Canada's oil sands: The mark of a new ‘oil age’ or a potential threat to Arctic security?

Highlights

• Oil sands framed as a response to scarcity arguments are critiqued.

• Pipeline options are examined within the context of Canada's Arctic sovereignty.

• The divergent arguments of oil sands proponents and opposition groups are explored.

• The potential environmental and climate change impacts are examined.

• Wisdom of future resource exploitation utilising the Arctic is questioned.

Abstract

For more than a decade, nation states globally have been actively engaged in the exploration of unconventional fuel sources such as tight oil, shale gas and coal bed methane. As technology has developed over time, these newer sources of hydrocarbon, once thought economically nonviable, are now offering renewed hope for increased energy security. In Canada, while deposits of shale gas are in development, it is, however, the nation's oil sands that are proving most lucrative. Located in the province of Alberta, oil sands are being touted as the means to make Canada ‘an emerging energy superpower’. While this geopolitical posturing and plans for pipelines through Canada's Arctic North are being welcomed by some, others fear the heavy toll oil sands extraction will make on the environment. In addressing these arguments, this paper tells two stories: one of the development of oil sands through the lens of the peak oil/scarcity debate and the other, of the narratives being utilised by the Canadian government to create a nexus between nation building and securing its Arctic spaces. Both essentially suggest that it is the same factors regionally and globally that are pursuing an agenda where ‘liquid modernity’ has become a reality (Bauman, 2000).

Introduction

In 1999, the UK-based magazine, The Economist, claimed that the world was “drowning in oil” and was likely to remain so. Fast forward 15 years, however, and its March 2014 headline tells a very different story. It reads: “the North Sea – running on fumes”. This headline, like many others appearing over the last decade, suggest another, more troubling reality, one where rather than being awash with oil, many conventional oil supplies are in decline and oil scarcity in many parts of the world is becoming a very real scenario. This situation has increased concerns about long-term energy security globally and has prompted many nation states, particularly those with Arctic coastal boundaries, to start exploring options in this region for both onshore and off shore development of oil and gas reserves. This increased focus has also included plans for new and as yet untested transportation routes through Arctic waters to bring any future exploitation to market.

While the recent exploration operations of energy companies such as Royal Dutch Shell off the northern coast of Alaska in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas are well known, less well-known are the various plans and debates surrounding the extraction and transportation of Alberta's oil sands (Zalik, 2010, Sherval, 2013, Veltmeyer and Bowles, 2014). This paper therefore has two aims. The first is to provide a theoretical understanding of the oil sands industry in Canada by initially situating the research in the literature on scarcity. From here, the paper seeks to show how by framing the development of oil sands through these means, the Government of Canada has also been able to translate the idea of energy insecurity into a discussion about Arctic sovereignty and national development.

The second aim of the paper is to provide a brief analysis of the diverse debates associated with this unique and highly controversial form of extraction. By examining the central arguments of opposition groups, the government and industry bodies, the paper seeks to highlight the different ways through which arguments for and against the extraction and transportation of this resource are being framed. Likewise, through an evaluation of two of the pipeline options the Government of Canada is considering for transportation of the resource, as well as an appraisal of the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that could be released by these forms of delivery, it is hoped that a more coherent approach to this issue might be offered. Currently, most debates focus on the binary between project approval or lost economic opportunity rather than broadening the debate to include the long-term implications of policy decisions concerning the associated issues of increased environmental risk, community concerns and the ongoing security of Arctic spaces more generally (Palen et al., 2014, Shum, 2013).

The paper concludes on a cautionary note, suggesting that once the lines between energy security and national sovereignty are blurred, the greater the need for strict environmental standards to be in place. With the composition and geography of tomorrow's oil being dramatically different to the ‘black gold’ of the past, and given that the high Arctic is being visualised as the next hydrocarbon frontier, how its resources and fragile ecosystems are managed will essentially determine the future of the region. Whether it is merely to serve as a stop-gap to final depletion or as a testament to careful planning, human ingenuity and long-term balanced decision making fundamentally rests upon an enduring will to lead judiciously and the desire for an equitable collective energy future.