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Home > Programs > Atmosphere and Energy > Energy Onslaught
The Energy Onslaught
Canada’s energy industry has an agenda that is at odds with our Kyoto commitments – feeding the continually growing demand for energy in the United States by developing yet more oil and gas reserves, building more nuclear power plants and promoting large scale industrial hydro for export.
This energy onslaught has nothing to do with Canada’s Kyoto commitments and everything to do with serving the Bush administration’s retrograde energy policy. It’s a policy without meaningful concern for the environmental impacts and one which effectively makes Canada “America’s Gas Tank”.
The numbers say it all. While Canadian oil production has shot up 47% since 1990, and gas production by 69%, these dramatic increases – and resulting greenhouse gas emissions – aren’t powering Canada. 59% of oil production and 57% of gas production are exported, primarily south of the border.
Along with the rampant growth in greenhouse gas emissions, America’s energy appetite is attacking Canadian wilderness from coast to coast to coast. Castle Crown Wilderness, the Mackenzie Valley pipeline and Hydro-Quebec’s plans to dam Rupert River in Quebec, are all aimed at feeding U.S. energy needs. These projects will have devastating consequences on Canadian wilderness.
Sierra Club Canada believes that there is a large, still untapped potential, in energy efficiency and conservation. Energy conservation is key if we are to conserve Canadian wilderness and begin to address the U.S. driven energy onslaught.
America’s Gas Tank: The High Cost of Canada’s Oil and Gas Export Strategy
A report by the Natural Resources Defense Council and Sierra Club Canada (pdf file, 660K)
Threats to the Mackenzie Valley
Canada’s longest and possibly wildest river is threatened by the proposed Mackenzie Gas Project in the Northwest Territories. The Mackenzie Valley, home of the 1800 km long Mackenzie River, as well as the Mackenzie Delta, the world’s fourth largest arctic delta, will be transformed permanently if this project gets the go-ahead.
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