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.

"No security and no prosperity"

No security and no prosperity
The Leader-Post
Published: Tuesday, August 28, 2007
http://www.canada.com/reginaleaderpost/news/letters/story.html?id=d40a2d...

On Aug. 22, there was a community forum on George W. Bush and Stephen Harper's "Security and Prosperity Partnership". The guest speaker was Peter Julian, NDP member of Parliament for Burnaby-New Westminster and critic on international trade.

This "security and prosperity partnership" doesn't offer security or prosperity for the majority of Canadians -- quite the opposite.

Nuclear Plant Plan for Peace River Draws Fire

Nuclear plant plan draws fire

Environmentalists question impact on area land and water; company touts 'clean, safe, reliable' power
Jamie Hall, The Edmonton Journal; With files from the Calgary Herald
http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=107a03c7-...
Tuesday, August 28, 2007

EDMONTON - Energy Alberta Corporation has chosen Peace River as the site of a proposed nuclear power plant.

When citizens are most vulnerable

When citizens are most vulnerable
http://srj.ca/default.asp?sourceid=&smenu=74&twindow=Default&mad=No&sdet...

Dr John O'Connor still Being Persecuted

Fort Chip Doctor Still Under Scrutiny
http://srj.ca/default.asp?sourceid=&smenu=74&twindow=Default&mad=No&sdet...
SRJ Staff 24.AUG.07

Tar Sands are Running out of Pipelines

As labour shortages are going to take a short while to be dealt with through the importation of "guest workers" on top of already getting Newfoundlanders to fly in weekly while energy throughout the province is already stretched to beyond capacity, the pipeline problem is the third de facto part of an existing physics-based moratorium. With all of these shortages and the US Dep't of Energy screaming for quadrupling tar sands bitumen production, our strategy to block new pipeline construction at the least slows down the entire project.

--M

Oilsands face pipeline space shortage

Tarsands workers rally in Fort McMurray

Oilsands workers rally in Fort McMurray
Protesting ongoing labour dispute
http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/Alberta/2007/08/23/4441128.html
By CP

FORT MCMURRAY — Hundreds of workers fed up with an ongoing labour dispute in the oilsands rallied in Fort McMurray on Wednesday night.

The workers, many of them from the pipefitters and electrical workers unions, are not happy with a four-year contract offer, and say they’re disappointed in how their union leaders have negotiated.

In Alberta, Cocaine Easier to Buy than Pizza

Cocaine easier to buy than pizza
Drugs, alcohol plague transient workers living on fringes of oilpatch boom towns
Amanda Ferguson, The Edmonton Journal
Published: 2:05 am
http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=cd92c68f-21d9-4...

Even when living in the remote work camps of northern Alberta, Ken was never far from his next fix.

If cocaine wasn't being used inside his camp of 3,000 oil workers in the outskirts of Fort McMurray, it lingered just outside in the pockets of the drug dealers who prowled outside the gates like predators.

Lubicon backed by UN Committee

Alberta's Lubicons get a boost from U.N. Human Rights Committee
Aug, 13 2007 - 4:50 PM
http://www.630ched.com/news/news_local.cfm?cat=7428109912&rem=72244&red=...

EDMONTON/630 CHED - A U.N. Committee on Human Rights is urging Canada to negotiate a long standing land claim treaty with the Lubicon Cree Nation of north central Alberta.

The U.N. Human Rights Committee wrapped up two-and-a-half weeks of hearings in Geneva, late last month, and on the agenda was the issue of Alberta's Lubicons.

The new dirty energy-- Boston Globe

The new dirty energy
It's big, it's growing -- and it's bad for the environment. Inside the other alternative-energy movement.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/19/the_new_dirty...
By Drake Bennett | August 19, 2007

FOR THOSE WHO dream that high oil prices will help drive America toward a brave new world of clean energy, the MacKay River project in Alberta, Canada, offers a glimpse of the future.

Tar sand mining growing at huge environmental cost

Tar sand mining growing at huge environmental cost
Posted: 23 Aug 2007
http://www.peopleandplanet.net/doc.php?id=3079

Canadian tar sands deposits hold an estimated 1.7 trillion barrels of crude oil, second in the world only to Saudi Arabia, but the devastating environmental impact of mining them far exceeds that of conventional oil, says new research to be published next month (September 2007).