Kitimat

Is David Black’s Kitimat Project Really Clean?

In today’s world where oil sand has become more ecofriendly than tar-sand, Canadian media magnate, David Black, has proposed to build a 550 000 barrel per day oil refinery in the coastal BC municipality of Kitimat. While claiming to be a cleaner, more environmentally responsible alternative to crude oil refinement, Black overlooks the fact that this project will inevitably increase the amount of bitumen coming out of the Alberta tar sands, which are famous to produce the world’s dirtiest oil. The extraction of bitumen in Alberta has long been known to be one of the most costly forms of fossil fuel recovery.

It is both energy intensive to extract and destroys the pristine boreal forest that much of the tar sands are located beneath. Fossil fuel consumption and the emission of greenhouse gases are some of the leading causes of climate change, which has been linked to more severe weather events, rising sea levels, and habitat loss. It is for these reasons that Greenpeace encourages David Black and all oil companies to stop the development of the tar sands and invest in the promotion of renewable, more sustainable forms of energy production.

(The project’s pipeline to transport crude oil from Alberta to the refinery in Kitimat is one of the biggest concerns of the activists. The chance of a probable leakage is considerable and can result in immediate and long term environmental damage lasting for decades after the spill occurs. The Little Buffalo incident in April 2011 resulted in leakage of almost 4.5 million liters of crude oil. Additionally, Red Deer River leakage released 2900 barrels into the central Alberta river system, Elk Point spill in June 2012 about 230,000 liters, Slave Lake incident in April 2014 with 70,000 liters and Red Earth Creek with about 60,000 liters in November 2014 are examples of 5 major oil spills in the last 5 years in Canada and that shows how dangerous and deadly those pipelines can be...