Gassy ponds may hold key to oilsands emissions fight
Alberta’s battle to reduce oilsands’ greenhouse gas emissions is taking aim at one of the industry’s biggest environmental bugaboos: tailings ponds.
While producers have focused on curbing methane from drilling operations, the ponds, designed to hold residue from mining operations, are among the largest sources of emissions for oilsands miners, said Eric Newell, a former chief executive of Syncrude Canada Ltd.
Figuring out how to curb the gases emanating from the ponds would allow energy companies to expand operations while staying below Alberta’s new limits for emissions, Newell said in an interview.
“It’s an area of low-hanging fruit, and they should be moving on it,” he said. Newell has been part of numerous efforts to improve the environmental footprint of Canada’s oil industry since retiring from Syncrude in 2003.
“Methane is about 25 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. So there’s that multiplier effect, too.”
Tackling emissions in tailings ponds isn’t a no-brainer, though. The industry already is spending heavily to clean up solid pollution in the ponds, and the goal is to get rid of them entirely. Producers must decide whether it makes better sense to dedicate more money to pond cleanup, or to focus their spending on emissions in other parts of their operations.
Canada’s oilsands industry is in the midst of an overhaul, with emissions being reined in through a carbon tax, reductions to methane and a 100 million-ton cap on greenhouse gases. At the same time, companies are slashing costs to re- main competitive in a lengthening market downturn.
The Alberta government’s climate plan is designed to help fix the industry’s reputation as an environmental laggard. It has also emboldened opposition and stalled construction of oil pipelines needed to access overseas markets.
The government’s goal is to reduce methane emissions from the oil and gas industry by 45 per cent from 2012 levels by 2025. Canada, the U.S. and Mexico in June agreed to make similar reductions from their petroleum industries.
As part of its climate policy, Alberta is focusing on sources of methane emissions, including tailings ponds. The ponds hold remnants of lighter fuels known as diluent that are used to process the tar-like bitumen harvested from the ground. Methane is released as the diluent breaks down.
The ponds account for about 10 per cent of greenhouse gas output from oilsands mining, according to estimates by the Alberta government and industry. Now, at least one solution is poised to turn an environmental liability into a new revenue stream.
Companies are beginning to test technology that would reduce the flow of diluent into tailings ponds and help slow the growth of methane output. That’s also the first step in tackling a public health danger posed by toxic waste that’s settled to the bottom of 220 square kilometres of the man-made lakes. Cleaning up the ponds involves draining them and disposing of the waste — enough to fill hundreds of thousands of Olympic swimming pools. Titanium Corp. has developed and tested a system that reduces methane emissions while at the same time recovering zircon, a mineral that is used in making ceramics, by mining the waste stream flowing from operations. The system can be attached to existing facilities, said Titanium chief executive Scott Nelson.
“There’s a tipping point now with the focus on the environment and the negative image of the oilsands,” Nelson said. “The ponds and climate change have come together.”
Suncor Energy, Syncrude and Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. all participated in a consortium, providing tailings samples for Titanium’s $35-million successful pilot and the company has two onsite projects with Syncrude, Nelson said. Oil prices need to stabilize at a higher level before producers will be willing to adopt the technology on a commercial scale, he said.
Canadian Natural continues to evaluate technology including Titanium’s for potential application in managing tailings at its Horizon oilsands mine, Julie Woo, a spokeswoman, said in an e-mail.
“With this technology, it’s creating value from waste,” Nelson said. The clincher for oilsands companies is that one mine could produce 50,000 tons of zircon a year, or about five per cent of the world’s annual supply, and earn as much as $200 million in annual revenue from the sale of minerals, according to Titanium’s estimates.
Suncor is expected to begin production next year at its new Fort Hills mine, and is working on its tailings management approach. Canada’s largest oil producer company isn’t releasing any details yet, and will submit its plan to Alberta regulators by the end of the year, said Suncor spokeswoman Erin Rees.
As part of a Canadian Oil Sands Innovation Alliance project, Suncor and Imperial Oil Ltd. are testing ways to better measure fugitive emissions from the ponds using satellite technology. The first test began in June with the launch of a probe from an Indian space centre and which will take measurements of GHGs as it passes over the oilsands.
The cost of pond emissions, meanwhile, is about to go up. Companies are currently required by provincial regulations to report their emissions from tailings ponds and pay for them under a policy that sets a rate of $15 for each equivalent ton of carbon dioxide. That policy will be replaced by a carbon levy of $30 a ton in 2018.
But oilsands developers are already spending billions of dollars to clean up mine tailings ponds to comply with the latest provincial environmental rules. Adding more spending on technology to reduce the greenhouse gas impact of those ponds may be a distraction companies aren’t willing to make, Newell said.
“Tailings ponds are one of the biggest challenges the industry faces and eliminating them completely would be quite a feat,” Andrew Read, an analyst at environmental consultancy Pembina Institute. If a technical solution exists to reduce methane from the ponds, companies should deploy them, he said.