Oil Sands Truth: Shut Down the Tar Sands

Alberta (& Saskatchewan) Tar Sands

The process of removing the tar from the sand involves incredible amounts of energy from clean-burning natural gas (with nuclear proposed along side), tremendous capital costs during build up, incredibly high petroleum prices to protect investments, and the largest single industrial contribution to climate change in North America. Production also involves the waste of fresh water from nearby lakes, rivers and aquifers that have already created toxic tailing ponds visible from outer space. None of the land strip mined has yet to be certified as reclaimed. It takes 4 tonnes of soil to produce one barrel of oil. The tar sands are producing over 1.2 million barrels of oil a day on average. The oil companies, Canada and the United States governments are proposing to escalate production to 5 million barrels, almost all destined for American markets-- and lower environmental standards while doing so. They also would need to violate the national and human rights of many indigenous nations who are rightly concerned about many dire social, environmental and economic repercussions on their communities.

To get the needed energy supplies, diluent for the bitumen and diverted freshwater to produce and then to transport the flowing heavy bitumen for refining would require massive new infrastructure and pipeline building from three different time zones in the Arctic, across British Columbia and through Alberta in a criss-cross pattern, into pipelines to such destinations as California, China, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Ontario, Illinois, Wisconsin and Texas. This entire project is now estimated at over $170 billion dollars. And after the whole process described so far, only then will all this dirty petroleum get burned and expel greenhouse gasses into the air causing further climate change.

Alberta Tar Sands is a category limited to the location and production of tar sand bitumen, an area the size of the state of Florida in northern Alberta province. The giant processing plants near Fort McMurray where the land itself is strip mined as well as the primarily "in situ" in-ground steam separation/production and extraction plants in the Peace and Cold Lake Regions, all in Alberta, are the "Ground Zero" of the single largest industrial gigaproject ever proposed in human history. The process of removing the tar from the sand involves incredible amounts of energy from clean-burning natural gas (with nuclear proposed along side), tremendous capital costs during build up, incredibly high petroleum prices to protect investments, and the largest single industrial contribution to climate change in North America. Production also involves the waste of fresh water from nearby lakes, rivers and aquifers that have already created toxic tailing ponds visible from outer space. None of the land strip mined has yet to be certified as reclaimed. It takes 4 tonnes of soil to produce one barrel of oil. The tar sands are producing over 1.2 million barrels of oil a day on average. The oil companies, Canada and the United States governments are proposing to escalate production to 5 million barrels, almost all destined for American markets-- and lower environmental standards while doing so. They also would need to violate the national and human rights of many indigenous nations who are rightly concerned about many dire social, environmental and economic repercussions on their communities. To get the needed energy supplies, diluent for the bitumen and diverted freshwater to produce and then to transport the flowing heavy bitumen for refining would require massive new infrastructure and pipeline building from three different time zones in the Arctic, across British Columbia and through Alberta in a criss-cross pattern, into pipelines to such destinations as California, China, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Ontario, Illinois, Wisconsin and Texas. This entire project is now estimated at over $170 billion dollars. And after the whole process described so far, only then will all this dirty petroleum get burned and expel greenhouse gasses into the air causing further climate change.

Goldman Sachs: Killing the Keystone XL Pipeline Kills Canadian Oil Sands

By Mat McDermott
Motherboard

Contrary to what the U.S. State Department says, stopping the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would have a large impact on the financial viability of future expansion of tar sands projects, as shipping all that bitumen--oil's heavy, vicous tar form--out via rail would be just too expensive and logistically challenging. For the Canadian tar-sand oil boom to continue, they're going to need to open that vein.

San Francisco State University votes to divest investment in coal, tar sands

Associated Press // SJ Mercury News
06/12/2013

SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco State University will stop investing its endowment in coal and tar sands companies, joining a growing list of universities that are avoiding investments in fossil fuels, the school said Tuesday.

The university's foundation, which oversees a $51.2 million endowment, also voted in May to look into removing all future investments in fossil fuels companies.

Canada's tar sands companies fail to clean up toxic waste, report finds

Three arrested in environmental protests as Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper visits London

Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 13 June 2013

Protesters gathered as Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper addressed Parliament on Thursday. Photograph: Peter Marshall/Demotix/Corbis

None of the companies operating in Canada's tar sands have met a commitment to clean up the vast and expanding sprawl of toxic waste ponds, an official report has found.

Tar Sands sales dropping dramtically

Oil sands deals lose traction

JEFFREY JONES

CALGARY — The Globe and Mail

May. 24 2013

There’s a buyers’ strike in the oil sands.

At least a half dozen energy companies have come up dry in efforts to attract the rich bids they envisaged when they put oil sands assets on the auction block in the past year, showing downward pricing pressure on a sector touted as the cornerstone of Canada’s economic growth.

Marathon Ends Talks With Potential Tar Sands Buyer

Marathon Ends Talks With Potential Oil Sands Buyer
By Rebecca Penty - May 24, 2013
Bloomberg

Marathon Oil Corp. (MRO) ended talks to sell part of its stake in the Athabasca Oil Sands Project as Canadian oil sands deals languish in the face of low heavy crude prices and competing U.S. shale investments.

Opec’s gift to tar sands producers: high oil prices

Opec’s gift to oil sands producers: high oil prices
Financial Post
Yadullah Hussain Jul 6, 2012

Canadian oil sands producers battling high development costs are getting help from an unlikely quarter: Saudi Arabia and its OPEC allies.

“OPEC’s pursuit of higher prices has underpinned the growth of non-OPEC producers,” says Julian Lee, senior energy analyst at U.K.-based Centre for Global Energy Studies. “Non-OPEC developers should be extremely grateful for OPEC for keeping the price of oil high and making all the exotic and expensive sources of oil economically viable.”

Canada favors tech cooperation with J'lem

Canada favors tech cooperation with J'lem
By SHARON UDASIN
Jerusalem Post
06/27/2012

‘Israel is a hotbed of innovation, technological activity,’ Canadian resources minister says before meeting with Uzi Landau.

With Canada’s widespread experience in natural resources regulation and development and Israel’s eminence as an innovation hub, the two countries would make ideal partners for collaborative advancement in both traditional and renewable energy fields, a Canadian minister told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.

More BS than Bitumen Flowing From Alberta After Third Recent Spill

More BS than Bitumen Flowing From Alberta After Third Recent Spill
by Damien Gillis l The Canadian.ca

A story in yesterday's Edmonton Journal on the latest pipeline spill in Alberta, this one near Elk Point, was more full of crap than the province's rivers and farms are full of oil these days.

Despite Spills, Enbridge Pushes For More Tar Sands Pipelines

Despite Spills, Enbridge Pushes For More Oil Sands Pipelines
6/26/2012

Alberta's three oil sand deposits are known as the Athabasca Oil Sands, the Cold Lake Oil Sands, and the Peace River Oil Sands. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

India’s ONGC may bid for $5B Conoco tar sands assets

India’s ONGC may bid for $5B Conoco oil sands assets

By Charlie Zhu, Reuters Jun 5, 2012

KUALA LUMPUR — Oil and Natural Gas Corp , India’s biggest state-owned energy explorer, is considering bidding for part of ConocoPhillips Canadian oil sands holdings worth around $5-billion, a source with direct knowledge of the situation told Reuters on Tuesday.