The only “blow to the Keystone pipeline” is in the exaggerated reporting of the science…
The “report” (Kurek et al., 2013) did find slight elevations (relative to 1950) of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) in five lakes in the vicinity of the Fort McMurray, near oil sand mining and upgrading operations in NE Alberta. The PAH flux trends in four of the lakes were unremarkable compared to the control (Namur Lake). One lake (NE20) exhibited PAH levels similar to urban and agricultural areas. The other four lakes were very similar to remote lakes in the Canadian Rockies and boreal forests.
This is Figure 1 from Kurek et al., 2013…
The lakes around Fort McMurray clearly do exhibit some increase in PAH flux since 1950. The winds in the area are generally southerly. So, it makes sense that SW22 and SE22 exhibit the least increase in PAH flux; while NE13 and NE20 exhibit the greatest increase. However, apart from NE20, the PAH fluxes aren’t remarkable when compared to Lake Namur. There does seem to be some evidence of minor wind-driven pollution in the lakes to the north of site AR6.
The supplemental information included a comparison table of PAH levels in the study area and in distant urban and remote settings. I transcribed those data to Excel in order to put the oil sands pollution into perspective.
Three of the four oil sands sites had lower PAH concentrations than Namur Lake. Only one of the sites (NE20) was comparable to lakes in urban and agriculturally developed areas.
I noticed that two of the remote, boreal forest sites (PAD 18) had maximum PAH fluxes in 1758 and 1810. So I plotted the PAH concentrations and fluxes against the year in which the maximum flux occurred.
This clearly demonstrates that the PAH “pollution” associated with oil sands development is insignificant. The PAH concentrations in most of lakes in the study area are unremarkable when compared to remote lakes in the boreal forest in the 18th and 19th century and are more similar to modern remote lakes than they are to urban and agriculturally developed areas.
Reference
Joshua Kurek, Jane L. Kirk, Derek C. G. Muir, Xiaowa Wang, Marlene S. Evans, and John P. Smol. Legacy of a half century of Athabasca oil sands development recorded by lake ecosystems. PNAS 2013 ; published ahead of print January 7, 2013, doi:10.1073/pnas.1217675110
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Aren’t PAH the stuff that makes BBQ taste so good?
(That they keep warning us about being evil ’cause it’s cooked critters…)
So is there a latin term for the logical fallacy of attributing far too much importance to trace quantities of materials? If it isn’t trace amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere it’s trace amounts of hydrocarbons. As I understand it the “aromatic” part is an indication of the volatility of these substances.
Again I mention: as someone who has flown over that region many, many times, I can assure you that the whole area is filled with lakes and streams that glisten with the characteristic rainbow sheen that indicates oil, and that is the NATURAL state of the entire area. Humans are cleaning it up, not creating a disaster. I want my grandchildren and their descendants to be able to enjoy hunting, fishing and camping there, something that is highly unlikely with the area’s natural state.
Earlier today there was also a report stating that because British Columbia has earthquakes, any pipeline built across it will be unsafe… this is still more of the concerted effort to shut down or cripple Oilsands development.
@CodeTech:
Aromatic means, roughly, benzene ring.
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ous&q=aromatic+hydrocarbon
They are named for the fact that most of them have interesting smells. (Many flavor compounds are aromatics. Some aromatics are carcinogens.)
Bar charts should never be plotted against logarithmic axes! It is a visual deception.
@ur momisugly E.M.Smith January 11, 2013 at 12:12 am
Funny, as I read, my first thought was that’s what you get when you grill steaks.
I’d love to see the amount of aromatics in the lakes around Dallas, considering all the powerboats on them. A fishermen here wouldn’t be seen dead in his bass-boat if he couldn’t give a cigarette boat a run for the money.
When you have the world’s largest oil/tar deposit outcropping on surface, everywhere nearby is going to be polluted with hydrocarbons. There is absolutely nothing you can do about it.
The ecoloons might try curing the ‘problem’ by legislating against nature and giving it a large fine, that might help.
As with so much in the environment and climate, it is the degree of the scare which matters, facts are only there to be manipulated/distorted. Such is the inevitable result of the grant addiction of second and third rate ‘scientists’.
The report states that the PAH levels are increasing, but still mostly less than the levels found in urban areas.
Ft Mac has a population of near 100,000. How much of the increased PAH is due to autos and home heating, especially home heating with wood?
Smith must be referring to dioxins which are normally formed during combustion between 400 to 700 C such as forest fires and of course barbecues. Talking about poisons in food there has been a recent article on a 280 kg tuna that was sold in Japan for 1.8 million dollars or roughly $6,000 per kilo. For tuna of this size I am just wondering on the mercury concentration in the fish tissue. It is the same story with PAH. A large number of organic chemicals were originally synthesized from coal tar PAH and sprayed with gusto as perfume. Gasoline contains high concentration of PAH and in fact in some countries gasoline is called benzene because benzene has a very high octane number and was a desirable component in the fuel. although aromatics in fuels are now controlled there is a limit to the extent that the PAH could be cracked to simpler compounds and removed from the fuel. Fugitive PAH from evaporation in fuel tank breathers, service stations and partial fuel combustion would account for some of the urban PAH.
Anyone might think that CSM had some motivation to put a particular slant on the evidence. They weren’t present at 28gate were they?
I like this from the article:
“”If burned, tar sands spells ‘game over’ for a livable climate and would harm community drinking water and farmers’ livelihoods across the region,” reads the website of Tar Sands Blockade, the group behind Monday’s protests.”
