for Imperial Mine’s Mount Polley Copper and Gold Mine had a partial breach releasing 10 million cubic metres of water and 4.5 million cubic metres of slurry into Polley Lake. At the time I made some comments on Twitter. As an interested outsider (with no conflicts of interest involving the project, but a knowledge of the field of contaminated sites) I was subsequently interviewed a few times by a local news radio station about how the spill might affect the local ecology and clean-up options. After the spill a number of reports came out passing around blame for the disaster. One repeated complaint was the lack of inspections and mine inspection staff.

The number and quality of inspectors/regulators is always a matter of concern in the environmental and natural resource fields. Consider our mine inspectors, in a perfect world we would have a surplus of mine inspectors. Moreover, our mine inspectors would be old hands from the mining field. They would have years of mining experience, know their way around a mine and would know where the mine operators typically hide the skeletons. Unfortunately for us, we do not live in a perfect world. The mine inspector described above is no longer the norm in the public sector of 2015. Certainly our regulators have a lot of old hands who were hired in an earlier era and have the knowledge, skills and experience to get the job done, but these days they represent the last of a dying breed. One important reason for this is the rate of compensation for the technical staff in the bureaucracies of 2015.

Now public sector compensation is an incredibly hot-button subject. Last summer when the BC Public Sector Compensation Review came out it was headline news. I couldn’t turn on the TV or listen to the radio without hearing the representative from the Canadian Taxpayer’s Federationdeclaring that public sector compensation packages represented an outrage. The reality is somewhat different, it is true that some public sector employees do better than their compatriots in the private sector but some do considerably worse. Before I go much further let’s make some simple stipulations to speed things up:

  • No one can deny that in the lower-skilled positions, public sector workers are often paid at a better rate than they would for doing the same work in the private sector.
  • No one can deny that at the top end in the public sector (and crown corporations) senior management are paid at a comparable rate to the private sector with less risk of firing or a need to be accountable to shareholder value.
  • It is well-understood that public sector workers also have very generous benefits/retirement packages that we’ve been repeatedly told increases their equivalent salary by on average 15%.
  • Finally, based on news reports, some political appointees have received insane-sounding salaries.

Now that we have addressed the red herrings, let’s talk about the topic of this post: highly-trained technical specialists, the people we depend on to ensure our bridges don’t collapse, to keep our water clean and our mines tailings dams from breaching.

Let’s start with the big picture, consider the BCGov salary comparisons chart. It presents the maximum salaries based on responsibilities and bargaining unit for various job classifications. If you happen to know someone in the public service, who you believe earns more than $75,000, you can also look them up on the Vancouver Sun Public Sector Salaries database. At first glance some of those salaries look pretty good, until you look into what the jobs classifications actually mean. Take a look at the classification plan for Licensed Science Officers (LSOs), it tells you what it takes to qualify as an LSO 1 versus an LSO 2etc.. For comparison now consider that the Association of Professional Engineers of British Columbia (APEG BC) annual salary survey which, too, comes with a job classification chart of its own.

As an exercise for this post, I opened up the BC Government Directory and went to the Ministry of Energy and Mines and searched for a Mining Operations Office, in this case I chose Prince George as that is a pretty important town for mining. I then worked my way down the list I found there. I looked at the Regional Geologist, the Senior Reclamation Officer, the Manager – Geotechnical Engineering, the Senior Inspector of Mines-Permitting, and an Inspector of Mines – Permitting. Except for the last employee, I then compared the employee’s salary from the Vancouver Sun database with the APEG BC salary results for Engineers and Geologists with my best estimate for the same level of experience and responsibility. The result was that in every case the public servant was paid in either the lowest quartile (lowest 25% of APEG members with that classification) or lowest decile (lowest 10% of APEG members with that classification). The final employee (the inspector) didn’t actually make the $75,000 barrier? I would also point out that the salaries presented on the BC Gov chart represent a maximum. A Licensed Science Officer 5 (LSO 5) starts at $67,809.74 and only makes it to the maximum salary of $88,420.29 after the appropriate time in the public service. Regardless of your outside experience, you start at the bottom of the range for your position.

