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.

Gulf Times/ Qatar: Tar Sands as 'Alternative' to Venezuela

Anyone else noticing a pattern here?

Maya Rolbin-Ghanie and Fort McMurray to Fort Chipewyan

http://www.dominionpaper.ca/weblogs/maya_rolbin_ghanie/1259

posted by Maya Rolbin-Ghanie and Fort McMurray to Fort Chipewyan
June 29, 2007

What in Tarnation?

Petro-Canada Plans C$26.2 Billion 'Oil-Sands' Project

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601082&sid=ayjHX7wsn1WA&refer=c...

Petro-Canada Plans C$26.2 Billion Oil-Sands Project (Update7)

By Ian McKinnon

June 28 (Bloomberg) -- Petro-Canada, the third-largest oil company in Canada, and its partners will spend C$26.2 billion ($24.6 billion) on an oil-sands project in northern Alberta that's one of the world's most costly energy developments.

NDP and Environmentalists decrie tanker traffic- Gas Headed to Tar Sands

http://www.goldstreamgazette.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=12&cat=23&i...

NDP decries tanker traffic

Environmentalists and the NDP want the federal government to block passage of oil tankers, such as this one, along B.C.’s coast.
By Brennan Clarke
News staff

Jun 29 2007

Environmentalists allege federal Conservatives turning blind eye to moratorium

Increasing oil tanker activity in B.C.’s northern waters has West Coast NDPers calling on Ottawa and Victoria to “formalize” a long-standing moratorium on tanker traffic and offshore exploration.

“The (labour) picture [in Fort Muck] isn’t getting any better – in fact it’s getting worse."

Fort Hills to cost $14-billion
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070628.WBwenergyblo...
Norval Scott, June 28, 2007 at 10:45 AM EDT

Indigenous Nations Governments Challenging Tar Sands

Oilsands Facing Aboriginal Opposition

Copyright 2007 Nickle's Energy Group Copyright, a division of HCN
Publications Company
All Rights Reserved
Daily Oil Bulletin

A couple of First Nations groups are protesting oilsands operations
in their backyards.

The Woodland Cree First Nation (WCFN) says it intends to file an
intervention with the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board regarding
Shell Canada Limited's Carmon Creek oilsands project near Peace River.

Meanwhile the Clearwater River Dene Nation in northwest Saskatchewan

Venezuelan Gusanos Flock to Fort McMurray

Fleeing Chavez, oil workers flock to frigid Alberta
By JOEL MILLMAN, The Wall Street Journal
Associated Press Financial Wire
June 26, 2007 Tuesday 2:10 PM GMT

FORT McMURRAY, Alberta Before he left Venezuela in April for this
petroleum outpost in northern Alberta, Freddy Mendez heard tales
about bone-chilling winter cold and lumbering moose. Since he's come
to town, he's seen two black bears in his neighborhood. Still, the
toughest adjustment is the late-night sun.

"You get a lot of work done when the sun doesn't set until 11," he

Nuclear CO2 warming costs-- Helen Caldicott

http://www.upi.com/Security_Terrorism/Analysis/2007/05/21/ou...
Published: May 21, 2007 at 2:23 PM
Outside View: Nuclear CO2 warming costs

By HELEN CALDICOTT UPI
Outside View Commentator

MELBOURNE, May 21 (UPI) -- The fact is, it takes energy to make energy --
even nuclear energy. And the true "energetic costs" of making nuclear
energy -- the amounts of traditionally generated fuel it takes to create
"new" nuclear energy -- have not been tallied up until very recently.

What exactly is nuclear power? It is a very expensive, sophisticated and

Fort McMurray: Boomtown on a bender

Boomtown on a bender

Jun 28th 2007 | FORT MCMURRAY
From The Economist print edition
The downside of explosive growth in northern Alberta

WITH C$36 billion ($25 billion) invested so far in its oil sands and another C$45 billion expected over the next decade, the Canadian province of Alberta is booming. Workers have flocked in, lured by wages of up to C$120,000 a year. The once sleepy town of Fort McMurray, at the centre of the bonanza, boasts a crowded casino and a busy airport. But big money has brought big problems, including overstretched infrastructure and soaring drug use.

Why geosequestration is another distraction

Why geosequestration is another distraction
Posted by JMG at 12:37 PM on 18 Jun 2007
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/6/17/223950/134

The July/August 2007 issue of World Watch magazine (produced by the Worldwatch Institute) includes a concise demolition of carbon geosequestration in the form of a letter to the editor by one Luc Gagnon, "a senior advisor on climate change for Hydro-Quebec."