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.

The AFL: The Boom, Union Busting, and Temporary Foreign Workers

The Boom, Union Busting, and Temporary Foreign Workers
Plans to Import Workers a "Lose-Lose Proposition"

Alberta is in the middle of a boom. There is no question about that. Due to the pace of economic activity, the labour market is tight. Employers are having to work harder to find workers for their projects.

Most employers are taking necessary steps to recruit and retain desired workers - improving working conditions, increasing wages and offering good benefits. Some employers, however, are taking more drastic steps.

United States, China Clash over Peak Oil May Endanger World Peace

United States, China Clash over Peak Oil May Endanger World Peace
By Ann Weaver Hart
Published Aug 30, 2007
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/363360/united_states_china_clas...

Peak Oil may have put the United States on a collision course with China as the two nations compete for African oil reserves. "Peak Oil" refers to the fact that worldwide, per capita petroleum production peaked in 1979. Owing to population growth, even though more actual barrels of oil per day are extracted, the amount of oil pumped per person continues to drop.

Factoring Sustainability Into Alberta's Tar Sands Project

Factoring Sustainability Into Alberta's Tar Sands Project
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007166.html
Mindy Lubber
August 24, 2007 11:26 AM

There's much talk these days of capitalism and sustainability being increasingly interrelated -- that environmental and social impacts need to be included along with quarterly sales projections in corporate strategies and the financial bottom line. But why is this still more a concept than a reality, especially when it comes to a sustainability crisis like global warming?

Tar Sands the Only Reason Reserves Not Dropping

Global oil reserves up only 1% last year
Canada's Oilsands Sole Booster, Study Says
Claudia Cattaneo, Financial Post
Published: Thursday, August 30, 2007
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=7bd3bdc5-...

CALGARY -- Record global oil and gas profits of US$243-billion and record spending of US$401-billion have resulted in a marginal 1% increase in world oil reserves last year -- all of it coming from a 1.9-billion-barrel addition from Canada's oilsands, according to a new study.

Think I'll Go Out to Alberta

THINK I'LL GO OUT TO ALBERTA.

SCOTT HARRIS / scott@vueweekly.com

Greenpeace and its ilk set up shop to battle oilsands
Opposition to the Alberta oil sands got a boost this August when international environmental advocacy organization Greenpeace opened the doors of its Edmonton office, becoming the first of a number of well-known environmental organizations to officially set up shop in Alberta to take on increased development in the north of the province.

BC NDP Opposing Alberta Nuclear Plans

Carole James is, of course, correct to oppose a dramatic *increase* in global warming emissions brought about by the tar sands-fueling proposed nuclear plant near Peace River Alberta. However, another point that needs to be made for British Columbians is the fact that Tilma-- The Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement-- makes between provinces the same kind of impact as Chapter 11 of NAFTA; if the plants are approved in Alberta, by 2009 in both provinces such will not be allowed to be "interfered or impeded" with. Precedents become above legislation.

--M

Tar Sands, Peak Oil and lack of New Discoveries

Copyright 2007 The Calgary Herald.
All Rights Reserved
The Calgary Herald (Alberta)
http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/calgarybusiness/story.html?id=a...
August 30, 2007 Thursday
Final Edition

SECTION: CALGARY BUSINESS; Deborah Yedlin; Pg. E1

LENGTH: 799 words

HEADLINE: Canada's oilsands bear the burden

BYLINE: Deborah Yedlin, Calgary Herald

BODY:

Anyone sounding the warning bells about oil prices crashing to earth
in the wake of the ongoing liquidity crunch would be well advised to

Application to build a Nuclear Reactor in Northern Alberta/Peace River

Shaun Polczer, CanWest News Service
Published: Tuesday, August 28, 2007
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=d5f7f6ae-00ce-4...

The prospect of a nuclear-fuelled Alberta moved closer to reality after a Calgary-based company filed for a licence to build the province's first reactor.

Yet more ways to get [mock] oil from Alberta

Squeezing oil from stones
There are vast reserves of oil trapped within Alberta's rockbed - the trick is getting it out
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070822.ROILSANDS22/TP...
NORVAL SCOTT

August 22, 2007

CALGARY -- OSUM Oil Sands Corp. believes it might have the answer to one of the oil patch's most perplexing problems - extracting the billions of barrels of crude trapped in Alberta's limestone deposits.

Syncrude ordered to cut emissions from smelly pond

Syncrude ordered to cut emissions from smelly pond
Tue Aug 28, 2007 2:13 PM EDT143
http://ca.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&stor...

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - Syncrude Canada Ltd has been ordered to clean up a settling pond at its northern Alberta oil sands project after it began emitting ammonia and small amounts of hydrogen sulfide gas, Alberta environmental regulators said on Tuesday.