Having looked at existing employees I then did a search of current job postings and found one for a Bridge Engineer. In the job posting they are asking for someone with:

“a university degree in Engineering, majoring in Structural Engineering supplemented by at least nine years of progressively more responsible experience in Bridge and Structural Engineering or a related field, with at least five years preferred directly working in position(s) dealing with Bridge and Structural Design and/or Construction, and several of those in an environment involving transportation infrastructure or an equivalent combination of education and experience may be considered.”

For someone with those challenging technical and professional qualifications they are offering the princely sum of $67,809.74 with a potential to work up to $88,420.29. But wait there is more, because the job is in a hard-to-find bracket they are offering a 4.4% salary bump. Pretty rich right? Based on the APEG BC chart this level of experience would appear to be in the 450 – 499 point range. Engineers in BC with responsibilities in the 450- 499 point range have a median salary of $101,000 with the bottom decile being $80,000. So an engineer with the called-for experience wouldn’t even reach the bottom decile cut-off for Engineers in the field for many years after accepting the job? Can you imagine any engineer with almost 10 years experience and the specialization described taking that sort of pay cut to work in the public sector? Is there any doubt why they had to extend the closing date for this posting and have included the following text: “Applicants who do not fully meet the required qualifications may be considered for this position, but at a lower classification”?

Having looked at the numbers let’s return to the point of this post. We depend on our regulators to ensure that provincial environmental and mining regulations are followed. These are the people who we depend on to protect the public’s (our) interests. Instead of offering these highly-trained and skilled professionals a salary commensurate with their responsibilities we are offering them salaries that put them amongst the lowest paid of their peer group in the province. It is hard to complain about the level of expertise and knowledge in the public sector when we pay them so little after all you get what you are willing to pay for. The confusing part is that our provincial government keeps insisting that we have to pay upper-level managers and political appointees a salary equivalent to the ones they could earn in the private sector in order to ensure we get the best people for the jobs? It is a pity they don’t feel the same way when it comes to the technical specialists our politicians rely on to ensure the protection of the public interest and to provide the scientific expertise necessary to run our government. Moreover, it goes farther than just salaries, but I don’t have time to go into the other issues I have uncovered in my research for this post, including work-load issues for existing employees; unwillingness to replace retirees; and union work rules that limit who can be hired to do various jobs. That will have to be the source of a future post.

Posted in Canadian Politics | 3 Comments

A Primer: Why Cheap Oil Doesn’t Mean Cheap Gasoline or Diesel

Posted on February 19, 2015 by Blair

I was listening to the radio the other evening and the topic of discussion was gasoline prices in the Lower Mainland. The callers (and host) were expressing their anger that gasoline prices had not dropped with the recent drop in oil prices. I listened as various callers and pundits discussed words like “collusion” and “price fixing” but I was surprised that no one appeared to understand the basics of supply and demand in the North American fuel market. You see there is no terrible conspiracy causing gas prices to rise in BC (and North America) instead it is simply a direct result of market forces and the supply/demand curve. This morning, I had a similar discussion online and in a series of tweets tried to explain the current situation but figured that this topic is one that is so badly misunderstood that I may as well present a very simplified explanation here. Please note, I bolded those words on purpose. This is only a simple overview but recognize there are a lot of complexities that I do not have the time/space to address.

Let’s start with the basics. One thing that people tend to forget is that crude oil and gasoline are very different commodities. Crude oil is a mixture of petroleum hydrocarbons (as presented in the ALS Laboratories Petroleum Fractions by Carbon Range chart 2.4 MB .pdf). To explain it as simply as possible, petroleum hydrocarbons are made up of a mixture of individual hydrocarbon molecules. A hydrocarbon molecule is simply an organic molecule made up entirely of carbon and hydrogen. The hydrocarbons can vary in type from small linear molecules (methane, ethane, propane, n-butane etc..) to cyclic and aromatic molecules like (cyclohexane and benzene) to huge monstrous unsaturated compounds (asphaltenes). Moreover, not all crude oils are the same. They can vary from light crudes (Brent Light crude with a higher proportion of lighter molecules) all the way to heavy crudes and oil sands. In order to separate these mixtures into useful components we need a refinery.

