Maybe Suzuki uproar will inspire innovation among graduates
Vilifying oil and gas industry does little for the environment, writes Mark Fitzgerald.
Today, the University of Alberta is awarding a controversial honorary doctorate of science degree to environmentalist David Suzuki, Canada’s leading oilsands opponent.
It is this sort of controversy that is hurting our national conversation about climate change, the oilsands and the future of energy. Rather than offering solutions and bringing us closer to resolving the issues around climate change, it creates division.
The Canadian oil and natural gas industry is focused on solutions; harnessing the brainpower of engineers and scientists — many of them University of Alberta graduates — to develop the technology and innovation needed to achieve the goal of a lower carbon future.
Our list of innovations is long, with environmental performance improvements backed by credible scientific evidence, contrary to what Suzuki and other industry opponents would have Canadians believe.
Technical advances in pad drilling have changed the way we produce natural gas, allowing rig operators to drill multiple horizontal wells from one pad and significantly reduce the overall footprint of projects.
Advances in sequestering carbon through carbon capture and storage, injection of hydrocarbon to increase recovery rates and lower emissions intensity in the oilsands, and reducing methane emissions through early industry action are making significant strides to improve the way we do business.
Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance (COSIA), comprised of oilsands producers, is forming unique partnerships to improve industry’s environmental performance when it comes to water, land impacts, and greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) reduction.
In Toronto, COSIA is working with biotechnology company Pond Technologies to create algae that can eat carbon and make clean energy. This technology has the potential to reduce 1.5 million tonnes of GHGs — the equivalent of taking 300,000 cars off the road forever. And that’s just one example. Since its inception in 2013, COSIA members have invested more than $1.4 billion to share and develop more than 980 distinct innovations and technologies.
Make no mistake, that money is invested to generate returns, but returns that create viable solutions for climate change while sustaining a healthy global economy. What’s good for the environment is also good for business.
Consider the NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE, a $20-million, five-year global competition to develop breakthrough technologies that will convert CO₂ emissions into valuable products such as building materials, alternative fuels and other items we use every day — creating new businesses and prosperity for Canada. By 2020, the winner will be declared from the 10 finalist teams of global entrepreneurs and startups from five countries, including four Canadian teams from Calgary, Toronto, Dartmouth and Montreal.
David Suzuki contributes few realistic and scientific solutions to achieving the goal of a low-carbon future — instead preferring protests and campaigns aimed at diverting investment from oil and natural gas assets in an effort to cripple the industry.
Despite the University of Alberta’s controversial choice, we will continue to invest in math, science and engineering programs in Alberta and across our country. The climate change challenge needs multi-disciplinary thinking and scientific solutions and Canada’s oil and natural gas industry is central to that work.
It is our hope Suzuki’s presence at convocation today will inspire this next generation to think more critically about the celebrity environmentalist set and what tangible contributions they’ve made to society.
Instead of vilifying natural resources, which we have in such abundance in Canada, these bright minds will find solutions to the emissions challenge so oil and natural gas can continue to play a key role in the future of Canadian energy.