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.

Upgrader fire ignites safety concerns

Upgrader fire ignites safety concerns
Last Updated: Tuesday, November 20, 2007 | 11:44 AM MT
CBC News

A third sour gas leak in two years at a Shell refinery northeast of Edmonton has some residents wondering how safe it is to live in the area known as Upgrader Alley.

A giant fireball erupted above Shell's Scotford upgrader near Fort Saskatchewan on Monday afternoon, sparked by a leak of the highly toxic and flammable gas. About 3,000 workers were sent home, but no one was injured in the incident.

Worker Rod Whitford said it wasn't a big scare.

Chávez and Ahmadineyad agree that the dollar empire is collapsing

http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2007/noviembre/mar20/47dolar.html

TEHRAN, November 19.— Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez stated today
in Teheran that “the dollar empire is collapsing,” according to ANSA.

“Soon we won’t be talking about dollars anymore because the value of
the dollar is in free fall and the dollar empire is collapsing,”
Chávez said to a group of journalists.

The Bolivarian leader visited Tehran, coming from Riyadh where he had

Impacts of tar sands under scrutiny

Impacts of tar sands under scrutiny
By Sara Constantineau
News Writer
McGill Daily

An independent publication is trying to shock the public into understanding the social, environmental, and economic impacts of the Alberta tar sands.

The Dominion, an independent news cooperative, has launched a special issue about the tar sands with presentations at universities across Canada. The lead editors of the issue were at Concordia on Thursday night presenting their research and exclusive footage.

Editorial: Reconsidering the tar sands

Editorial: Reconsidering the tar sands
McGill Daily

Going by mainstream media coverage, the Athabasca tar sands in Alberta are like a 21st century Wild West: breathless reports speak about the “boom” economy, bushels of money being made, and about how everything is gigantic. But as the tar sands have become the centrepiece of a new energy corridor sending oil and gas to the U.S., scant attention has been paid to the profound economic, ecological, and social costs that are at stake.

Future of Alberta Tar Sands & oil could be decided in B.C

Future of Alberta oil could be decided in B.C
Charles Frank , CanWest News Service
Published: Sunday, November 18, 2007

The future of Western Canada's energy industry may well be defined by what happens far from Alberta's foothills in the quiet town of Kitimat on British Columbia's picturesque coast.

Tar Sands Expansion to reduce American dependence on OPEC oil from Venezuela and the Middle East

Chavez threatens $200 oil
U.S. attack on Iran would double prices, OPEC summit told
Shaun Polczer
CanWest News Service

Sunday, November 18, 2007

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Oil prices could more than double to $200 US a barrel if the United States attacks Iran, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez told OPEC leaders in Saudi Arabia Saturday, urging the cartel to take a more active "revolutionary" role in world affairs.

Suncor and Syncrude and Alberta’s royalty hike

Suncor and Syncrude and Alberta’s royalty hike
SRJ Staff 07.NOV.07

Suncor Energy and Syncrude Canada Ltd will be affected by Alberta’s new royalty hike, but not immediately.

“Those companies are under separate crown agreements,” said Bob McManus, assistant director, communications Alberta energy. “Suncor was negotiated in 1963 and Syncrude in 1975.”

Premier Ed Stelmach announced a new royalty regime for oil and gas on Thursday, Oct. 25. Royalties would increase by $1.4 billion in 2010, a 20-per-cent increase over currently projected revenues for that year.

Feds target medical whistleblower, Dr. O'Connor claims

Feds target medical whistleblower: doctor claims

Mike De Souza , CanWest News Service
Published: Monday, November 12, 2007

Dr. John O'Connor first suspected something was wrong a few years ago after discovering a rare form of cancer in a small northern Alberta community of 1,200 people.

He recognized the illness since it was the same one that had claimed the life of his father in Ireland more than 15 years earlier. He had never expected to see it again and was alarmed to find it in at least five different patients.

Ringing alarm of peak oil: 'Fault line of world economic history,' report warns

Alberta (& Saskatchewan) Tar Sands

Fri, November 16, 2007
Ringing alarm of peak oil
'Fault line of world economic history,' report warns

By VIVIAN SONG, SUN MEDIA

World oil production may have reached its peak and will affect everything from cheap airfares, grocery lists and the auto industry, according to a new report released yesterday.

Momentum in global oil production is slowing with aging oil fields and fewer discoveries, since the world has been "seismically searched and picked over," the report from the Earth Policy Institute, an environmental think tank, claims.

"Colorado soaks up Alberta's tar sands expertise"

Colorado soaks up Alberta's oil sands expertise
NORVAL SCOTT
November 16, 2007

CALGARY -- The U.S. is looking to companies now operating in Alberta for help in unlocking its own version of the oil sands, the massive oil shale deposits that lie underground in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.

The hope is that the U.S. can "learn lessons" from Alberta's oil sands experience that will stand it in good stead when it comes to developing its own complex, unconventional crude resource, said Bill Ritter, the Governor of Colorado.