Current Alberta's GHG is almost 240 MT/year or about 60 tonnes/per capita/year. It is almost 3 times Canada's average and one of the world's highest.

Reducing GHG to 200 MT/year by 2050 or to about 40 tones/per capita/year may look good but it still would be about 4 times Canada's forcasted average.

Going from 3 times Canada's average to 4 times Canada's average by 2050 is not a very good GHG reduction plan. It is a very bad plan.

A meaningful minimum plan for Alberta would reduce GHG from 240 MT to 100 MT or less by 2050. That would still represent about 20 tonnes/per capita/year or slightly below current USA average.

Yeah, Alberta's plan is complete smoke and mirrors, as it depends on the promise of unproven "clean coal" technology. It's a 50% cut on future projections, not on current emissions. It's only a 14% cut on current levels, which are far higher than the 1990 levels that Kyoto is based on. So in fact, it's a non-cut. Additionally, when clean coal fails, they'll just say 'oops' and keep on with business as usual. As Harvey D noted, 40 tonnes per capita is far higher than the global ration of ~1.2 tonnes per capita that we need to get to.

So Alberta is telling the rest of the country that they get to keep all the money and get rich without changing anything and the rest of us will have to make all the cuts.

More details:

One barrel of oil extracted from Alberta tar sands produces about 76 Kg of GHG and uses 4 barrels of fresh water.

By 2015, one billion barrels/year will produce 76 MT of related GHG. Ten years latter, when extraction goes up to 2 billion barrels/year, related GHG may be as high 150 MT/year and the Atabascan River** will be dry, if the method is not improved.

** Could become the Chemical River, from run-offs from expanding tar sands chemical pounds.

There must be a better way to do it. Otherwise, Alberta's total GHG could reach 100 tonnes/per capita/per year by 2030. That could be 6 to 7 times the average for the Rest of Canada (ROC) and the USA.

Let's hope that Raytheon ++ will tweak the microwave underground technology before its too late.

Current Alberta's GHG is almost 240 MT/year or about 60 tonnes/per capita/year. It is almost 3 times Canada's average and one of the world's highest.

It remains to be seen if THAI will cut natural gas demand in the tar-sands developments. It may also be that supercritical CO2 can be used as a diluent for pipeline transport of the product. If that is the case, the carbon emissions could wind up debited against someone else's account, or even zeroed out via sequestration during tertiary oil recovery.

Reality Czech:

It would be cool to ship some of the CO2 + unwanted used chemicals with the Oil (to the end users). If we do, the border would close quickly enough. However, the prevalent wind may do almost the same job most of the time.

Seriously, heating that stuff underground with high energy microwaves and replacing it with CO2 from other sources could solve the problem, if the energy used is non-polluting.

Half a dozen up-to-date nuclear power plants may be required for increased Oil production.

OTOH, how are we (or others) going to burn all that oil without creating more and more GHG? Non-polluting oil burning machines are a very rare commodity.

"Exported" CO2 could stop anywhere there is an oil field; Weyburn may be able to use it. The problem is that removing diluent before a refinery requires adding another diluent.

Burning the oil creates CO2, true. But I do not see any way to cut oil consumption as fast as net global exports are likely to decrease, which makes the likely alternative worse. High prices will push consumption down over the longer term. If the CO2 from the production and refining winds up underground, then the net emissions will be about as good as we could hope for.

I prefer this take on this issue:

Alberta Climate Change Plan: Triple Oil Production; Do Nothing; Blame Consumers

_

An oil company telling you what they will do over a decade from now, much less half a century from now isn't something you should give much credence towards.

This is one factor that lots of people seem to miss in the discussion over ethanol and biofuels. It is probably true that corn based ethanol has very questionable GHW abatement benefits when compared to "average" life cycle emissions for gasoline. However, if the marginal gallon of gas being produced is going to come from oil sands and oil shale, even corn ethanol probably starts to look quite environmentally friendly in comparison.

