Green light for the Bay du Nord project | Can we produce more oil and reduce GHG emissions?

Increase oil production while reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the country. This is the promise made by the government of Justin Trudeau to justify the approval of the Bay du Nord project, off the coast of Newfoundland. Is this a feasible option? Overview of the issue.

Eric-Pierre Champagne
The Press

“Ceiling is not increasing”

“When we say plateau, it is not increase. So, Mr. Guilbeault, why do you approve of Bay du Nord? Do you think it helps reduce emissions [de gaz à effet de serre] ? The question was posed by Bloc Québécois MP Mario Simard to Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault, who was testifying Wednesday before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Natural Resources. The meeting focused on capping greenhouse gas emissions from the oil and gas sector. In his response, the minister said that the Canada Energy Regulator predicts an increase in oil production in the country by 2030. “Despite this increase in production, what we have always said is that we’re going to tackle emissions. “The IPCC says [que] to meet the 1.5°C limit, countries need to reduce [leurs émissions] by 43% by 2030. Our target is -40 to -45%.”

So Canada will be able to reduce its global emissions while increasing its oil production?

In theory, it is quite possible. But as the saying goes, the devil is often in the details. As Minister Steven Guilbeault reminded us before the Natural Resources Committee, the IPCC methodology says [que] emissions are accounted for where the emissions occur. If it’s in the transport sector, the industrial sector…” In the case of oil, for example, they are counted at two specific times: during extraction and when it is burned. If the oil is extracted in Canada, the GHG emissions appear on the Canadian balance sheet. If this same oil is then exported, the resulting emissions are added to the official figures of the country where it is consumed. However, approximately 85% of GHG emissions occur when the oil is burned, recalls Caroline Brouillette, director of climate policies at the Action-Climate Network. “There is only one atmosphere where these GHGs go and it doesn’t care about borders. »

Where is the problem ? Canada also imports oil, so the reverse happens. Should it be balanced?

“Canada is a net exporter of oil,” recalls Normand Mousseau, professor at HEC Montreal and expert in energy issues. This means that the country exports more oil than it imports. In 2020, Canada imported $30.9 billion in oil and gas while exports totaled $86 billion. In 2019, Canadian exports generated 954 billion tonnes of GHG emissions abroad, a figure significantly higher than that of Canada that year, at 730 billion tonnes.

Will the oil extracted in Bay du Nord be less polluting, as claimed?

It all depends on what is taken into account in the calculation. This is also one of the main criticisms of environmental groups on this subject. “Producing so-called green or clean oil is a fantasy: it simply does not exist,” said Émile Boisseau-Bouvier, climate policy analyst at Équiterre. It is true, however, that extracting “conventional” oil like that of Bay du Nord is much less polluting than the oil sands, points out Normand Mousseau. “The oil sands are like tar. It has to be heated with natural gas to extract the oil. So it takes a lot of energy. According to estimates by the Norwegian company Equinor, which will operate Bay du Nord, each barrel of oil extracted will emit 8 kg of CO₂while the oil sands lead to emissions of 80 kg of CO₂ per barrel.

The federal government says it has imposed a “historic requirement for an oil and gas project to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050”. That’s good news, right?

This statement needs to be put into context. We are talking about carbon neutrality when the resource is extracted. And even then, Normand Mousseau doubts that this objective will ever be achieved. The costs of current carbon capture and storage technologies are very high, he says. “We don’t see how it can be economically viable, unless Canadians finance everything, and it could be very expensive. The other difficulty, according to Daniele Pinti, professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at UQAM, is that it is an operation in the open sea. machinery then runs on fossil fuels. »

Finally, could Canada still reduce its GHG emissions?

The short answer is yes. To find out, however, we will have to wait for the Canadian report on GHG emissions released each year. But Canada could indeed have a better record than in the past. But the ultimate benchmark for measuring the efforts of all countries in the fight against climate change is the concentration of CO₂ in the atmosphere, which does not care about the balance sheets of each nation. Unfortunately, this is only increasing year after year.