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.
Protesters demand halt to bank’s tar sands financing
Herald Scotland
cHRIS WATT and SIMON BAIN
20 Apr 2011
PROTESTERS yesterday hijacked a meeting of the Royal Bank of Scotland to demand an end to state-backed funding for tar sands oil projects.
Representatives of Canada’s First Nations visited Edinburgh to tell the bank’s annual meeting that oil extraction could threaten their way of life and cause untold environmental damage in the event of a spill.
Canadian firm to probe Utah oil sands
Project to build mine would be first of its kind in United States
Written by
CHI-CHI ZHANG
Associated Press
April 17 2011
SALT LAKE CITY -- Beneath the lush, green hills of eastern Utah's Uinta Basin, where elk, bear and bison outnumber people, the soil is saturated with a sticky tar that may soon provide a new domestic source of petroleum for the United States.
It would be a first-of-its kind project in the country that some fear could be a slippery slope toward widespread wilderness destruction.
Is There Such a Thing as 'Ethical Oil'? Canada Claims it Has Lots and the US Is Buying It
By Jason Mark, Earth Island Journal
AlterNet
Sunday, Apr 17, 2011
To get to the quaint village of Fort McKay in the far north of Alberta, Canada, you first have to pass through some version of hell.
Draft Land Use Plan Infringes Treaty 8
First Nations in Oil Sands Region say that the Lower Athabasca Regional Plan does not protect enough land and resources to sustain their traditional livelihood and creates legal risk for Alberta
April 8, 2011, Fort McMurray
Interviews with residents of Fort MacKay and Fort Chip, regarding cultural and environmental situations for their communities, especially with respect to the water coming from tar sands operation areas that are allegedly responsible for statistically impossible rates of cancer.
Sally Mauk: First Nations activists see changes since tar sands
By SALLY MAUK for the Missoulian missoulian.com |
Friday, March 18, 2011
I was standing on South Reserve Street in Missoula in the wee hours of the morning recently to report on the transport of two enormous coke drum halves and their impressive entourage of trucks and law enforcement as they snaked past a few dozen chanting protesters.
Waiting for the drums to arrive, I thought about the conversation I had the week before with two Canadians who live in northern Alberta near the world's second-largest deposit of oil.
In America's Capital, a Fierce Fight over Oil Sands
Today begins The Tyee's major series reported from Washington on the intense, high stakes political struggle fueled by Alberta crude.
By Geoff Dembicki, March 14, 2011
TheTyee.ca
In the hallways and offices of America's capital city, a war is being quietly waged out of view of most Canadians and Americans.
The outcome will decide North America's energy future and its impact on the planet's climate.
Canadian Oil Sands Takeover
An Unconventional Future for Crude
By Keith Kohl
Tuesday, March 15th, 2011
One quick glance out the window, and I knew we weren't in Baltimore anymore.
In fact, it didn't even seem like we were even in Canada...
The twister had scooped up my beaten-down Chevy and dropped us in the middle of a wasteland.
Having just woken up after rolling into Fort McMurray, my cohort's face immediately scrunched up as the smell of oil wafted inside the car.
Canada provinces continue to back nuclear power
VANCOUVER, March 15 (Reuters) - Key Canadian provinces reaffirmed their support for nuclear power on Tuesday and the national regulator declared the country's generating stations safe even as Japan's crisis spurred other nations to back away from nuclear.
Ontario, Canada's most populous province, said there was no change in its plans to keep the nuclear-powered portion of its electricity output at 50 percent.
Oil prices plunge on Japan nuclear crisis
Japan’s reactor woes send oil prices lower
By Robert Gibbons, Reuters
March 15, 2011
NEW YORK — Brent crude prices on Tuesday tumbled 4.5 per cent, its biggest drop in over 13 months, as Japan’s escalating nuclear reactor crisis sparked risk aversion even as clashes in Bahrain and Libya briefly pulled prices off lows.