Refineries are the locations where crude oil is broken into its component parts for sale. The Wikipedia page on refineries will tell you what you need to know about how refineries operate. The critical thing about refineries is that they are incredibly expensive to build and they are incredibly expensive to operate (see this ref on the Economics of Refining). With such tight margins, a refinery has to operate at near capacity to be worth the money spent to build and operate it. As such we don’t have a lot of spare capacity available in North America. From an economic perspective the supply and demand curves match up very tightly. Because of their margins, refineries make more money if they are bigger and as such most of the smaller refineries around North America have closed down. In the BC lower mainland, for instance, the Chevron refinery sits as the last of its breed. It operates at about 55,000 barrel a day and comes nowhere near to meeting the local demand for fuel. Most of the remaining Lower Mainland fuel demand is met by a group of refineries in Washington State (in the Puget Sound). Refineries tend to be located at nexus points where they can get ready supplies of raw materials (crude) and where they can then ship the material out easily (usually in a tanker). Refined fuels are typically not sent around the country in normal pipelines (that are also used for crude) because they pick up too many impurities. Thus, if a refinery in Edmonton sends a load of gasoline down the Trans-Mountain pipeline it typically needs to be polished (have the impurities removed) in Vancouver before it can be sold for retail use. Instead refined products are shipped via dedicated tankers, barges or rail cars. That is why we have the big tank farms in Vancouver. A lot of our fuel is imported by tanker, barge or rail car and stored in tank farms before being sent out for retail sale.

As I mentioned above, refineries are expensive and we do not have a lot of extra capacity in the North American system. Any interruption of the refining system will reduce supply, which consequently results in a rise in price. So even if you have all the cheap oil in the world in your backyard, if your refinery is down then gas is going to be expensive. This brings us to the news. Anyone interested in the oil business knows that right now there is a major labour battle going on in the United States between refinery workers and the refinery owners (Reuters story). This strike has affected the supply of gasoline by reducing the North American refinery capacity by a pretty substantial margin. Moreover, more bad news is on the way as a major explosion at a big California refinery (Reuter story) is only going to tighten up supply. I would be filling up my tank sooner than later if I were you (although you may already be too late) as the gas prices will have to move to reflect this loss of supply.

The other question I was asked today was why gasoline and diesel prices do not appear to run together very well. Specifically, diesel stayed high even as gasoline prices dropped. This brings us back to how refineries operate and supply and demand. As I discussed above, crude oil is a mixture of hydrocarbons. Gasoline and diesel on the other hand are carefully designed formulations. Gasolines are made up of a mixture of hydrocarbons typically in the 5 to 12 carbon ranges (C5-C12). Different formulations will have more of the lighter mixture than others but for the most part that is the part of the crude oil used for gasoline. Diesel is made up of the C8-C24 ranges. A quick look at the hydrocarbon chart will show that a lot of other hydrocarbon products are also derived from that part of the crude oil mixture. The most important of these are fuel oils which are used heavily in the East to keep houses warm. Refineries have the ability to “crack” or “coke” heavier petroleum hydrocarbons into smaller units but this process is limited and the process adds cost to the product. What this means is that for the most part the oil companies have to choose whether they are going to use that part of the crude oil for diesel or for fuel oil. Unfortunately, in the last decade or so the number of trucks and trains that depend on diesel to operate have increased substantially. This has put a stress on the availability of diesel. Moreover, the incredibly cold weather in the East has resulted in a higher than expected demand on fuel oil, to keep those people on the Eastern Seaboard from turning into icicles. So given a strong demand for diesel; a higher than expected demand on fuel oil; and limited refining capacity, we have a perfect storm for diesel prices. Put simply, don’t expect a drop in diesel prices anytime soon and expect that even when gasoline prices start to drop (assuming the labour issues as solved) that diesel prices will still remain higher than gasoline prices for the foreseeable future.

