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.

Art Manuel: The Olympic Torch Should Be Put Out

From: Arthur Manuel
Subject: RE: Olympic Torch in Kahnawake, QC URGENT

The Olympic Torch Should Be Put Out

Canada is using the Olympic Torch Relay to hide their terrible human rights
record in regard to Indigenous Peoples here in Canada and Internationally.

Canada voted against the United Nations Declaration on Rights of the
Indigenous Peoples on June 26, 2006 at the Human Rights Council and in
September 13, 2007 before United Nations General Assembly.

143 State Governments voted in favour of the Declaration of the Rights of

Suncor planning to grow tar sands business

Suncor planning to grow oilsands business
By MARKUS ERMISCH, SUN MEDIA
Last Updated: 3rd December 2009

Investors need not fear Suncor Energy is moving away from being an oilsands-dominated company after merging with Petro-Canada, an executive told an energy conference in Miami yesterday.

Prior to its merger with Petro-Canada, Suncor's business consisted of 80% oilsands and 20% of what John Rogers called "other stuff," such as natural gas and downstream operations.

Statoil chief discusses priorities in his first Canadian interview

Lars Christian Bacher: Statoil's oil sands pragmatist

Statoil chief discusses priorities in his first Canadian interview

Nathan Vanderklippe

CALGARY —
Globe and Mail
Saturday, Dec. 05, 2009

When Statoil ASA brought Lars Christian Bacher to Calgary, the company named him president of its Canadian operations and gave him a mandate to get bitumen out of the oil sands - and, when that's done, think about getting more of the land around Fort McMurray into the portfolio.

Climate talks target Alberta's tar sands

Climate talks target Alberta's oilsands

By Kelly Cryderman, Calgary Herald
December 6, 2009

As the world works toward the most important climate change agreement since Kyoto in 1997, the Canadian delegation will walk into the Copenhagen conference with a big, black bull's-eye on its back.

The sore spot--the increasing greenhouse gas emissions from Alberta's oilsands--will be as inescapable as Danish pastries when 192 countries gather in Copenhagen for 12 days beginning Monday.

Suncor to sell Shell gas in Colorado

April 09, 2009 - DENVER -- Suncor Energy (U.S.A.) Inc. reached a marketing agreement with Shell Oil Products U.S., allowing Suncor to sell Shell-branded gasoline in Colorado, the Denver Business Journal reported.

Suncor Energy (U.S.A.)—the Denver-based U.S. unit of Calgary, Alberta-based Suncor Energy Inc., which recently agreed to merge with
Petro-Canada—currently has an agreement to sell Phillips 66-brand gas in Colorado, which expires in July 2013, according to the report. Terms of the deal were not announced.

Jim Hansen Takes on NRDC and Bank of America

November 30th, 2009

Will the media and policy makers finally wake up and pay attention after the world’s leading global warming scientists takes the extraordinary and unprecedented step to publicly criticize US national environmental groups for their lax posture on global warming?

Or will the mighty Obama Administration, Democratic Washington DC beltway, and corporate PR Wurlitzer continue to dominate US public opinion?

Full article, with important and informative photos:

The Most Urgent Threat to World Peace Is … Canada

By George Monbiot, Monbiot.com. Posted December 2, 2009.

The harm this country could do in the next two weeks will outweigh all the good it has done in a century.

Peak Everything

By Gunther Ostermann

28 November, 2009
http://www.countercurrents.org/ostermann281109.htm
Countercurrents.org

The former media mogul Ted Turner challenged us in 1992 with this statement:' If we don't make the right choices after we have all the information, then we don't deserve to live."

Well, we have more than enough information. Oil and gas, the stored sun's energy, which took hundreds of millions of years to incubate, gone forever within this century. We are, in fact, approaching PEAK EVERYTHING.

H2Oil examines the tar sands

H2Oil examines the tar sands
By John Griffin, Gazette Film CriticNovember 27, 2009

If Peter Mettler’s Petropolis sings the awful, awesome Alberta tar sands aesthetic, Shannon Walsh’s H2Oil maps its skin, muscle, bones and blood.

Mettler’s ravishing tone poem played last month’s Festival du nouveau cinéma.

EnCana sour gas leak under investigation in B.C.

EnCana sour gas leak under investigation in B.C.
November 27, 2009 |
CBC News

A safety investigation is being carried out by the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission after a dangerous sour gas leak from an EnCana pipeline forced about 15 northeastern B.C. residents to flee their homes on Sunday.

EnCana has yet to say what caused the leak at a well located about 10 kilometres south of Pouce Coupe, but officials have confirmed it was not caused by sabotage.