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.
EIA sees huge oil hike by 2035
Oil production is set to soar by nearly 27 million barrels a day to meet booming demand from mainly non-OECD countries by 2035, the US Energy Information Administration claimed on Monday.
Eoin O'Cinneide
19 September 2011
Upstream Online
Iran and Qatar are also set to take centre stage in a jump in natural gas production in the next quarter of a century with the Middle East and Australia weighing-in heavily with increased LNG supply.
Saying no to oil sands pipelines
Rex Weyler says the pipeline expansion will "change the entire channel".
comments Comments (2) [ this page]
By Lindsay O’Donnell, August 30, 2011
The marchers chanted "No tar sands, no pipeline".
Sunday, September 04, 2011
Koch Bros will be big winners if Keystone sludge-oil pipeline is approved
by Gaius Publius on 9/04/2011
America Blog
Well, there's a surprise. Obama's worst enemy, and the climate's as well, the ever-famous Koch Brothers and Koch Industries, are positioned to be big winners if (when) the Keystone Tar Sands pipeline is approved.
A Tar Sands Partnership Agreement in the Making?
Macdonald Stainsby | August 1st 2011
Campaigns against tar sands production have grown rapidly over the last four years. From the relative obscurity in Alberta to an international lightning rod for people trying to address all manner of concerns from indigenous and community self-determination to peak oil and climate change – criticisms of the largest industrial project in human history have gained a major voice. The voices are certainly not homogenous, but a large contingent of these voices call for a shut down of tar sands production and a move away from fossil fuels – if not an outright move away from market-led growth of any sort. But, in the language of the environmental elite, what are the “decision makers” preparing to do with all this anti-tar sands resistance?
Into the Muskeg Swamps of Northern Alberta
A Brief Ideological History of the Tar Sands
Earth First Journal
By Nickle
"This is not oil drilling. It's not even mining. It is
terrestrial skinning. Vast, vivid landscapes are being
gutted, left monochromatic gray." --NAOMI KLEIN
Canadian government accused of 'unprecedented' tar sands lobbying
Friends of the Earth Europe claims ministers have attempted to undermine European fuel legislation that would affect exports
Terry Macalister
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 4 August 2011
The Canadian government has been accused of an "unprecedented" lobbying effort involving 110 meetings in less than two years in Britain and Europe in a bid to derail new fuel legislation that could hit exports from its tar sands.
Resumption at CNRL project to lower prices for oil sands crude
nathan vanderklippe
CALGARY— From Friday's Globe and Mail
Published Thursday, Aug. 04, 2011 6:26AM EDT
The price of crude is likely to decline for a number of oil sands companies as Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (CNQ-T35.25-0.94-2.60%)brings back to life its fire-damaged Horizon project.
Following in the footsteps of Suncor, major players in tar sands production are now getting into conventional oil and gas elsewhere.
--M
Athabasca eyes higher conventional budget
By Dan Healing, Calgary Herald
August 4, 2011
CALGARY — Athabasca Oil Sands Corp. said Thursday it is considering increasing its budget to explore on its conventional Deep Basin oil and gas assets for the second time this year.
Let's expose the structure of violence that keeps the world economy running.
With an entire planet being slaughtered before our eyes, it's
terrifying to watch the very culture responsible for this - the culture
of industrial civilization, fueled by a finite source of fossil fuels,
primarily a dwindling supply of oil - thrust forward wantonly to fuel
its insatiable appetite for "growth."
Deluded by myths of progress and suffering from the psychosis of
technomania complicated by addiction to depleting oil reserves,
Opti, partner in Nexen's Long Lake plant and originally spawned by Iraeli company Ormat in order to export "cogeneration" technology (burning waste gunk in house for power, regardless of climate impacts), has filed for bankruptcy protection. Rather than be good news for anti-tar sands campaigners in Alberta, this will provide Nexen with less questions as they try to jump start a flawed project.
