Big dumb oil

Author and journalist William
Marsden rips the Alberta tar sands
projects and the stupidity behind it

FULL SPEED AHEAD: Suncor’s Athabasca River upgrader

by CHRISTOPHER HAZOU

In recent weeks, debate over the environmental destruction caused by the extraction of oil from Alberta’s tar sands has intensified once again. This month’s issue of National Geographic magazine caused a stir with a multi-page spread depicting in disturbing detail the environmental impact of the tar sands, and the House of Commons environment committee announced this week that it will investigate the effect on fresh water resources.

William Marsden, the award-winning author and investigative journalist for The Gazette, raised the hackles of the oil industry back in 2007 with his expose of the oil sands, Stupid to the Last Drop: How Alberta Is Bringing Environmental Armageddon to Canada (And Doesn’t Seem to Care). The Mirror talked to Marsden in advance of a Wednesday, March 11, speaking engagement at Concordia.

Mirror: Your book has been out for almost a year and a half now—what kind of response have you had?

William Marsden: In Canada, we have this reputation for protecting the environment, which I’ve always contended was nothing more than a lie. Before the book came out, Canadians viewed the oil sands as this great endeavour, that it was a good thing in all its quarters, wealth, technology, ingenuity and all the rest of it. I took a completely different view, and I think it opened everyone’s eyes. Not that I was the first. There were organizations in Alberta that have been screaming about it for a long time, but nobody listened.

M: The Alberta government recently laid charges against Syncrude after 500 birds died in one of their tailings ponds. Do you think this will be a wake up call to the oil companies?

WM: There’s no question that the companies are becoming far more defensive than they ever were before. Before my book came out, they didn’t care. Then when things started to roll, and various organizations internationally and in the U.S. and Europe began to take up the charge and lobby their politicians to not accept this oil, it became a serious economic issue for them. But they’ve always looked at it from the same point of view: that it’s a PR problem. They don’t understand that the fundamentals of this whole project are wrong. You can’t get the oil out with present-day technology without tremendous destruction, which is unacceptable. The footprint is just too big.

Where to, now?

M: With tar sands oil becoming less attractive to the Americans because of environmental concerns, do you see China becoming a bigger player?

WM: It could, but you need a pipeline to go from Alberta across the mountains to Prince Rupert [on the B.C. coast]. One of the major pipeline companies wants to build it, but I read recently that they’ve decided not to for the moment because the costs are so high and they can’t get the banks to fork out the money. You now have about $99-billion worth of future investment that’s been cancelled or delayed in the tar sands because of the current economic situation.

M: And do you think that might be the saving grace, if it’s economically unviable to produce the stuff?

WM: That will be a saving grace for the moment, there’s no question about it. But we have to look at the long term and we also have to deal with the situation as it exists. Companies like Syncrude, Shell and Suncor are still churning the stuff out like mad because they can still make money when oil is in the $15–$25 per barrel. They’re pumping CO2 into the air like there’s no tomorrow and expanding the oil sands and the tailings ponds.

M: Your book is titled Stupid to the Last Drop. Is it stupidity or is it greed, or both?

WM: It’s a combination of greed, hubris [and] absolute stupidity. But in the end, it comes down to stupidity, because the facts are all there. You just have to go and look at the oil sands to see what’s happening. They’ve essentially surrendered the province to the oil companies and, in the end, even the financial aspect of it doesn’t make any sense. Alberta is now at the point where it’s going to go into a deficit budget. They’re in a situation where the oil boom in the sands could very well be over and they look at their coffers and they find out that they’ve spent all the money. What do they have to show for the last 10 years of growth and expansion and billions upon billions of dollars in investment? Nothing.

WILLIAM MARSDEN SPEAKS AT
CONCORDIA’S HALL BUILDING (1455
DE MAISONNEUVE W., ROOM 1220), ON
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11, 7 P.M., FREE.
FOR MORE INFO, CALL (514)-846-0644
OR E-MAIL
NADIA.ALEXAN@SYMPATICO.CA