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.

warning: Creating default object from empty value in /var/www/drupal-6.28/modules/taxonomy/taxonomy.pages.inc on line 33.

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.

Nobel Gore? A Prime Time Hypocrite

October 15, 2007
A Prime Time Hypocrite
Nobel Gore?

By JOSHUA FRANK

Al Gore has returned to the political spotlight in exalted fashion with a Nobel Peace Prize in hand, propping himself up for a potential presidential bid in 2008. Front and center in Gore's new rhetorical entourage is the state of nature, and in particular, global warming. And while Gore may be delivering an important message about the fate of our fragile ecosystems, one must be weary of the messenger's past. For Gore's own environmental record leaves much to be desired.

Oil Versus Water

Oil Versus Water
Toxic water poses threat to Alberta's Indigenous communities
by Kim Petersen
The Dominion

Alberta is replete with precious oil. Recovery of that oil from the tar sands, however, is putting another precious resource at risk: water. Dene and Cree First Nations people live close to and in the midst of the largest tar sand deposit in the Athabasca River region and oil extraction is harming their water supply.

An oil & gas Shangri-la in the Arctic?

Published on 10 Oct 2007 by ASPO-USA / Energy Bulletin. Archived on 10 Oct 2007.
An oil & gas Shangri-la in the Arctic?

by Dave Cohen

Scientists say the Arctic contains 25% of the world's undiscovered oil and gas. Why not 100%?
— Stephen Colbert, from the Colbert Report

Reflecting on Marx and money gone mad-- Rabble

Reflecting on Marx and money gone mad
by Duncan Cameron
October 9, 2007

The Bank of Canada is busily handing out money to buoy the Canadian financial system, resorting to purchase, and re-purchase agreements which allow financial institutions time to find more funds to satisfy their need for liquidity aka cash. Note that public money is readily available to banks with shortfalls, but not for the homeless.

Sex-trade workers charged after undercover police raids

Thu, October 11, 2007
Sex-trade workers charged after undercover police raids
UPDATED: 2007-10-11 03:18:22 MST
By NADIA MOHARIB

Undercover cops worked some of the city's prostitute strolls picking up working women now accused of sex-trade related offences.

The sweep by the vice and community-response units in the first week of October took them to four of five city strolls -- in the Beltine, East Village, Forest Lawn and near Eau Claire, where so-called high-end prostitutes work.

A Tale of Two Cities: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Fort McMurray

To the Tar Sands

The Bad
Fort Muck: place of sex, drugs, violence, homelessness, massive trucks, polluted air and contaminated water. This is what we were told we would find at the end of deadly Highway 63, or in our case Secondary Highway 881. The city of 70 000 has been growing at a most alarming rate. In response, city council has gone so far as to call for a moratorium on new developments. The municipality simply can not keep up with endless stream of new arrivals and the associated demand for services.

"Review" of CNRL's Temporary Foreign Worker Deaths

Alberta Justice officials review oil sands deaths

FORT MCMURRAY, ALTA.

An on-site investigation into the deaths of two temporary Chinese workers at a northern Alberta oil sands tank construction site has been completed but findings have not been released.

The two men died last April when a massive tank collapsed at the multibillion-dollar Horizon oil sands project, killing the two temporary Chinese workers and injuring four more.

It will be up to Alberta Justice officials to determine whether charges should be laid against the company.

Canadian Press

Total (France) to invest $1 billion a year in tar sands in Canada

AFX News Limited
Total to invest 1 bln usd a year in oil sands in Canada
10.11.07, 12:06 PM ET

PARIS (Thomson Financial) - French group Total is to invest 1 bln usd annually over the next few years in extracting oil from sand deposits in Canada, chairman Thierry Desmarest told an energy conference.

Desmarest said that by 2010 around 10 pct of worldwide oil production will come from oil sands and that this source of production is set to grow.

He underlined these oil sands are located in Canada, a country that does not pose any 'political problems'.

It's not just Alberta, it's the whole country

It's not just Alberta, it's the whole country
ANDREW NIKIFORUK
October 6, 2007
review: STUPID TO THE LAST DROP By William Marsden
How Alberta is Bringing Environmental Armageddon to Canada (and Doesn't Seem to Care)

The Globe and Mail

Ottawa and Alberta First Nation sign agreement-in-principle on $300M land claim

Ottawa and Alta First Nation sign agreement-in-principle on $300M land claim
Fri Oct 12, 5:42 PM

By The Canadian Press

WABASCA, Alta. - Alberta's Bigstone Cree have signed an agreement-in-principle with the provincial and federal governments that would entitle the First Nation to almost $300 million and almost 570 square kilometres of land.

The Bigstone are calling it the largest land-claim settlement in Alberta and one of the largest in Canada.

The agreement means all sides will work to finalize the settlement, which stems from a treaty signed in the late 1800s.