Oilsands producer makes case for diverting greenhouse gas into cattle-feed production
CALGARY — Canada’s response to President Barack Obama’s challenge to reduce emissions of globalwarming gases from the oilsands starts with sewage and algae.
The paste-like crude extracted from oilsands is softened by heat and steam to make it flow though pipelines. Burning natural gas to process the fuel creates carbon dioxide that researchers say can be mixed with waste water and fed to algae, which can be processed into cattle feed and other products.
“We’re taking CO2 and making it into a valuable product,” said John Parr, vice-president at Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., the country’s third-largest oilsands producer by market value. “There’s a business case that can be made for it.”
Such efforts by Canadian Natural and rival oil producers, including Imperial Oil Ltd. and Suncor Energy Inc., are partly aimed at convincing U.S. decision-makers that the industry can mitigate the climate-change impact of TransCanada Corp.’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline to the Gulf Coast from Alberta.
Obama has said he won’t issue the permit to build the $5.3-billion pipeline to link Alberta with refineries on the Gulf of Mexico if it would significantly worsen global warming. Obama has also said Canada “could potentially be doing more to mitigate carbon release.”
Consulting company IHS CERA published a study indicating the Keystone pipeline won’t have any material impact on U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government says the country is almost halfway to its target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 17 per cent by 2020 from 2005 levels. Part of it was due to tighter rules on coalfired power plants.
Meanwhile, more than 100 Keystone XL pipeline critics protested outside the U.S. State Department for the first time Monday, arguing that the government’s analysis of the project is biased and flawed.
The protesters were among 70,000 people who pledged online to conduct civil disobedience to stop the project, according to the environmental group Credo, which organized the demonstration.