Posted in Chemistry and Toxicology | 4 Comments

Is the IPCC the IOC of Science?

Posted on February 16, 2015 by Blair

I was having a discussion online, on Twitter, about the field of Climate Science. The basis of the discussion was a simple question: what does it take to be considered a “climate scientist”? and the corollary: who is qualified to comment on and provide reviews of climate science? As many of you may know, I have taken flack for suggesting that highly educated and well-trained individuals outside the academic sphere have anything to say about the topic and deserve the opportunity to be heard. The debate went back and forth with people pointing out that climate science is a complicated field and methodologies used in climate science are too complicated for input from the general public. What no one was able to actually define was: what it took to be called a “climate scientist”. My opinion, coming out of the discussion, was that climate science is not really “a field” as much as a group of fields centered on answering questions about several inter-related topics. During the course of the discussion a thought occurred to me. If I had to describe the field of climate science in a way that best expresses its current status in the world, I think the best analogy would be the various sports that make up the Olympic Games. With that thought in the back of my mind, I went out for a run and as the kms flowed underfoot, I became more certain that this was a readily-accessible way to make people understand what climate science is all about.

In my view, climate science is not a “subject”, per se, but rather a field made up of a number of disparate subjects, many of which had few interactions prior to the creation of the field of “climate science”. A population ecologist studying the effects of climate change on woodland bird populations has pretty much nothing in common with an aerosol physicist, but under the umbrella of “climate scientist” they can be considered to be working in the same field. They do share some very important similarities in that both are highly educated, having reached the apex of their respective fields, but their methodologies and field techniques have about as much in common as an athlete in the modern pentathlon has with a beach volleyball player (no opinion on which is which). On a day-to-day or week-to-week basis these people do not interact, but once every few years they are asked to do their best for an international audience.

The more I thought about it, the more intriguing this analogy became. The Olympic Games bring together the world’s greatest specialists, in their individual sports, while the IPCC brings together the top scientists in their fields. Both then ask those specialists to perform under the eyes of the world. Consider that the IOC is a body started with the best of intentions that was supposed to be above politics. Over time, however, it has been a lightning rod for politics. Does this sound like the IPCC? The membership of the IOC includes some of the top athletes and athletic officials on the planet. It is also the home for numerous has-beens, never-weres and political hacks. Remind you of anything? It has been argued that in the last 50 years the IOC has become a fiefdom controlled by a small body of bureaucrats who are accountable to no one but themselves? See the similarities? It is not all bad, however, as the Olympic Games are one of the premiere sporting events on the planet. They represent a showcase for some of the planet’s greatest athletes and are home to some of the best officiated sports on the planet. But the Olympics, due to their rules allowing inclusion of all member states, were also the place where “Eddie the Eagle” demonstrated that he was not quite ready for prime time, while officials in figure skating were accused of colluding to ensure that their respective athletes got on the podium, regardless of how they performed on the ice. Most importantly, while it is possible to respect the athletes who have spent years perfecting their craft, it is also incredibly easy to get turned off by the ugly politics and the crass behavior of the bigwigs who have made a home in this unaccountable organization.

