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.

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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.

Eastern Canada Vulnerable to Oil Shortages

Eastern Canada Vulnerable to Oil Shortages
New Report Calls for Canada to Set Up Strategic Petroleum Reserves

EDMONTON
Canada is currently the most vulnerable country in the industrial world
to short-term oil supply crises, and we need to establish strategic petroleum
reserves to remedy the problem. This is the key finding of a report released
today by Alberta’s Parkland Institute in conjunction with the Polaris Institute.

Freezing in the Dark: Why Canada Needs Strategic Petroleum Reserves points out

Slavery and Fossil Fuels

Slavery and Fossil Fuels
Charles Justice

The nineteenth century global economy was a like a small scale version of
today's global economy. Trade in slaves, sugar, coffee, tobacco, and cotton were
the drivers of global economic growth. But the growing trade in the above
mentioned non-human commodities was first made possible by slave labour in
plantations in the tropics and the American South.

In our modern global economy, cheap fossil fuels have taken the place of slaves.
Industrial farming, convenient travel by automobile, and the transportation of

Life on the cold side of the country's hottest economy

Life on the cold side of the country's hottest economy
The oil sands dominate Alberta's wealth and growth, but not all parts of the province are taking part – including, surprisingly, the conventional oil industry
GORDON PITTS
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
January 30, 2008 at 12:00 AM EST

In the rolling farmland around Derwent, Alta., the fields are littered with what look like oversized pop cans. These stubby storage tanks contain heavy oil that has been pumped from the ground and is waiting to be trucked away – much of it to the big Husky Oil upgrader in Lloydminster.

Gnostic insights illuminate Alberta Tar Sands prosperity as an apparent Manipulative Extraterrestrial Virtual Reality illusion

Gnostic insights illuminate Alberta Tar Sands prosperity as an apparent Manipulative Extraterrestrial Virtual Reality illusion
by Peter Tremblay

Suncor announces $20.6 billion tar pit expansion

Suncor announces $20.6 billion oil sands expansion
Canwest News Service
Published: Wednesday, January 30, 2008

OTTAWA - Oilsands producer Suncor Energy has approved a $20.6-billion expansion to boost crude oil production by 200,000 barrels at its facility north of Fort McMurray, Alta.

The company said its board had approved the expenditure as part of its goal to increase output to 550,000 barrels per day in 2012.

"The kinder, gentler energy superpower"

While a few small nuggets of things are coming through in the Globe's series on the tar sands, the articles are not only omitting a lot of important facts, they are distorting others. When the articles talk about "Albertan" opinions on the tar sands, they omit/distort the fact that the province is really split into north and south-- and that a majority of those as far north as Edmonton, let alone south like in Medicine Hat, Calgary and Lethbridge, have never actually seen the tar sands mines (or in-situ operations).

The Globe and Mail does Tar Sands for a week

The Globe and Mail does Tar Sands for a week
Dru Oja Jay-- The Dominion http://dominionpaper.ca/weblogs/dru/1641 (blog)

Immitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

The first of the Globe and Mail's week-long series on the tar, I mean, oil sands has at least one interesting insight, though it'll be interesting to keep track of all the things that they don't mention.

Climate Neros fiddle while Rome burns

Jan 28, 2008 04:30 AM
Tyler Hamilton
Energy Reporter

Governments and industry love to talk about the things they plan to do, perhaps to detract attention away from what they haven't done or aren't doing.

How many radio or television debates have shown an environmentalist pointing out the devastating effects of oil sands and power production in Alberta, only to have industry officials tout concepts like "clean coal" or "carbon capture and sequestration" – as if the solution is here and the problem is being overcome as they speak?

Green groups rally against tar sands development

Green groups rally against oil sands development
ROBERT MATAS
From Monday's Globe and Mail

January 28, 2008 at 5:09 AM EST

VANCOUVER — An environmental group that successfully shifted the buying power of Victoria's Secret, Home Depot and Staples in a campaign to protect British Columbia's old-growth forests has now turned its attention to Alberta's northern oil industry.

Time has come to defend environment

Time has come to defend environment
Posted 1 day ago

Sir: Are Canadians going to stand idly by while the American czars of the Alberta Oil Sands and our politicians play Russian Roulette with their health and their future? Will Vice-President Dick Cheney and the Americans continue to buy Canada's super dirty oil in desperation? Will the horrendous environmental destruction wreaked by the Alberta Tar Sands Projects and their colossal impact on climate change qualify as Canada's "Crime Against Humanity?"