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.

Buying our way out of sin

Buying our way out of sin
THE TELEGRAM [St Lohn's, NFLD)
The Telegram
http://www.thetelegram.com/index.cfm?sid=51665&sc=80

For such a modern-day problem, it seems like a terribly Medieval solution. The problem is climate change — the way humanity is altering the Earth’s weather by spewing fossil-fuel emissions into the atmosphere.

Shell unveils plan for biggest upgrader

GLOBE AND MAIL:

Print Edition 31/07/07 Page B1
RESOURCES: EXPANDING IN THE OIL SANDS

Shell unveils plan for biggest upgrader

Proposal could cost up to $27-billion as price of refining Alberta's heavy crude continues to climb

NORVAL SCOTT

July 31, 2007

CALGARY -- Royal Dutch Shell PLC is planning construction on the largest oil sands upgrader to date, even as other firms delay or cancel their own projects in the face of spiralling costs.

Greenpeace in Edmonton, their sights set on shutting down Alberta’s tarsands.

Target: tarsands
Greenpeace comes to Edmonton

By NICKI THOMAS, SPECIAL TO SUN MEDIA
http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/Edmonton/2007/07/31/4383282.html

Greenpeace is setting up shop in Edmonton with their sights set on shutting down Alberta’s tarsands.

“The tarsands are one of the most environmentally destructive projects in Canada, if not the world,” said tarsands campaign organizer Geeta Sehgal.

Sehgal said the tarsands create 40 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions every year, ensuring Canada can’t meet its commitments to the Kyoto Protocol.

Oil, gas development could harm First Nations' quality of living: Sierra Club

Oil, gas development could harm First Nations' quality of living: Sierra Club
Last Updated: Friday, July 27, 2007 | 12:23 PM MT
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2007/07/27/nwt-sierra.html
CBC News

Decades of oil and gas activity in northern Alberta has done little to improve the lives of aboriginal people living there, according to a national environmental group that used federal government numbers that gauge community well-being.

Growth and Pipelines Everywhere

Snippets from the Business pages:
1 Enbridge Promises to build Gateway Pipeline without PetroChina & build Alberta Clipper
2 Largest Companies trying to get in on Expansion of Tar Sands
3 CP to further Expand in Tar Sands
4 Husky adding more Refineries
5 Imperial Oil buys huge exploration permit in Arctic /Beaufort Sea

These stories paint a collective picture of development of mock "oil" out of control.

Populations Tar Sands Demands Ignored by Province

some may think it a bit unfair of myself to often change the headlines originated by the newspapers or other news sources the story is fair-used from. But this one begs to be the prototypical reason why that is necessary: The recommendations concluded have only the small or nearly inconsequential ideas approved, and things from water use to moratoriums to land use, to greenhouse gas emissions and more are "not able to reach consensus". In other words, the whole procedure is a giant play, and the consultations are not to be incorporated.

Suncor: To get Bigger & Outgrow Syncrude

As the article explains, this is not only Suncor but one of many new vast expansions being planned by the "major players". The upgrader facilities are essential and not hard to understand. All of this development is, as always, continuous and along side existing facilities and tar pits, none of it slowing down or remaining static at a certain speed but like a run-away freight train. This train loaded with gas is headed straight for the water.

--M

Suncor to expand tar sands mining operations
By Scott Haggett

The Fort McMurray airport is "bursting at the seams"

Airport expansion plan set to take off
http://www.fortmcmurraytoday.com/Local%20News/326841.html
Stories by SARAH FOX
Today staff
Friday July 27, 2007

The Fort McMurray airport is bursting at the seams as it welcomes 580,000 passengers a year through its doors.
This is twice the number the terminal was meant to accommodate when it was built in 1986.
Officials are currently planning an $80- to $100-million airport expansion which will include building a second runway and possibly an entirely new terminal building, said airport CEO Darryl Wightman.

Not enough pipelines for the Tar Pits: National Energy Board

This news article below shows, once again, that taking out the ability to construct pipelines to send oil and and bring gas (x2) in is a viable strategy for the cessation of the tar pits expansion. In other words, our fights against the Keystone, Alberta Clipper and North-Central Corridor, along with the Mackenzie Gas Project and Enbridge Gateway (among so many more!) all slow down the speed of flowing mock crude to a bottleneck pace.