Tag Archives: oilsands

Some Nice Journalistic Data Visualization – Global’s Crude Awakening

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Over at Global, David Skok and his team have created a very nice visualization of the over 28,666 crude oil spills that have happened on Alberta pipelines over the last 37 years (that’s about two a day). Indeed, for good measure they’ve also visualized the additional 31,453 spills of “other” substance carried by Alberta pipeline (saltwater, liquid petroleum, etc..)

They’ve even created a look up feature so you can tackle the data geographically, by name, or by postal code. It is pretty in depth.

Of course, I believe all this data should be open. Sadly, they have to get at it through a complicated Access to Information Request that appears to have consumed a great deal of time and resources and that would probably only be possible by a media organizations with the  dedicated resources (legal and journalistic) and leverage to demand it. Had this data been open there would have still been a great deal of work to parse, understand and visualize it, but it would have helped lower the cost of development.

In fact, if you are curious about how they got the data – and the sad, sad, story it involved – take a look at the fantastic story they wrote about the creation of their oilspill website. This line really stood out for me:

An initial Freedom of Information request – filed June 8, 2012, the day after the Sundre spill – asked Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development for information on all reported spills from the oil and gas industry, from 2006 to 2012.

About a month later, Global News was quoted a fee of over $4,000 for this information. In discussions with the department, it turned out this high fee was because the department was unable to provide the information in an electronic format: Although it maintained a database of spills, the departmental process was to print out individual reports on paper, and to charge the requester for every page.

So the relevant government department has the data in a machine readable form. It just chooses to only give it out in a paper form. Short of simply not releasing the data at all it is hard to imagine a more obstructionist approach to preventing the public from accessing environmental data their tax dollars paid to collect and that is supposed to be in the public interest. You essentially look at thousands of pieces of paper and re-enter tens, if not hundreds of thousands, of data points into spreadsheets. This is a process designed to prevent you from learning anything and frustrating potential users.

Let’s hope that when the time comes for the Global team to update this tool and webpage there will be open data they can download and access to the task is a little easier.

 

How not to sell the Oil Sands

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If you haven’t read Tzeporah Berman’s Daily Kos piece – My Government Doesn’t Believe in Climate Change – go check it out. It’s amazing to see how out of sync, and behind the ball, the government has gotten on this issue.

Indeed, the current government really is becoming the best weapon opponents to the pipelines have against their construction and the further development of the oil sands.

First, the Natural Resource Minister called environmentalists who opposed Northern Gateway – the pipeline that would take Oil Sand crude from Alberta to British Columbia’s west coast – a “radical”. In short order it turns out that, well, the vast majority of British Columbians were radicals since opposition to the pipeline has been, and remains, strong.

Worse, by declaring war on environmentalists and those concerned about climate change, the Minister set a table that would become distinctly awkward when it came to trying to get the White House and State Department to approve Keystone XL – the pipeline that would export oil sands oil down to the US. Consider that the US President mentioned his concerns about climate change in his State of the Union address and the US ambassador to Canada has hinted that Canada’s commitment to addressing climate change may factor into their decisions around Keystone. So now, at the very moment the Canadian Government needs help to persuade the Americans they actually are serious about climate change, they just come out of a five year patch where they’ve labeled everyone who disagrees with it as a radical, sicced auditors on them and tried to shut many of them down. So suddenly they are in a difficult position of having few, if any, allies in the environmental movement they can turn to to help it gain credibility around any of the actions they wish to take. It’s a communications and policy disaster.

Of course, it doesn’t help that even in the midst of trying to convince the United States it actually is serious about Climate Change, the Natural Resource Minister has speaking notes that feature strong climate change denier comments. Elizabeth May, Green Party candidate in the house of commons summed up the Minister Oliver’s quotes – made to the editorial board of La Presse – quite nicely:

This is what Oliver told the editorial board of La Presse: “I think that people aren’t as worried as they were before about global warming of two degrees… Scientists have recently told us that our fears (on climate change) are exaggerated.”

Thank goodness the editorial board at La Presse knows how to ask questions. They pressed him to name any scientist who thinks our fears are exaggerated. He couldn’t.

So basically, we have a minister who is willing to go on record to make a claim about the future of the planet without being able to reference a single source. I’m sure the White House and State Department are deeply comforted.

It is all doubly amazing as this government has been masterful at handling communications around virtually every issue – except for the one that matters most to it, where it has suddenly becoming a bumbling idiot.

 

 

The Transparent Hypocrisy of Ethical Oil – who is really laundering money

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The other week the Canadian Minister of the Environment, Peter Kent accused Canadian Charities of “laundering money” because they accept some funds from outside the country. This has all been part of a larger effort – championed by Ethical Oil – to discredit Canada’s environmental organizations.

As an open government and transparency in politics advocate I find the whole conversation deeply interesting. On the one side, environmental groups have to disclose who funds them and where the money comes from. This is what actually allows Ethical Oil to make their complaint in the first place. Ethical Oil however, feels no need to share this information. Apparently what is good for the goose, is not good for the gander.

The media really only touches on this fact occasionally. In the Globe an Mail this hypocrisy was buried in the last few lines of a recent article:

Ethical Oil launched a radio ad Tuesday that will run throughout Ontario flaunting the proposal as a way to lower oil prices and create jobs.

Mr. Ellerton said he couldn’t immediately provide an estimate for how much the group is spending on the campaign. He also refused to reveal who funds the lobby group, other than to say: “Ethical Oil accepts donations from Canadians and Canadian businesses.”

The group has supported the Conservatives move to end foreign funding of environmental groups, including those that oppose the Northern Gateway and Keystone XL pipeline projects. Mr. Ellerton has campaigned to expose the funding behind those groups but said he could not shed more light on his own organization.