So – not only would the burning of the Tar sand hydrocarbons make the climate (of the Earth) “unlivable” (meaning we would all die) – but even worse, it would harm the livelihoods of the farmers “across the region”?
That’s shocking. I mean, I could live with a wholesale end of the world, but a diminished income for some Canadian farmers, Oh Noes. /sarc
Production from the north slope was delayed for 3-4 years by the opposition of environmental groups, which hindered the completion of the Alyeska Pipeline (the discovery was in 1968 and production was delayed until 1978). When production reached full stream in 1981 at 2MM bbl/day, the price of oil started to slide and the US enjoyed a run of prosperity until the end of the century.
Estimates of the amount of crude oil contained in the Athabasca Tar Sands reach as high as two trillion (trillion!) bbl. The Greens recognize the importance of this to the prosperity of North America, and can be expected to mount a huge campaign to prevent its development. Obama understands all of this, but he is naturally loath to alienate his supporters.
mpainter
One of the left wing writers pointed out a few months ago in an article complaining about a purported lie by a right wing writer that the right winger just made something up. It was pointed out that the left always has at least some fact, some where, no matter how distant, to base their positions. And when there are simply no fact, then caution is used (the old precautionary principle).
This report is exactly what the left wing writer described. This study has actual published data. Experts disagree. Precaution will prevail. Obama will almost certainly not act on the pipeline but use this study to toss it back to the EPA for further scientific analysis before he makes his decision. The EPA will then kill the pipeline project for him. Thus, he votes “present”, escapes making his own decision and has others do the heavy lifting along with him making another speech about protecting the environment as the experts recommend, etc.
Anyone not familar with politics should now recognize the delay means “go find some thing that scares people”. As the left wing writer pointed out, just a shard, no matter how distant.
Stephen Rasey says:
January 11, 2013 at 12:42 am
Bar charts should never be plotted against logarithmic axes! It is a visual deception.
============================
And should be rejected at first sight because of that. To do so is to fish for suckers.
David Middleton take note, please.
The Christian Science Montitor likely doesn’t want people to notice “Global Warming” is leading to a big chill in Russia and China, and snow in Jerusalum.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57563258/rare-snow-shuts-down-jerusalem/
If one Ckicken-Little panic hasn’t worked out, start another.
If the oil in the sands is bad,would it not be better to remove
it and send it some where else?
The picture is a nice touch.
Smith is broadly correct.
In organic (carbon) chemistry “aromaticity” has a well defined meaning associated with benzene-type ring compounds (historically named so because of the smell). And the poly- simply means more than one ring fused together like a sub-structure of a honeycomb. Naphthalene is one of the simplest PAH’s.
Just because a PAH can be detected in the environment, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it is harmful or that it’s presence is due to human influence.
Seems to be a random selection of lakes to get a time line. That would suggest that they don’t have a lot of data for the tar sands lakes, but felt pressed to draw a conclusion. I have to admit, I’m not smart enough to understand the bar charts. I always thought that when you made your presentations so they weren’t readily understandable, you very likely didn’t have a good argument.
This is typical MSM (in this case CSM) liberal garbage reporting…
What Alfred said, If there was no practical use for the oil sands, David Suzuki would campaign to have the contaminated soil removed cleaned, perhaps by incineration.
michael hart says:
January 11, 2013 at 4:05 am
Smith is broadly correct….
Just because a PAH can be detected in the environment, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it is harmful or that it’s presence is due to human influence.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Hydro-carbons and Aromatic-hydro-carbons all occur in nature, heck you can find styrene (precursor of polystyrene) in cinnamon!
So what is that benzoin found in the styrax trees? Sounds interesting.
So Benzoin is technically a naturally occurring PAH (poly-Aromatic-hydrocarbon) since it has two benzene rings.
Lets follow Benzoin (oil) a bit further.
Amazing stuff isn’t it? But that is just as long as it is ‘natural’ and not a ‘chemical’
As a chemist, I consider the only thing not a chemical to be a vacuum or energy, but just try to tell the vacuum-heads that.
Bob says
January 11, 2013 at 4:14 am
” tar sands…………….”
Please Bob, they are “oil” sands not ‘tar’ sands.
The word “tar” to describe these natural bitumen deposits is really a misnomer, since, chemically speaking, tar is a human-made substance produced by the destructive distillation of organic material, usually coal, or earlier from pine. Pine tar was used to waterproof the wooden ships hence the sailors were called Tars.
Thanks.
The CAGW crowd likes to call them “tar” sands because it sounds bad and dirty.
Fantastic news if you both recognize the need for energy and like beautiful Candian lakes. Maybe in the long run, removing all those nasty hydrocarbons should be considered an improvement on excellence?
The oil sands are an oil reservoir EXPOSED at the SURFACE! There has been all kinds of stuff about protecting the delicate ecology of the Athabaska tar sands region (to block development) – yes nature seems to be able to deal with petroleum in its environment. I think they should sell the projects as an natural oil spill clean-up program.
The term “Tar Sands” is considered derogatory. Even the CBC and The Vancouver Sun uses “”Oil Sands”. I will stop reading any article or comment that uses Tar Sands, as this is an immediate clue that the author is a biased greenie or lefty usually.
Note that Willis used Tar Sands in an recent article. Obviously he is not as well informed on this specific topic of word usage.