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.

Globalization is Fueling Global Warming

Globalization is Fueling Global Warming
by Les Leopold
AlterNet (December 28 2007)

As global warming negotiations move from Bali towards a worldwide
treaty, it is important to address how global warming and global trade
work hand-in-hand.

Globalization is to global warming what warm water in the Gulf of Mexico
waters was to Hurricane Katrina. And, unless we wisely limit rapidly
accelerating global trade, we will see equally disastrous and deadly
results - worsening global warming and a continued chemical poisoning of
our world.

Stelmach Goes to Washington; Controversial Kearl Tar Sands Project Goes to Court

EcoJustice: Stelmach Goes to Washington; Controversial Kearl Tar Sands Project Goes to Court

Hard Times Sold in Vending Machines

Hard Times Sold in Vending Machines
Worker migration from Atlantic Canada to the tar sands
January 8, 2008
by Stuart Neatby

The Dominion - http://www.dominionpaper.ca

Big Oil's Profits and Plunder

by Ralph Nader, Nader.org
AlterNet (January 08 2008)

While many impoverished American families are shivering in the winter
cold for lack of money to pay the oil baron their exorbitant price for
home heating oil, ex-oil man, George W Bush sleeps in a warm White House
and relishes his defeat of the Congressional attempt to get rid of $15
billion in unconscionable tax breaks given those same profit-glutted oil
companies like ExxonMobil when crude oil was half the price it is today.

This is the same George W Bush who, calling himself a "compassionate

The Peak Oil Crisis: Storm of the Century

The Peak Oil Crisis: Storm of the Century
by Tom Whipple

Falls Church News Press (December 27 2007)

A "Perfect storm" refers to the simultaneous occurrence of events which,
taken individually, would be far less powerful than the result of their
chance combination. Such occurrences are rare by their very nature. --
Wikipedia

In recent weeks we have been bombarded with reports of perturbations in
the mortgage/liquidity crisis that is creating havoc in the financial world.

The travails of the "financial industry", as it is called these days,

Detroit: Say no to refinery expansion (for Albertan Tar Sands)

Detroit: Say no to refinery expansion
January 10, 2008

By ED McARDLE

In the debate over record gas prices, some experts point to dwindling supplies unable to meet soaring demand, while others stress lack of refinery capacity in the United States. Marathon Oil believes it has the answer.

Suncor production misses mark

Suncor production misses mark
Jan 11, 2008 04:30 AM

CALGARY–Suncor Energy Inc. says its oil-sands production during 2007 averaged about 236,000 barrels per day, short of the target 240,000 to 245,000.

In December, output at Suncor's oil-sands operation at Fort McMurray, Alta., averaged 234,000 barrels per day, down from 266,000 in November.

Suncor reports production numbers monthly from its operations. The numbers are preliminary and subject to adjustment.

Production volumes will be confirmed when fourth-quarter financial results are released Jan. 22.

Canada tar sands projects flunk green test-groups

Canada oil sands projects flunk green test-groups

By Jeffrey Jones
CALGARY, Alberta, Jan 10 (Reuters) - Canadian oil sands mining projects, seen as a key source of North American energy supply for decades to come, have been given poor environmental marks in a report released on Thursday, with even the best performer barely garnering a passing grade.
Environmental groups Pembina Institute and World Wildlife Fund surveyed 10 Alberta oil sands ventures, including seven yet to start producing, for attention to land, air emissions, water, climate change and overall environmental management.

Conservative Ploy to Neuter Canada's Nuclear Regulatory Agency to supply nuclear to the tarpits

Conservative Ploy To Neuter Canada's Nuclear Regulatory Agency

PEJ News - Al Rycroft - Under the guise of providing medical isotopes for the world the Conservative Government in Ottawa has initiated a high stakes game to neuter Canada's nuclear regulatory agency by threatening to fire its president. The ultimate goal of this game of chicken is to deliver a controllable "nuclear regulator" to the government to allow the unfettered re-development of nuclear power in Canada and the export of Candu reactors to the rest of the world - safety be damned...

A Kinder, Gentler Tar Sands, brought to you by the Pembina Institute and World Wildlife Fund

What is it that prevents Pembina Institute and WWF from just saying "Stop!" to the tar sands instead of just lobbying to improve their "environmental performance." Maybe it is something to do with the fact that they both receive multi-million dollar funding from the Pew Charitable Trusts, whose parent companies Sun Oil/Sunoco built the first tar sands project in 1967 and who continue to refine large amounts of sythetic tar sands crude oil in Ohio and are planning to extend tar sands supply pipelines as far east as their refineries in Philadelphia.

- Tarpit Pete