“We have an organizational policy not to disclose who are donors because we’ve faced lawsuits in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” he said, “and we don’t want to expose our donors to that kind of litigation.”

Of course, the the notion of what a “Canadian Business” means is never challenged. It turns out that many of the large “Canadian” players in the oil sands – those with corporate headquarters in Canada – are barely Canadian. Indeed, a recent analysis using Bloomberg data showed that 71 per cent of all tar sands production is owned by non-Canadian shareholders.

Consider the following ownership stakes of “Canadian” businesses:

Petrobank Energy Resources: 94.8% foreign owned

Husky Energy: 90.9% foreign (this one really surprised me!)

MEG Energy: 89.1% foreign

Imperial Oil: 88.9% foreign

Nexen: 69.9% foreign

Canadian Natural Resources Limited: 58.8% foreign

Suncor Energy: 56.8% foreign

Canadian Oil Sands: 56.8% foreign

Cenovus: 54.7% foreign

I think it is great that Ethical Oil wants greater transparency around who is funding who in the Oil Sands debate. But shouldn’t they be held to the same standard so that we can understand who is funding them?

If Ethical Oil and the government want to call it money laundering when a foreign citizen funds a Canadian environmental group, should we also use the term if a foreign (often Chinese or American) entity plows money into Ethical Oil?

The Oil Sands in Alberta is like Language Laws in Quebec… It's a domestic issue

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This post isn’t based on a poll I’ve conducted or some rigorous methodology, rather it has evolved out of conversations I’ve had with friends, thought leaders I’ve run into, articles I’ve read and polls I’ve seen in passing.

As most people know the development of the oil sands is a thorny issue in Canada. The federal government is sweeping aside environmental regulations, labeling environmentalist groups terrorists and money launderers and overriding processes developed to enabled people to express their concerns.

What’s the public make of all this?

Polls generally seem to have the country split. Canadians are not opposed to natural resource development (how could we be?) but they are also worried about the environment (I’m not claiming enough to act). In this regard the Nik Nanos poll from March is instructive. Here most Canadians place environmental concerns (4.24 out of 5) ahead of economic prosperity (3.71 out of 5). There are of course polls that say the opposite. The normally reliable Ipsos Reid has a Canadian Chamber of Commerce poll which asks “it is possible to increase oil and gas production while protecting the environment at the same time.” As if Canadians know! I certainly don’t know the answer to that question. What I do know is that I’d like it to be possible to increase oil and gas productions while protecting the environment at the same time. This, I suspect, is what people are really saying: “Yes! I’d like to have my cake and eat it to. Go figure out the details.” This does not mean it is possible. Just desirable.

So on a superficial level, I suspect that most Canadians think the oil sands are dirty. Their are of course the outlining camps: the die hard supporters and die hard opposers, but I’m not talking about them. Most Canadians are, at their core, uncomfortable with the oil sands. They know it is bad for the environments and may be good for the economy. That doesn’t mean they are opposed, it just doesn’t mean they aren’t happy either.

But here’s the rub.

I think most Canadians feel like the oil sands is an Alberta issue. Ultimately, many don’t care if it is dirty, many don’t care if it doesn’t benefit them. So long as the issue is confined within Alberta’s borders and it’s an Alberta problem/opportunity then they are happy to give them a free hand. I’ve been comparing it to French Language laws in Quebec. You’d be hard pressed to find many Canadians who strongly agree with them. They understand them. They get why they matter to Quebec. And frankly, they’ve given up caring. As long as the issue is confined within Quebec it’s “domestic politics” and they accept it now as fact.

Of course, the moment the issue stretches outside of Alberta, the gloves are off. Take the pipeline proposal for example. I suspect that support for the Gateway pipeline, especially after the Keystone pipeline is approved, will likely disintegrate. Barbara Yaffe beat me to the punch with her column “What’s in Pipeline Expansion for BC?” which articulated exactly where I think BC is going. Already opinion polls show opposition to the pipeline is growing. Anyone knows that the moment a tanker strikes ground off the coast of BC you have a $1B problem on your hand. Most BCers are beginning to ask why they should put their tourism and fishing industries at risk and be left footing the bill for environmental damage on oil that Alberta is making money off of? A couple hundred jobs a year in benefits isn’t going to cut it.

What’s worse is that it is almost impossible to imagine that Keystone won’t get approved this time around. As a result, Alberta will have it’s pipeline out and so the major source of concern – a way to get the oil out – will have been satisfied. Building a pipeline through BC is now no longer essential. It is a bonus. It is all about getting a extra $30 premium a barrel and, of course, satisfying all those Chinese investors. BCers will be even more confused about why they have to absorb the environmental risks so that their neighbor can get rich.

This is also why the provincial NDP’s formal opposition to the pipeline is clever. While it cites environmental concerns and does use tough language it does not draw a hard line in the sand. Rather, it concludes “that the risks of this project (the Northern Gateway Pipeline) far outweigh its benefits.” Implicit in this statement is that if the benefits were to increase – if say, Alberta were to pay a percentage of the royalties to BC – then their position could change as well. In other words – you want us to accommodate your language politics in our province? We may so “no” anyway, but if we say yes… it is going to cost you.

All of this is further complicated by the fact that Alberta’s history of playing well with other provinces on issues of national interest is not… spectacular (remember the Alberta firewall?). Alberta has often wanted to go it alone – that is, indeed, part of its brand. I suspect most of the rest of the country has neither the inclination nor the care to stop them, just like they didn’t with Quebec. But that doesn’t mean they are going to get a helping hand either.