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.
A clip from the entire article below:
"Mr. Stelmach said the province's decision to sign a special immigration deal with Ottawa earlier this year is part of that strategy. The agreement is expected to make it easier and faster for immigrants to settle in the province by cutting red tape. It will also give the province more control over selecting skilled immigrants."
Approximately only a month ago the first new refinery in decades was announced to be under construction in the lower 48 states. This is not to be the last, as the absolutely unparalleled growth of the tarsands is leaving bottle neck-like conditions for transporting the sludge-then-crude-then petrol through the refining processes across Turtle Island. Husky will no doubt go along with some of the foreseen upgrading of facilities, rather than worry about an entirely new refinery. It's all a part of the largest project in history.
--M
Husky on the prowl for refining capacity
When Royal Dutch Shell recently bought out Shell Canada, the world's most notorious oil corporation became directly involved in many of the world's most deadly plans for the environment, social rights and indigenous self-determination. In northern British Columbia, RD Shell has inherited an exploration permit to look in the sacred headwaters of the Nass, Skeena and the Stikine rivers for Coalbed Methane, perhaps the single worst water damaging form of gas extraction that has been linked to stillbirths in animals and humans nearby.
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12 July 2007
Refineries retrofit for goop and gunk
Some oil companies are staking much of their future on the gunky oil that comes out of Canada’s oil sands. Automation has a piece of this action.
The Wall Street Journal reported the first crude from the Albertan oil sands reached the giant Cushing, Okla., pipeline hub last year.
Black gold's tarnish seen in Canada
Cash and jobs flow bountifully from Alberta's oil sands, but they come at a cost to the environment and native peoples.
By Tim Reiterman, Times Staff Writer
July 8, 2007
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-oilsands8jul08,0,732...
FORT MCMURRAY, CANADA — The Aurora Mine exudes the odor of petroleum and the look of untapped riches.
Alberta's inflation is everyone's interest
MICHAEL MENDELSON
Globe and Mail Update
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070711.wcomment0712...
July 11, 2007 at 11:45 PM EDT
By Lynn Martel - Rocky Mountains
Expedition to raise awareness about threats to Athabasca River
http://www.rockymountainoutlook.ca/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=128&cat=4...
Jul 11 2007
"Water is the ultimate traveller. It flows off mountains, all the way to oceans, and it can fly too."
What they didn't want you to know: oil's dirty little secret
Copyright 2007 Lloyd's List International
All Rights Reserved
Lloyd's List // July 13, 2007
The theory of Peak Oil is that world production will peak and plateau
at a undefined point in time and then begin to decline, while demand
continues to rise Five decades after it was first brought to the
world's attention, the finite supply of oil and what this means is
only just being accepted
"IT'S the end of the world as we know it", sang US rock band REM, a
The Richest First Nation in Canada
by Macdonald Stainsby / July 10th, 2007
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/07/the-richest-first-nation-in-canada/
The primarily indigenous and mostly Cree (also ‘Chipewyan Dene’) community of Fort MacKay — just north of the internationally famous tar sand “boom” city of Fort McMurray — is said to be the “richest First Nation in Canada.” The question should be asked: How well does this reach the entire community, and does the economic benefit outweigh the cost?
Military experts say worldwide water scarcity could lead to future conflict
Sat Jul 7, 2:20 PM
By Michael Oliveira
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/070707/national/great_lakes_water_wars
(CP) - Some of the world's most powerful nations are getting increasingly desperate
for fresh water and observers are concerned that a day will come when countries will
fight for the dwindling resource.
Countries in the Middle East and Africa have long dealt with water shortages but now
the likes of China, India and the United States are grappling with the problem.
