Alberta Approves Suncor #Tailings Plan Despite Reliance on ‘Unproven Technology’ https://www.desmog.ca/2017/10/27/alberta-approves-suncor-tailings-plan-despite-reliance-unproven-technology …#oilsands@james_m_wilt
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Alberta Approves Suncor Tailings Plan Despite Reliance on ‘Unproven Technology’
Alberta Approves Suncor Tailings Plan Despite Reliance on ‘Unproven Technology’
The Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) has approved a tailings management plan from oilsands giant Suncor, despite the plan relying on “newly patented, unproven technology” that will require decades of monitoring.
Wednesday’s decision came only six months after the AER rejected Suncor’s proposed plan for the same project because it relied on unproven technology and a 70-year timeline for reclamation. The regulator only later agreed to re-review the plan.
So what changed? Uh, nothing.
“Suncor really hasn’t budged an inch in terms of actually changing anything,” said Jodi McNeill, policy analyst at the Pembina Institute, in an interview with DeSmog Canada.
Critics are also concerned that the approval will set the tone for the remaining seven tailings management plans: all of which depend on unproven technologies in some capacity.
“Suncor has been operating for 50 years: they shouldn’t be given another 15 years to monitor and confirm tailings treatments that may or may not work,” said Tzeporah Berman, former co-chair of the Alberta Oil Sands Advisory Group, in an interview with DeSmog Canada.
“It is not a matter of the AER asking for more details. It’s that oilsands companies should not continue to operate if they once again have shown they don’t know how to clean up the mess they make. They have other technologies they can use. They just don’t want to pay for them.”
Industry Has ‘Taken Advantage of Flexibility’ of Regulator
It’s been a long and windy road to get to this point.
Directive 085 was introduced by the AER in mid-2016 to replace the failed Directive 074, which was implemented in 2009 and saw every way company overshoot its respective tailing target without any consequence.
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Shares Of World’s Largest Miner Plunge To Seven-Year Low After Massive Toxic Mudslide Engulfs Brazilian Village
Shares Of World’s Largest Miner Plunge To Seven-Year Low After Massive Toxic Mudslide Engulfs Brazilian Village
Ok, so if you’re the world’s largest mining company, one thing you don’t want is a global deflationary supply glut brought on by depressed demand from China and a worldwide excess capacity problem.
Another thing you don’t want is for a tailings dam to burst, sending a river of toxic mud into a nearby village in South America.
Well, BHP Billiton is now dealing with both of those issues and the market is punishing the stock, which hit a seven-year low on Monday as analysts and investors alike attempt to figure out how the company intends to clean up a spectacular (in a bad way) mess in Minas Gerais.
Here’s what happened, in BHP’s words:
The Samarco operations include a three tiered tailings dam complex. Within this complex, the Fundão dam failed and the downstream Santarém dam has been affected. This resulted in a significant release of mine tailings, flooding the community of Bento Rodrigues and impacting other communities downstream. The third dam in the complex, the Germano dam, is being monitored by Samarco. At this time, there is no confirmation of the causes of the tailings release.
Samarco is jointly operated with Brazilian giant Vale and BHP has been keen to note that the joint venture is “responsible for the entirety” of the Minas Gerais operations. After the company’s operating license was revoked on Monday, its debt plunged, with some $2.2 billion in paper due 2022, 2023, and 2024 hitting record lows.
For those who might have missed it, the following images will tell you pretty much all you need to know about what happened:
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