{"id":27351,"date":"2017-10-27T18:37:10","date_gmt":"2017-10-27T23:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=27351"},"modified":"2017-10-27T18:37:10","modified_gmt":"2017-10-27T23:37:10","slug":"alberta-approves-suncor-tailings-plan-despite-reliance-on-unproven-technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=27351","title":{"rendered":"Alberta Approves Suncor Tailings Plan Despite Reliance on \u2018Unproven Technology\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alberta Approves Suncor Tailings Plan Despite Reliance on \u2018Unproven Technology\u2019<\/a><\/h3>\n

The Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) has approved a tailings management plan<\/a> from oilsands giant Suncor, despite the plan relying on \u201cnewly patented, unproven technology\u201d that will require decades of\u00a0monitoring.<\/p>\n

Wednesday\u2019s decision came only six months after the AER rejected Suncor\u2019s proposed plan<\/a> 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\u00a0plan.<\/p>\n

So what changed? Uh,\u00a0nothing.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuncor really hasn\u2019t budged an inch in terms of actually changing anything,\u201d said Jodi McNeill, policy analyst at the Pembina Institute, in an interview with DeSmog\u00a0Canada.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0capacity.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuncor has been operating for 50 years: they shouldn\u2019t be given another 15 years to monitor and confirm tailings treatments that may or may not work,\u201d said Tzeporah Berman, former co-chair of the Alberta Oil Sands Advisory Group, in an interview with DeSmog\u00a0Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not a matter of the AER asking for more details. It\u2019s that oilsands companies should not continue to operate if they once again have shown they don\u2019t know how to clean up the mess they make. They have other technologies they can use. They just don’t want to pay for\u00a0them.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Alberta Approves Suncor #<\/span>Tailings<\/span><\/a> Plan Despite Reliance on \u2018Unproven Technology\u2019 https:\/\/www.<\/span>desmog.ca\/2017\/10\/27\/alberta-approves-suncor-tailings-plan-despite-reliance-unproven-technology\u00a0<\/span>\u2026<\/a>#<\/span>oilsands<\/span><\/a>@<\/span>james_m_wilt<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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Industry Has \u2018Taken Advantage of Flexibility\u2019 of\u00a0Regulator<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a long and windy road<\/a> to get to this\u00a0point.<\/p>\n

Directive 085 was introduced by the AER<\/span> 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.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alberta Approves Suncor Tailings Plan Despite Reliance on \u2018Unproven Technology\u2019 The Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) has approved a tailings management plan from oilsands giant Suncor, despite the plan relying on \u201cnewly patented, unproven technology\u201d that will require decades of\u00a0monitoring. Wednesday\u2019s decision came only six months after the AER rejected Suncor\u2019s proposed plan for the same […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1082,5317,13836,2341,10527,16738],"class_list":["post-27351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-alberta","tag-desmog-blog","tag-james-wilt","tag-suncor","tag-tailings-pond","tag-unproven-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27351"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27352,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27351\/revisions\/27352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}