Oil Sands and the Environment

It’s thick and sticky like peanut butter and there’s lots of it. Please don’t call it “dirty oil” (crude is never clean), but fuels derived from Canada’s tar sands do produce more greenhouse gas than conventional forms of gasoline and heating oil. Called “oil sands” by petroleum executives and “bitumen” by geologists, it’s the stuff that TransCanada has been pushing to send through its proposed Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta to the U.S.’s Gulf Coast refineries. To the dismay of environmentalists, after eight years of political haggling it's getting its chance. U.S. President Donald Trump has approved a permit for Keystone, a project that his predecessor, Barack Obama, had rejected in 2015 after a long and angry debate. But however potent Keystone XL has been as a symbol in the struggle over climate change, expanding use of trains and competing pipelines has made it less important to oil companies.

Days after taking office in January, Trump announced actions to move the pipeline forward. He said he would require that the pipes needed for the project are built in the U.S., although the White House later said that buy-American rules wouldn't apply since the project had already begun. TransCanada has also reapplied for approval in Nebraska, a state that created legal hurdles for the company during the initial project review. Canada's prime minister, Justin Trudeau, a Liberal elected in 2015, favors construction of new pipelines — including Keystone XL — but has also taken steps to do more on climate issues, in the hope of winning over oil sands and pipeline opponents. Three Canadian pipeline proposals remain under consideration, two to the Pacific and one to the Atlantic. The biggest factor in the industry’s future, however, may be the price of oil, whose drop has led many international oil companies to write down their Canadian reserves or sell their holdings to Canadian firms.