Americans need to start facing up to the true costs of our lifestyles, which include emissions from Canadian oil sands production and emissions from Chinese coal plants used to produce the cheap exports we're used to.

We will have to, or at least should, make some tough decisions very quickly. It may entail even environmentalists accepting that losses in certain areas may be better than greater losses elsewhere. Perhaps we will have to accept conventional oil extraction in ecologically sensitive U.S. areas to avoid far more damaging non-conventional oil. Perhaps we will have to accept and manage the risks of nuclear power. Perhaps environmentalists will wake up to the need for a grand bargain that will set us on a new and better course. Certainly it's looking like we're currently progressing down one of the most dangerous paths possible.

GreyFlcn:

Is it possible the Alberta government + local Oil firms + Big Three car manufacturers have decided to blame the end users (us) for the massive pollution from gas guzzlers and tar sand operations.

They sound a lot like the tobacco firms claiming that smokers had the final choice after they hooked them for years with 20+ overdoses of nicotine every day.

We could react by buying millions of Chinese and Indian built PHEVs and BEVs. We have done it with TVs, PCs, Camera's, Telephones, Music systems, etc,. Why not with non-fuel future vehicles.

GreyFlcn:

Is it possible the Alberta government + local Oil firms + Big Three car manufacturers have decided to blame the end users (us) for the massive pollution from gas guzzlers and tar sand operations.

They sound a lot like the tobacco firms claiming that smokers had the final choice after they hooked them for years with 20+ overdoses of nicotine every day.

We could react by buying millions of Chinese and Indian built PHEVs and BEVs. We have done it with TVs, PCs, Camera's, Telephones, Music systems, etc,. Why not with non-fuel future vehicles.

Harvey has the plan.

Oil sands oil is the most expensive, CO2 intensive oil currently in production, and if global demand can be curbed via efficiency and alternate-propulsion vehicles, then it will be the first production to be halted.

The US has the ability to reduce demand faster than the oil producers can conveniently cut production. We did it in the late 70's and early 80's, and we can do it again. Let's get busy.

rob;

If USA managed to reduce oil consumption in the 70s and 80s it could do much better in the 10s and 20s with many (100+) million PHEVs and BEVs.

With solar PV price going from $4/Watt to less than $1/Watt and affordable ESSUs coming soon, many (25+) million homes could have their own power supplies for their resisdence and vehicles. Homes built in very sunny places could sell surpluses to the grid and get higher prices during peak consumption periods.

Long term free CLEAN energy for your home and vehicles will become possible with a $15K to $25K investment or equivalent to the cost of the second or third garage.

Alternatively, clean energy government guaranteed very low interest loans could make that possible much quicker than we think. The savings from oil-gaz-fuel-gasoline-electricity would refund this type of loan over 10 to 15 years and much sooner in many places.

And no more CO2 from your home and vehicles...

If well managed, this new e-economy could pull USA out of the current recession very quickly, put an end to future Oil Wars and reduce GHG & trade deficits considerably.

PS: A much higher tax on fossil fuels could finance part of the e-economy home loans.

The problem remains, most consumers will go for the cheapest option, there is no sign on any bowser or bottle that says "this is dirty" or 'I am clean' so the consumer will mostly not have a 'real choice'
When dealing with any group we need to remember that the owest common denominator is more realistic and idealism hurts . Some of us have a better pain threshold than others, but its rare for us to want to be disadvantaged for the cause.

arnold:

The initial price differential could be fixed (in favour of PHEVs and BEVs) with up to $10K bonus for green vehicles and up to $10K energy-carbon tax on ICE gas guzzlers.

Of course, application would have to be progressively applied not to (over) upset the car market in the first 3 to 5 years. The local car manufacturers would adapt quickly enough (within 5 years) if them want to survive. If not, others would gladly do.

I believe that France is going to apply similar bonus/tax approach very shortly. Many other countries will follow.