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.
Stelmach defends oilsands on foreign, domestic fronts
Premier calls protests 'unfortunate'
By Jason Fekete, with files from Dina O'Meara, Calgary Herald, and the Edmonton Journal, Calgary Herald June 10, 2010
Alberta's oilsands are facing a new cross-border assault, with a community in the U.S. boycotting the resource and a cosmetics store in Canada demanding development be halted.
Gulf oil disaster doesn’t make the tar sands green
Jeff Rubin's Blog // Globe and Mail
Wednesday, June 9, 2010 5:59 AM
Syncrude fire injures 5
June 10, 2010
The Canadian Press
Five workers were injured Thursday afternoon in a fire at Syncrude's Mildred
Lake facility in northern Alberta.
Three of the five were flown by air ambulance to an Edmonton hospital after
the blaze broke out about 2 p.m., said Syncrude spokesperson Cheryl Robb,
who had little other information.
"All I know is they were medevaced to Edmonton," she said six hours after
the incident. "I don't know the extent of their injuries or any further
details."
This is a government ministry of Morocco report. Moroccans refer to tar sands and oil shale almost interchangeably, and even refer to Alberta's giant "oil shale" mines.
--M
Morocco Oil Shale Deposits, an Alternative Oil Source Following Oil Spill in US Golf
Thursday, May 20 2010 11:43
China's oilsands plans no concern
By Markus Ermisch, Calgary Sun
June 9, 2010
China’s increased appetite for Alberta’s oilsands shouldn’t ring alarm bells in Ottawa, says a market observer.
“Supply will always be controlled by the country where the supplies are,” Tim Marchant, a professor of energy and geopolitics at the International Institute for Resource Industries and Sustainability Studies, said during a panel discussion at the Global Petroleum Show in Calgary on Tuesday.
Oil sands output set for takeoff, CAPP predicts
New projects to boost production as they return from backburner
By Dina O'Meara, Calgary Herald June 10, 2010
CALGARY - New oilsands projects and investments have changed Canada's long-range supply picture for the better, according to a new industry report.
The emergence of several new players in Alberta's oilsands will lift overall crude production between 2020 and 2025, a period that wasn't expected to see any production gains in last year's forecast, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers said Wednesday.
Foreign workers earn ‘substantially’ less than Canadians
June 08, 2010
Nicholas Keung
Temporary foreign workers earn substantially less than their Canadian counterparts and their most common jobs are as live-in caregivers, housekeepers and cleaners, says a new report.
Almost 30 per cent of Canada’s 265,000 non-permanent residents at the time of the 2006 census, including foreigners here on work permits and student visas, had been in Canada for at least five years, according to the Statistics Canada study released Tuesday.
Gulf spill's ripples felt at petroleum show
Oilpatch Keeping Tabs On Leak
By Dan Healing
Calgary Herald
June 9, 2010
The subsea wellhead display at the FMC Technologies booth at the Global Petroleum Show in Calgary is a tiny, perfect, clean representation of what a deepsea drilling environment should be.
But the display, with spindly threads representing pipes and cables leading from bright yellow miniature wellheads to ships and platforms floating above on a plate of glass, was designed long before the horrors of the BP oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico.
China out front at Calgary oil show
June 9, 2010
CBC News
Chinese companies were well represented at the World Petroleum Show, which runs June 8 to 10 in Calgary.Chinese companies were well represented at the World Petroleum Show, which runs June 8 to 10 in Calgary.
As the world's top players in the oil and gas industry gather in Calgary for a high-stakes trade show, the largest contingent and most impressive displays are from China.
Canada oil sands industry hits back at critics
By Bernard Simon in Toronto
June 9 2010
Financial Times
Alberta’s oil sands industry has vigorously defended itself against an attack by Lush, the UK-based cosmetics group, in a sign of a more aggressive approach being taken by oil sands producers towards their critics.
Dave Collyer, president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (Capp), issued a statement accusing Lush of distorting the industry’s environmental record.
