TransCanada has filed with the National Energy Board an amended application for the 1.1 million barrels per day Energy East pipeline.
The Canadian Press reports, “Environmental groups were quick to dismiss TransCanada’s updated plans, saying the pipeline that would transport carbon-intensive oilsands crude could not be built now that the Trudeau government has committed to a climate plan that combats global warming. ‘The climate math for building Energy East doesn’t add up’, said Andrea Harden-Donahue of the Council of Canadians.”
That’s because the Energy East pipeline would produce at least 32 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions and allow for a 40 per cent expansion of the Alberta tar sands. Researchers at University College London have concluded that 85 per cent of the tar sands would have to be left in the ground to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius. That study specified that no more than 7.5 billion barrels of oil from the tar sands can be produced over the next 35 years. The proposed Energy East pipeline alone would exceed that carbon budget within about 19 years. A 1.5 degrees Celsius target would mean even fewer barrels of oil could be extracted from the tar sands and shipped via Energy East.
The news report adds, “The group is one of 100 that has asked the federal government to halt pipeline reviews until it assesses the review process.” We have stated, “The Liberal government promised to reform the broken National Energy Board process for reviewing pipelines, including those already under review. Yet Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr recently commented in a Globe and Mail article that Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain expansion and TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline projects will not stop while changes are made. To add your voice to the demand that the pipeline reviews be halted, please click here.
There are some significant implications to the revised application that had previously been signaled. On Dec. 6, Harden-Donahue wrote, “As revealed during a recent community liaison committee with TransCanada (these committee meetings are not open to the public, a source of much criticism) TransCanada plans to double the oil storage capacity at the same Red Head location from 7.6 million barrels to 13.2 million barrels. The tanks themselves will increase in number from 18 to 22, with the new tanks holding 600,000 barrels each, at the height of a 6 story building.”
And the Canadian Press highlights, “The Conservation Council of New Brunswick expressed concern that the revised plan would mean increased tanker traffic through the Bay of Fundy and along the East Coast and would increase the risk of oil spills along the route.” Their media release specifies, “TransCanada’s revised Energy East pipeline application filed today would more than double the number of oil tankers carrying tar sands oil through the Bay of Fundy and down the coast of the United States from 115 to more than 280 per year. Meanwhile, more than 75 per cent of the total pipeline capacity – or more than 800,000 barrels per day – would be exported out of one marine terminal, in Saint John.”
In its media release announcing its application, TransCanada stated that the revisions in its application were “based on extensive landowner, environmental, community and customer input”. And they note, “Pipelines remain the safest and least greenhouse gas intensive way of transporting crude oil to market. The Energy East Pipeline will have the capacity to displace the equivalent of 1,570 rail cars of crude oil per day to Eastern Canada.”
But communities continue to reject the pipeline and a recent report by Oil Change International highlights, “While rail will be used as a high cost backup for existing production, our cash-flow models show that the additional cost of shipping tar sands by rail can turn a typical tar sands project from a money maker to a loser (based on EIA [US Energy Information Administration] forecasts of oil prices). In almost all cases, development of new projects is therefore highly unlikely to be considered without secure pipeline capacity. Expanded rail transport cannot be considered a given either given growing public and political opposition.”
Once the National Energy Board deems TransCanada’s application complete, a 15-month deadline is set for the regulatory agency to make a recommendation on the pipeline to the federal cabinet. If the National Energy Board were to find the application complete, for instance, in February 2016, it would need make its recommendation on the pipeline by May 2017.
The company expects to have the pipeline in operation by 2020.
For more on our campaign to stop the Energy East pipeline, please click here.