Going back to the citizen-scientist question, as a young man I used to be a runner. In University I ran track and field, with my event being the steeplechase. I had the benefit of truly excellent coaching and was even given the opportunity to coach track for several years, a couple of which I did under another great coach who taught me the intricacies of the various sports. Now I was never going to be an Olympic athlete, as I lacked the genetic gifts to be the very best, but I know more about track and field than most people in my community. I have also served as a running instructor/coach and have taught many hundreds of people how to run. When I watch high-level athletes, I can appreciate their skill and given time and slow-motion film, I can break down a steeplechaser’s stride and figure out whether they are dragging their following foot over the hurdle. Were I to do so, I could even give advice to an athlete who is much more talented than me. Their reply could range from: “who are you? I already have a coach” to “thanks for the info, I will look at the films and see if you have caught something that my coach missed”. Similarly, I can watch a high-hurdler or a 400 meter hurdler and identify issues with their technique (if an issue exists). In a similar vein, Steve McIntyre may not be a “climate scientist” but his knowledge of data analysis far exceeds that of many academics and when he suggests a statistical analysis has a fault, I would suggest listening very carefully.

So where am I going with all this? Well while not all of us can be Olympic athletes a lot of people out there have the knowledge and skill to assess their efforts. Meanwhile, while you might be a “climate scientist” you may have no clue of the strengths and limitations of another “climate scientist’s” work. Moreover, it is likely that even though you are a “climate scientist” that someone else, often outside the academic sphere, knows more about topics outside of your specific area of expertise, than you do. Finally to return to our analogy, both Usain Bolt and Ben Johnson are technically Olympians, but we hold one in much higher esteem than the other. Similarly, it is possible to hold some climate scientists up as examples for the next generation of scientist while recognizing that not all climate scientists meet those lofty standards.

Posted in Climate Change Politics | 9 Comments

Risk Assessment Methodologies Part 3: the Risk Assessment Process

Posted on February 9, 2015 by Blair

Over the course of the last few posts I have discussed components of the risk assessment process. As I’ve discussed, the process of conducting a formalized risk assessment is long-established as scientists have been doing them for years and have become very efficient at the process. The methodology generally consists of four steps: problem formulation; toxicity assessment; exposure assessment and risk characterization. In my previous postings I have discussed the basics tools used in risk assessments. Over the years the tools of risk assessment have been developed to an extent that anyone with a computer and an internet link can pretend to conduct a risk assessment using a number of these tools. After all how hard is it to compare numbers in a study to numbers produced by the EPA or Health Canada? Because of the ease in carrying out these steps, many a journalist or activist has done their own “do-it-yourself risk assessment” and come up with results they can broadcast to the world. Unfortunately, most of these “risk assessments” are no such thing. They are no better than the efforts made by their creators to understand the process. The reason for this is that without doing the first step correctly, the problem formulation, any output becomes no better than throwing numbers in the air for a political/news-making process. The problem formulation step, and the quality of said step, is what differentiates a good risk assessment from a hack job and establishes the policy applications of the output.

For there to be an unacceptable risk to human or ecological health the following conditions need to exist:

  • chemical or compounds must be present at hazardous concentrations;
  • human or ecological receptors must exist; and
  • an exposure pathways must exist that allows the chemical compound of interest to interact with the receptor resulting in a dose that poses an unacceptable risk.

The first process in the problem formulation step is to identify and define the chemicals or compounds of interests to the risk assessment. For the purposes of this discussion we can refer to them as the potential contaminants of concern (or PCOCs). For a risk assessment to be carried out some human and/or ecological organism (called a receptor) then has to be exposed to the PCOC. In order to have a risk, the receptor needs to be exposed to an unacceptable concentration of the PCOC through a “complete exposure pathway”. If there is no way for the receptor to be exposed to the PCOC then you are said not to have a complete exposure pathway and your risk assessment is complete at the problem formulation stage. As an example, recently a news organization identified a list of “spill events” along the Trans-Mountain pipeline. What the news story did not mention was that the vast majority of the “spills” were releases of material into containment systems designed explicitly for the purposes of containing the material released. This is kind of like my reporting that each evening I have a “spill” of several gallons of warm water in my bathroom. In my case the water released actually goes into a bath-tub where it is used to wash my young children. Because of the restricted language used for reporting these releases, each is documented as a “spill” under the reporting rules. I will go into the language of “spills” in a later post but for this discussion, if a “spill” is caught in a purpose-built containment system and cannot reach a receptor outside the containment unit there would be no exposure pathway between the PCOC (the spill) and the receptor (say the aquatic body where exposures might take place) and thus in this case the risk assessment would conclude the absence of unacceptable risk.

