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.
US foundations give millions to Canadian environmental groups
By Dru Oja Jay, the Dominion
Since major foundations in the US began funding environmental groups in the late 1980s, many grassroots environmental activists have sounded the alarm about the rise of the "Big Greens." Featuring six-figure salaries and foundation funding, critics say the large environmental NGOs coopt grassroots movements and excercise control over what issues are brought up.
November 23, 2007
What in Tar Nation?
Life among the tar sands
by Maya Rolbin-Ghanie
The Dominion - http://www.dominionpaper.ca
A plume of smoke from a Syncrude processing plant, viewed from Fort Mackay. Photo: Dru Oja Jay
We leave Fort McMurray and hitch a ride to Fort MacKay, a Native community 40kms north, where we stay for three days.
"The system of slavery is like holding a wolf by its ears: you don't like
it, but you don't dare let go."
- Thomas Jefferson
The oil sands and slavery
By Frederick Douglass*
It was once the case that slaves were the most valuable asset in America. As the horrors of slavery began to be documented and a concern that this was a horrible practice spread, the justifications for continued slavery sound eerily familiar to the justifications for the continuation and massive expansion of the oil sands.
System Design in NW Alberta
Media coverage of energy developments often refers to the facilities TransCanada may construct to accommodate new sources of gas in Northwest Alberta. One recent article indicated TransCanada is building a direct pipeline from the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline to Fort McMurray. This is not the case.
To ensure customers have a clear understanding of TransCanada's plans for expansion of the Alberta System, we sat down with Dave Murray, Manager, Mainline Planning West for an overview of the subject.
Intro Rant:
It is very important we think about this correctly: The North-Central Corridor is the "alternative" to nuclear power. Both of these proposals are entirely driven by the energy input needs of cooking, digging, flipping and poisoning the earth in the Athabasca region, north of Fort McMurray. Both would devastate yet further many indigenous territories in the north, including the "Tear Drop" traditional territory of the Lubicon Cree Nation. Both would not only facilitate but vastly expand the consumption of energy for the increased output of the tar pits.
Warning: Depressing content.
Center for American Progress
AlterNet (September 29 2007)
Say Goodbye to French Wines. Wacky temperatures and rain cycles brought
on by global warming are threatening something very important: Wine.
Scientists believe global warming will "shift viticultural regions
toward the poles, cooler coastal zones and higher elevations". What that
means in regular language: Get ready to say bye-bye to French Bordeaux
and hello to British champagne. [LA Times]
Say Goodbye to Light and Dry Wines. Warmer temperatures mean grapes in
TransCanada files for natural gas permit
By Staff Reports
Argus Leader
PUBLISHED: November 21, 2007
TransCanada Corp., which is seeking to build the crude oil Keystone Pipeline through South Dakota to supply refineries in Illinois and Oklahoma with oil from Alberta, is also looking to expand its natural gas carrying capacity to better serve the Canadian oil industry which is the source of that crude.
TransCanada Seeks to Build C$983 Million Gas Pipeline (Update4)
By Jim Polson
Nov. 21 (Bloomberg) -- TransCanada Corp. will seek approval for a C$983 million ($996 million) natural-gas pipeline project to increase access to production in northwestern Alberta needed by Canadian oil-sands producers.
A permit for the North Central Corridor project will be filed today with the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board for the 300-kilometer (186-mile) pipeline and associated facilities, TransCanada said in a statement. The company's pipeline system already is the largest in Canada.
TransCanada seeks permit for $983M gas pipeline
November 21, 2007
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.
The North Central Corridor pipeline is designed to carry gas to ``growing intra-Alberta markets resulting largely from increased oilsands development," the company stated Wednesday.
TransCanada said Nova Gas Transmission's application to the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board comes after 11 years of consideration of the line.
An open letter to James Richardson & Sons and the Richardson Foundation regarding investment in the Alberta Oil Sands and the damage being done to environment and health in the region and globally,
To the Richardson Family business and Foundation:
