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.

Action must be taken now to deal with peak of oil

Action must be taken now to deal with peak of oil
Jan 05, 2008 04:30 AM

Tyler Hamilton raises three crucial points in his article:

Gasoline prices, the Canadian-U.S. dollar exchange rate and crude oil have all passed a critical benchmark over a short period of time.

Not only is this a sign of fundamental changes within our economy, it is unfortunately very much beyond control of the Canadian consumer.

It is high time for the government to realize that the world oil peak is imminent and that necessary adjustments will require years to impact our energy economy.

Impacting Unimpaired: The SPP and TILMA are aimed directly at unimpeded extraction in the tar sands

January 7, 2008
Impacting Unimpaired
New agreements like the SPP and TILMA are aimed directly at unimpeded extraction in the tar sands

by Macdonald Stainsby

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

Government Responsible for Sustainable Tar Sands Development

January 6, 2008
Government Responsible for Sustainable Tar Sands Development
by Rachel Penner de Waal

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

Alberta's current royalty regime has likely cost the province more in lost revenue than Trudeau's National Energy Program did, according to a senior policy analyst at the Pembina Institute.

[Utah] BLM: Tar sand development may hurt parks

BLM: Tar sand development may hurt parks
By BOBBY MAGILL
The Daily Sentinel

Monday, January 07, 2008

Tar sands development could severely affect Utah’s Canyonlands National Park, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and a stretch of the San Rafael Swell along Interstate 70, according to a Bureau of Land Management report.

Gas producers await fate of Alaska pipeline

Gas producers await fate of Alaska pipeline
West at risk
Jon Harding, Financial Post Published: Tuesday, January 08, 2008

CALGARY -- Almost half the natural gas pipeline capacity leaving Alberta today for markets across the continent could sit empty by 2018 unless an Alaska pipeline gets built and connects to the Alberta hub, says a new study by the Canadian Energy Research Institute.

Liberal Opposition Criticize Alberta Inaction on Fort Chip Health

Liberal Opposition Criticize Alberta Inaction on Fort Chip Health
By LEA STORRY, SRJ Editor 17.DEC.07

Alberta Health and Wellness is not saying anything new in terms of a controversial report to come out of Fort Chipewyan. But the Alberta Liberal caucus thinks the Conservatives need to take a look at what they’re doing to the province.

“The government is not doing due diligence in Fort Chipewyan,” stated Laurie Blakeman, MLA Edmonton-Centre and Liberal shadow minister for health and wellness. “The government tests the wrong thing at the wrong time for the wrong people.”

"Hear no peak"-- Letter to the Financial Times

Hear no peak
by David Strahan
Letter to the Financial Times

Sir:

Just as the Financial Times’ news coverage of oil was beginning to improve (“Oil watchdog reworks reserves forecasts”, 27.12.07), Lex goes and spoils it with a truly shoddy analysis: “Peak no evil” (03.01.08) rehearsed all the old myths that have been comprehensively debunked in recent years.

Fuelling Disaster: Beyond Alberta’s Culture of Resource Dependence

by Gordon Laird, Parkland Institute Editorialist Alberta

Court ruling means Alberta's recreational drug users risk their jobs

Sobering thoughts
Court ruling means Alberta's recreational drug users risk their jobs
By MINDY JACOBS // Fri, January 4, 2008

Casual pot smokers in Alberta who want to work in safety-sensitive positions had better pack up and move to Ontario. They're no longer welcome in the oilpatch.

A ruling by the Alberta Court of Appeal gives the green light to companies to fire -- or refuse to hire -- recreational pot users if they pose a potential safety risk.

AFL: Government foreign worker office long overdue - but still misses the point

Government foreign worker office long overdue - but still misses the point

Labour cautiously optimistic over government's foreign worker advocates

EDMONTON, Dec. 10 /CNW/ - The Alberta Federation of Labour reacted with
guarded optimism to the Government's new measures announced today to protect
temporary foreign workers.
The two special advisory offices for temporary foreign workers are a
welcome - if long overdue - measure," says AFL President Gil McGowan. "The AFL
had set up its own temporary foreign workers' advocate office last spring as a