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.

North-Central Corridor Map

See the full fact sheet at:

http://www.transcanada.com/news/2007_news/20071121.html

ConocoPhillips proposes natural gas Alaska pipeline to U.S., Canada

Look at their plans, and look at the future pipeline grid. It is not about only getting gas to the US to heat homes, it is also about expanding the tar sands to unfathomable levels. They lie. ConocoPhilips lies. TransCanada lies. Imperial Lies. Suncor and Syncrude lie. They are not our partners, they are our enemies. Be clear about that. They lie.

TransCanada vying for $30-billion pipeline project

Excerpt:

"Because construction isn't likely to begin before 2013 or 2014, the Alaska project isn't likely in direct competition with a plan to build a gas pipeline from the Mackenzie Delta in the Northwest Territories to Alberta. Mackenzie construction could start in late 2009 if it receives regulatory approval."

Mackenzie Valley pipeline hearings wrap up in Inuvik

Since the hearings have successfully carried the lie and the crime against the environment of not being a cumulative impact assessment-- steadfastly ruling that the hearings could not cover the tar sands, and included denials and obfuscations of the final end goal of the natural gas being to help ramp up the ecological, genocidal and grotesquely anti-human tar sands operations north of Fort Muck, it should be VERY CLEAR why the North Central Corridor was officially announced only as the hearings on the MGP are finishing.

AFL group: oilpatch boom causes companies to cut corners on safety

Labour group: oilpatch boom causes companies to cut corners on safety
Canadian Press, Calgary, Alberta, November 29, 2007

The head of Alberta's Federation of Labour says the province's economic boom has caused some companies to cut corners on worker safetyan issue highlighted this week when a fire killed two workers on a major Enbridge Inc. (TSX:ENB) pipeline in Minnesota.

"Health and safety has become much more of an issue in Alberta workplaces right across the board since the economy has gone on such a booming trend," Gil McGowan said Thursday in an interview.

Bruce Power (TransCanada Pipelines, Cameco etc.) to buy out Peace River Nuke Project for Tarpits

Bruce Power jumping into Alberta nuclear project

Jon Harding, Financial Post
Published: Thursday, November 29, 2007

CALGARY -- Bruce Power LP, operator of Canada's largest nuclear plant in western Ontario, has signed a letter of intent to buy some assets from Energy Alberta Corp., the private Calgary-based company that had planned to build a nuclear reactor in northern Alberta.

As part of the transaction, Bruce Power, which is majority owned by Calgary-based pipeline giant TransCanada Corp., will acquire exclusive rights to use CANDU technology in Alberta.

Pembina's Unlikely Corporate Allies: Making Xmas Baskets for Coal Bed Methane companies?

Pembina Institute Releases Report, Hosts Forum on "Unlikely Allies"

Media Contact: Ed Whittingham

Calgary-November 28, 2007-The Pembina Institute, a national environmental think tank, today released a case study compendium and hosted a forum on innovative partnerships between unlikely allies who help make resource development sustainable. The unlikely allies comprise resource companies and their external stakeholders such as communities, landowner associations and environmental groups. This is the first report of its kind to document Canada-based examples.

Rise in tanker traffic sparks fear of spills

Rise in tanker traffic sparks fear of spills
Concern about a crude spill has one councillor trying to slow the increase of exports from Burnaby terminal

DON WHITELEY

Special to The Globe and Mail

November 27, 2007

VANCOUVER -- The potential for large increases in exports of crude oil through the Port of Vancouver has local politicians concerned about the port's growing vulnerability to oil spills.

"Scale of tar sands project impresses Ritter"

Colorado, unlike much of the US, cannot convince its commerce department and those involved in industry that it is alright to ignore Alberta's hydrocarbon devastation programs. Many have shown how the American media in publications such as the Washington Post or New York Times can be quite honest about the death of the land and air north of Fort McMurray and elsewhere.

TransCanada Corp. seeks permit to build $983M gas pipeline in Alberta

TransCanada Corp. seeks permit to build $983M gas pipeline in Alberta
at 16:24 on November 21, 2007, EST.

THE CANADIAN PRESS

CALGARY - A TransCanada Corp. (TSX:TRP) subsidiary is seeking permission to build a 300-kilometre natural gas pipeline in Alberta at an estimated cost of $983 million, largely to transport fuel to oilsands operations in the province's northeast.

TransCanada said Wednesday that Nova Gas Transmission's application to the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board comes after 11 years of considering the North Central Corridor.