Decarbonized oil is magical thinking

Hmm. As Prime Minister Carney tries to square the circle and get all the provincial premiers pulling in the same direction, one phrase keeps recurring that gives me, at best pause for thought, at worst the heebie-jeebies. That phrase is "decarbonized oil". 

Carney talks a good Western Canadian game when he assures everyone that he is in favour of new oil pipelines to get Alberta and Saskatchewan oil "to tidewater", as the current idiom has it. But this is not just any old oil, this is "decarbonized oil", according to Carney. Even hardliner Danielle Smith seems on board with the idea, which she calls the "grand bargain".

Well, that's OK, then: if the oil is decarbonized who could possibly complain? But, wait, "decarbonized oil"? Is that a thing?

Actually, no, there is no such thing as decarbonized oil, it turns out. Oil executives even talk about "taking the carbon out of the barrel", as though such a magical thing were possible. It's not. Not is there any likelihood of such a thing occurring the foreseeable future.

What Carney and Smith appear to be talking about is Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS, or more commonly, just CCS). So, the oil being produced, sold and used, either here or abroad, is not decarbonized at all. But, they argue, if at the same time we are able to scrub carbon out the production porcess, even out of the very air, and maybe even use it in other industrial processes, then it's as good as the same thing, right?

Unfortunately, CCS is not a thing either, despite what Pathways Alliance's advertising campaigns suggest. Currently, CCS captures just 0.5% of Canada's national emissions. And, even it were to be ramped up, the cost of scaling it up to such a level that it matched the carbon burden of our oil production would be astronomical. 

And this is to say nothing of the carbon emissions resulting from the subsequent  burning of that oil and gas (downstream emissions make up as much as 80% of oil and gas' overall emissions).

So, this is is some sleight of hand, then. To call it disingenuous is much too merciful. This is deception, mendacity. Mark Carney, once a committed environmentalist - or so he seemed - should be ashamed. I'm not saying that he shouldn't have been elected (the alternative was too horrible to contemplate).

I know he's stuck between a rock (Newfoundland) and a hard place (Alberta). And I know that he needs to respond to all the crap that's coming from the Orange Menace in the USA (although we don't have to emulate it). But, really, it's disappointing. At a time when the rest of the world is following the money into clean energy investment, Canada has to follow Alberta and the USA into the 20th century backwaters of fossil fuels.