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.

Peak Oil and Gender

Jon Lebkowsky
September 17, 2007 8:27 AM

Kurt Cobb at Energy Bulletin wonders whether peak oil is a gender issue or, as he says, a "guy thing." (Thanks to Paul Robbins for the pointer.)

A peek at the peak oil problem

A peek at the peak oil problem
By The Mogambo Guru // Asia Times Online

There are a few people who ask me to rebut the argument that oil will go down in price, thanks to a slowing world economy and the increased use of alternative energy resources and the "fact" that the world has zillions of barrels of oil still waiting to be pumped. By now, my response is automatic; "Oil go down in demand or price? What a load of hooey! You're a stupid freaking moron!" To which they always bizarrely reply, "Oh, yeah? Well, screw you!"

"Tar sands are the enemy of the planet"

Tar sands are the enemy of the planet
Posted by Jon Rynn at 12:35 PM on 14 Sep 2007

Our civilization's addiction to oil is being displayed in all its nefarious glory in the tar sands of Canada. According to Chris Nelder:

EUB Spies on Landowners; New EUB Chair also brokered the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline

Note that Bill Tilleman, the new chair of the EUB was also involved in brokering the "streamlined" regulatory review of the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline as a special advisor to then Indian Affairs Minister Nault

-Petro-Pete

Alberta names new chairman for embattled regulator
Reuters

Monday, September 17, 2007

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - Alberta has appointed a prominent lawyer to head the oil-rich province's energy regulator and restore public confidence after a spying scandal sparked calls for resignations at the agency's senior levels.

West's ravenous oil appetite may lead to tough sacrifices (like giving up your equestrian estates and SUV's)

My heart bleeds for the oiligarchy wringing their hands in their country estates.

-Petro-Pete

West's ravenous oil appetite may lead to tough sacrifices

GWYN MORGAN
Read Bio | Latest Columns

September 17, 2007

CALGARY -- The Southern family's Spruce Meadows equestrian centre near Calgary is ranked as the world's top show-jumping venue. Each September, its flagship Masters Tournament brings together the sport's best horses and riders.

Workers Defying "Cease & Desist" Order

Pickets vow they will ignore order to stop
Jamie Hall, The Edmonton Journal
Published: Friday, September 14

EDMONTON - Undaunted by the prospect of arrest and fines, scores of protesters vowed Thursday to continue a crusade that has disrupted work at more than a dozen construction sites and cost oilsands contractors millions of dollars.

Union members who again formed "information lines" early Thursday were served with copies of a cease-and-desist order issued on Wednesday night, which bars picketing at any construction or maintenance site.

CNRL Abandons Newfoundlanders in Northern Alberta

Newfoundlanders claim company has left them stranded in Alberta
JAMIE BAKER
The Telegram

What was supposed to be a tasty piece of the Alberta employment pie quickly turned into a sour serving of severance for a small group of Newfoundland workers who found themselves on their own in the oil-rich western province with no job and no way home.

The group had been working on a 20 days on, eight days off schedule for one of the many contractors at the huge Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (CNRL) Horizon oil sands project near Fort McMurray.

Shifting Tar Sands

Shifting oil sands
Telegraph UK Magazine
15/09/2007

In the hunt for new fuel sources, a vast swath of western Canada is being mined for its precious 'oil sands'. Jack Fairweather visits the centre of the new gold rush. Photographs by Jonas Bendiksen

Donnie Leblanc is surprisingly nonchalant for a man who has just blown $20,000 on a two-day trip to Las Vegas. But then, since he came to northern Canada, he hasn't had to worry too much about money - and there is plenty more where that came from. In a few months' time he will have saved enough to hit the casinos again.

Lunn: It should be the market that determines the pace of development

Sep 12, 2007 9:41:00 PM MST
Federal energy minister tells pipeline group plans to reduce regulatory process on track (Pipeline-Regulatory-L)

CALGARY (CP) _ Plans to reduce the regulatory process for major pipeline projects in the future are on track Federal Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn said Wednesday evening but won‘t be any help to the $16.2 billion Mackenzie Gas pipeline.

The Harper government put aside $150 million over five years in the last federal budget to set up a new Major Projects Management Office to help streamline the regulatory process.

CNN gets in on the Peak: "The End of Oil"

The article here, rather poorly put together, nonetheless should be noted for a multitude of reasons & not least that this is on CNN and is a follow up on the GAO in the lower 48 actually discussing the problem. There is a slow but clear trend towards not just peak oil, but peak denial. We have hit the peak in reasonable denial; the costs of continuing any further such denial are simply too great for the "market of ideas" to bear.

--M

The end of oil
A small - but growing - group of experts think world oil production will peak in the next few years, to devastating effect.