So to summarize, in the problem formulation stage we identify the PCOCs and the receptors. We then attempt to identify complete exposure pathways. In doing so we develop what is called a conceptual model. Conceptual models drive the tools and direction of the risk assessment. They identify/define the potential contaminants, receptors and exposure pathways that may result in unacceptable risks to human health or the environment, and therefore warrant further evaluation. As discussed, some risk assessments are completed at the problem formulation stage if, for example, a complete exposure pathway does not exist. Once the conceptual model has been completed then the work of the risk assessment can be completed. The toxicity assessment is carried out to establish the toxicity of each PCOC to each receptor (using the tools like RfC, ED50 etc… from our previous discussions). Then the exposure assessment must be carried out where each complete exposure pathway is examined to define the concentrations of PCOCs to which the receptors are being exposed. Finally we characterize the risks. As described, we determine whether the receptor receives an exposure that would be considered unacceptable (i.e. poses an unacceptable risk where “acceptable” is defined by a competent regulatory authority). Since different PCOCs can affect similar organs/organisms it may be necessary to combine the hazard quotients for differing PCOCs to ensure that an unacceptable risk does not exist.

The final part of the risk assessment process is an “assessment of conservatism”. As discussed, in risk assessment we try to be conservative. I keep using the term “conservative” and to be clear, I don’t mean in a political sense. What it means to be “conservative” in a risk assessment is to always err on the side of caution. As I discussed in an earlier post, when we extrapolate dose-response curves from animals to humans we typically add a safety factor of 10. This is a level of conservatism. So an NOAEL of 1 for an animal becomes a 10 for humans. This factor is not based on pure science but rather is a fudge factor added to be extra safe. What is often not recognized is that we add layers of conservatism to virtually every step in a risk assessment to add layers of security. One of these includes always assessing for the most vulnerable receptor. As an example, when doing a risk assessment for a commercial development most risk assessors will make a conservative assumption that the development could potentially house a daycare. Thus their exposure assessment will use an infant as the most sensitive receptor rather than an office worker. Similarly, as we described previously, for carcinogens we assume that individuals will be exposed to a dose for 24 hours a day over a lifetime of 70 years. I cannot imagine any real-world scenario where an individual would stay exposed to a particular source continuously for 24 hours a day over 70 years but that is the level of conservatism we use to ensure the public is safe.

What does this mean? Well a lot of the activists complain when a PCOC is only marginally lower than the Health Canada “safe levels”. What these people appear unaware of is that these levels have layers of conservatism added on top of layers of conservatism. So when Health Canada says a dose is “safe” they don’t mean just barely safe but rather belts, suspenders and then a roll of duct tape safe. In the real world we would never expect the level of conservatism that we come to expect from Health Canada. In the real world we accept that storing eggs in an egg carton and then carrying them carefully to the car is an acceptably safe way to get your eggs home from the store. In a relative sense Health Canada would individually wrap each egg in a pillow, put each pillow in its own cart and then pack each egg home in a Sherman Tank. That is what conservatism means to Health Canada. As such when Health Canada says we have a “safe concentration” or “safe exposure” (say to WiFi) what that means is that you have a concentration that is actually safe.

In my discussions to date I have walked you through the risk assessment process and how we establish what represents a real risk as opposed to some imaginary, “fallacious precautionary principle”TM risk required by activists who care little for facts and are simply using the language to forward their political goals. In a follow-up post, I will discuss the limitations of risk assessment and why policy experts can’t only rely on risk assessors in establishing safe concentrations. In particular, I will discuss how epidemiology helps us understand risks from environmental contaminants.

 

Posted in Risk Assessment Methodologies | 5 Comments