major increase in energy demand across the world

The last ten years have seen a major increase in energy demand across the world. As a result, exploration and exploitation of oil reserves have risen rapidly. The global energy projections indicate that the current rate of energy production cannot fully cater for the future energy needs if global population continues to increase and the use of energy continues to increase. As a result, most countries have embarked on exploring other alternative measures that can assist to address the energy challenge in future. The effects relating to various energy activities are topics that have triggered critical discussions regarding the environmental, ecological, economic, ethical and social effects.
The United Nations sustainable development uses an expression meet the needs of the present’ as an indication of the needed growth by the contemporary generation to sustain their living conditions while reducing social, ecological, economic and health implications. Broad industrial development is associated with critical effects on the stakeholders. It has an effect of altering the political and the cultural aspects. The levels of effects related to energy production are embedded on the size, traits of development the rate of production, the processes used as well as exploitation duration. Moreover, regulation standards play a critical role in determining the levels of implications. Whereas the first people to suffer from the effects are the surrounding communities businesses, there are developments that call for the universal attention. Canadian Oils Sands Projects raises key interest to the universal oil producers due to the size of the proven reserves. Besides, development scales, as well as the perceived effects to the environment, are of key interest to major oil stakeholders. This essay seeks to present debate and evaluation of social, economic, ecological and health effects. The work considers the impacts are emanating from the current activities in Canadian Oil Sands Projects that are of interest to the stakeholders. They include high levels of uncertainties as well as the persistence of effects.
Overview of Canadian Oil Sands Projects
The Canadian Oil Sands involves the unconsolidated composition of clay or sand, and other minerals, and water. The products extracted must undergo treatment before it is put to use by oil refineries to generate usable oil. In spite of the fact that oil sands are present in various parts of the globe with the inclusion of Colombia, Venezuela, United States, Russia and Canada, Canada has the largest deposits of oil sands. Besides, Canada has the most advanced technology that is incorporated into the production process. Despite the fact that Alberta is estimated to have 178 billion barrels of oil, the overall estimates of bitumen stand at 1.6 trillion barrels of oil. The highly advanced technology can be used to recover 178 barrels of oil. This oil is estimated to be sufficient for the Canadian demand for crude oil for the next 250 years (Poveda & Lipsett, 2014). Currently, the development in Canadian Oil Sands has been done in three regions that include; Athabasca, Cold Lake and Peace River. All these regions are located within Alberta province. Nonetheless, there will be an extension of development to Saskatchewan province. Surpassing the overall Canadian oil generation, Alberta’s current production volume is approximated at 1.7 million barrels. Due to the large reserves, the willingness to develop, openness and a stable political climate, Canada is expected to be in the fourth position among the world producer of oil by the year 2035.
The quick growth of oil sands has triggered a lot of concerns in various areas in the community. Despite the recognition of economic contributions associated with the development of oil sands, the environmental, social, ecological and health implications that may occur in each cycle of life should not be assumed by the communities that suffer direct effects. The Canadian Oil Sands Project has called for the international attention to analyze its effects. The point of analysis begins with an assessment of the prospects and finalizes with the process of reclamation that involve leaving the area of exploration and generation equally productive as it were before production and exploration activities were conducted. Other than the methods of generation used, the surface mining organizations involved in the proposed development goes through the same procedures of approval. The processes encompass consultations with members of the community and different researchers that must be conducted. Most of the implications are experienced in the recovery process, refining as well as upgrading process. The Canadian Oil Sands Project is valued at billions of dollars with expensive infrastructure for which activities, development as well as maintenance poses some effects to the uninhabited land including the local as well as the indigenous communities.
Sustainability of Canada’s Oil Sands Project
Before 1987, the World Commission on Environment and Development explained sustainable development as a critical tool that all projects should consider. The growth of sustainability tools has encountered unprecedented development as well as sustainable approaches. As a result, it has attracted the attention of the public and private sector. The Canadian government has incorporated the policies that uphold sustainable development. This has further been advanced to various programs and legislation (Giacchetta, Leporini & Marchetti, 2015). Nonetheless, local governments play a pivotal role in ensuring that the projects are developed in a manner that upholds sustainability. The Canadian Oil sands are non-renewable resources that pose a critical problem to exploration, extraction as well as generation. Stakeholders’ main challenge is to ensure that the current requirements of sustainable development are achieved without compromising the requirements of future generations. With the occurrence of social, ecological, economic and health complications during the development of oils sands project in Canada there is a need to develop in the appropriate path that focuses on the attainment of sustainable development. This can be influenced by the positive or negative effects associated with the three aspects of sustainable development.
The project stakeholders have an obligation of ensuring a balance between the effects and benefits. Comprehension of this balance can be achieved through a clear observation of graphical representation of sustainable growth. Sustainable development is achieved if the judgment of imperative economic rules and social agreement is based on the manner in which they influence the society (Giacchetta, Leporini & Marchetti, 2015). Nonetheless, economic elements act as the key driving force in the process of decision-making. Often, the balance between the effects and benefit is affected by perception as well as subjectivity. While the view of environmental implications is negative, economic benefits are perceived to be positive.
