Commentary - Alberta seeks ways to clear the air in L.A.

Having recently returned from 10 days in sunny California, I am still in awe at the haze that passes for air in Los Angeles. Awe is one term, stunned is another.

I was left cynically chuckling after talking to a local who was truly miffed by my observation. “Well, it's much better than what it was,” she huffed in response while her husband, an IT professional working in Silicon Valley, nodded his approval.The reason I even mention my SoCal sojourn is to put in light the recent trip federal and Alberta government delegates took to California mid-July. This, I gather, was a circling of the wagons and to ensure its influential environmental regulator has all the facts about the oil sands before it moves forward with a low-carbon fuel standard that could discourage Canadian oil imports.

The delegation consisted of officials from the federal departments of natural resources and the environment, and from Alberta's department of energy and intergovernmental affairs. The concern was to learn about possible implications with the California Air Resources Board's new fuel rules. The rules are part of a sweeping climate change action plan unveiled by the state in early July.

In a nutshell, the new laws require fuel distributors to sell higher and higher quantities of low-carbon fuels, discouraging them to purchase Canadian oil from the Alberta oil sands. Canadian oil sands producers would have to account for the greenhouse-gas emissions they are responsible for before selling into the California market. A very convoluted formula.

Obviously something has to be done in Los Angeles to clear the air. Bob McManus, an Alberta Energy spokesman, said following the trip "there are a whole host of questions that need to be answered. What is the methodology to calculate the carbon content of the fuel - is it just production, or is it production, refining and transportation to market?

"There are a lot of things that go into what is or what isn't a low-carbon fuel, so we need clarification on all those."

Recently Alberta has made a $2-billion commitment in carbon capture and storage that California hopefully takes into account. Alberta's commitment, funded by an ever burgeoning budget surplus due to high energy prices, is the largest made by any government to sequester carbon. The Alberta government is helping push the technological envelope.

McManus said, "we are going to be able to show that oil from Alberta is competitive from an environmental aspect with oil from anywhere in the world. We are pretty confident that when you come down to the facts and figures and the science, that we are going to be OK".

The fear of “dirty oil” from Alberta's oil sands has to be explained away at every juncture. The truth is not pretty, but progress is being made. That's something tangible - like L.A.'s dirty air: it's still there, it's still dirty, but it's getting better.

California's low-carbon fuel standard has not yet been completed, but it has been earmarked for early action under the plan and targeted for implementation by the end of this year.

Mickey Dumont is the editor in chief of Oil & Gas Technology. He can be reached at: editorial@ogtnews.com