BP shareholders defeat oilsands resolution

BP shareholders overwhelmingly rejected a resolution that would have required the company to report on the environmental, financial and reputational risks of developing Canadian oilsands projects. The resolution was rejected by 85 percent of shareholders voting.
BP was one of four major oil companies involved in oilsands extraction targeted for such shareholder resolutions. The other three, Shell, ConocoPhillips, and ExxonMobil, have their shareholder meetings in May.
Besides being more expensive to extract, crude oil derived from oil sands, also known as tar sands, emits 20 percent more CO2 over its life cycle than oil from conventional sources.
However, the rising price of oil, combined with the prospect of a major new source in a friendly, stable nation, makes such development attractive, and Canada’s tar sands contain the second largest crude oil reserves in the world after Saudi Arabia.

NRDC questions State Dept.’s early release of DEIS for Keystone XL

WASHINGTON - Senior Attorney Susan Casey-Lefkowitz of the Natural Resources Defense Council wrote on her Blog on April 9 “the State Department (on April 9) made available on its webpage its draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) for the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. The DEIS is oddly dated one week from now and it seems as though no Federal Register notice has been published. We can only hope that its premature release is a trial balloon and that initial reaction will be considered before the real publication occurs.”
NRDC contends that State should have waited for completion of a new White House guidance on incorporating greenhouse gas emissions impacts into environmental impact statements. And, State should have been taking a hard look at whether Keystone XL is in the national interest before investing in a draft EIS.
Keystone XL is a target of environmental groups because it will double the amount of tar sands oil currently being piped into the United States – of what will be bitumen, not syncrude. Much of the tar sands oil received in the U.S. is already refined to a synthetic crude, more like common oil. Bringing in the raw bitumen in the new pipeline means that the upgrading and refining has to take place in the United States, resulting in increased emissions of greenhouse gases, heavy metals, and other pollutants, say the environmentalists.

Report says pipelines in Canada’s permafrost at risk from global warming

OTTAWA - Roads, pipelines, buildings and other infrastructure in the Canadian North are not prepared for the stresses of climate change, a report released on Nov. 26 says.
The National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy study of how the Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut would fare in a rapidly warming world, paints a stark picture of the challenges facing the Arctic.
"Energy pipelines built over permafrost terrain could be at risk of rupture and leakage if design and maintenance protocols do not account for the potential for permafrost thawing," the report said.
The changes in permafrost, which include sudden shifts in the ground, will make pipeline construction more complicated.
This could have implications for the planned C$16.2 billion, 760 mile Mackenzie Valley pipeline to ship gas from the Arctic to the western province of Alberta.
The main partners in the project include Imperial Oil Ltd, Royal Dutch Shell, ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil Corp.
The report goes on to say northern communities, which are often connected to the rest of Canada by a single road or airport, face skyrocketing costs, because as the ground thaws, there will be a "gradual loss of structural integrity" to infrastructure.