The stakeholders are expected to demonstrate some confidence regarding the sufficiency as well as the feasibility of strategies. Moreover, they must show some confidence in the list of what they consider as priorities as well as key consideration required to achieve the policy requirements and project operations. There are efforts that have been created to minimize the intensity of oil production and disturbance to the land footprint (Giacchetta, Leporini & Marchetti, 2015). The social implications are uncertain. Nonetheless, they can be determined because they are linked to subjectivity as well as quantitative elements. The health effects are unpredictable due to the reason that appearance of some effects might take a long time after exposure to the contaminant. Credible as well as reliable sources linkage requirements whereby, evidence emanates from scientific interferences.
Environmental Effects
The rapid growth of the oils sands has led to a significant rise in the pressure of Alberta’s natural surroundings. Alberta has an average area 140,200 km2. Surface mining operations have significantly affected the land leaving notable evidence of the devastating implications associated with Alberta mining operations. Other than land control and reclamation efforts which have been put in place, Alberta province legislations have emphasized on the need to make the lands productive after the extraction and refining operations have been conducted. It is required that the companies involved in mining and refining operations to remediate and undertake operations that seeks to reclaim the land that has been used in the production process. Albert administration has created strict environmental measures as a guarantee of activities that will uphold land reclamation measures to reduce the devastating environmental effects. Up to this time, the total reclaimed land in Alberta is only 67km (Giacchetta, Leporini & Marchetti, 2015). The reclaimed land has, however, not been certified which shows that less than 10 percent of the total disturbed land has been fully reclaimed.
The effects of Canadian oil sands project to the air are among the major concerns for Canadian administration, local societies, and developers. Today, over 1,400 pollutants have been emitted to the environment by sands oil activities. However, only limited number of pollutants are being monitored. In spite the fact that and oil projects have managed to reduce their carbon dioxide emission levels by over 33% their contribution to the overall greenhouse effects is rated at 6.5 percent of the national emissions and below 0.1 percent of the overall universal emission rate.
Among the main pollutants released to the atmosphere include nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, ozone as well as fine particles. These Pollutants are rated among the five main air contaminants that require an immediate address. In 2009, a total of 113 megatons of Carbon dioxide were released into the atmosphere from the sands oil factories (Gerner et al. 2015). This is an indication of the serious environmental effects that sands oil projects pose to the communities and the overall environment in Alberta region. While taking into account the overall life cycle that encompasses processes like transportation, refinement as well as oil usage, it has been noted that over 80% of the overall emissions take place at the final stage of the life cycle where burning of fuels is involved (Lattanzio, 2015). However, the increased level of bitumen generation has created some problems for Canada to attain the global commitments for the total greenhouse gases releases minimization that the contemporary technology has been unable to attain.
The usage of water, emission of contaminants and contamination of groundwater are the three major issues of interests regarding water resources. There is a variance in water usage in the Canadian sands oil projects on the bases of whether the techniques involved in mining are surface mining or whether they are in-situ. Concerning water consumption, it is estimated that about 2.5 to 4 barrels of water are required for the production of one barrel of bitumen. Nonetheless, 90% of the total water that is utilized in the process of bitumen production is recycled (Cheng, Li, Gordon & Liu, 2014). As a result, only 0.5 barrels of water used in the production of one barrel of bitumen remains contaminated.
Social Effects
The social aspect is considered the least among the main beacons. This aspect is of less relevance when contracted with other factors like environment and economic. The social aspect relating to sustainable development is related to the health aspect of the surrounding populations, especially in Athabasca area. Health indicators have been consistent with the impacts of boom town (Gerner, et al. 2015). The small towns surrounding the regions in which sand oils projects are situated experiences rapid growth which ultimately causes some negative effects on the communities concerning their wellbeing and their social structures.
Alberta administration showed that it encountered some downfalls in health standards as a result of the sudden development in the surrounding towns triggered by the operations of the sands oil organizations. Some of the social changes that emanated from the development in the region included migration, population shifts and the effects of migration configurations. There are some expected social changes as a result of the sands oil projects. To mitigate and reduce the social effects, the initial step towards the attainment of sustainable growth would be undertaking an assessment of the social effects and observation of the programs. One of the key problems towards assessment and observation of social effects related to the fact that scientists and the overall oil industry are faced with a problem of determining the appropriate technique of measuring such effects.
Economic Effects
The investments on sands oil projects have a lot of significant economic benefits to Canada. It is estimated that the overall returns from the projects have exceeded $100 billion over the last one decade. Analysis of the economic effects of sands oil projects should not only be centered on current activities but also projects that have attracted government attention, particularly the transportation hydrocarbon commodities from project locations. It is estimated that the revenue generation by the projects is within $4.7 billion range. The project has led to employment generation including the direct, induced as well as indirect employments which are anticipated to increase from 390,000 to about 1,600,000 by the year 2035 (Gerner, et al. 2015). The overall economic growth is notable for the development of affordable and comfortable residences for the regional communities in Alberta province as well as the capacity to generate and retain employment opportunities. Nonetheless, there are rising concerns regarding the rising costs of construction materials and increased scarcity of personnel. Moreover, there is a significant increase in maintenance costs and rising costs of rental houses which mainly affects the individuals with low salaried jobs.
Conclusion