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.
Enbridge opens oilsands terminal.
By Dave Cooper, Canwest News Service
October 20, 2009
HARDISTY, Alta. - Oil pipeline giant Enbridge officially opened its new contract terminal in Hardisty on Tuesday, a 19-tank facility capable of holding 7.5 million barrels of crude oil from the oilsands.
One of the largest in North America, the Hardisty terminal, is the starting place for two major pipelines that will initially carry one million barrels a day of bitumen to United States markets.
Oilsands worker killed in accident
By Ben Gelinas,
edmontonjournal.com
October 19, 2009
EDMONTON — A 22-year-old vacuum truck operator has been killed on a northeastern Alberta oilsands site.
Occupational Health and Safety said he had likely just finished cleaning out the tank of the truck, used to suck up drilling mud, at about 5 p.m. on Saturday when the door to the tank closed on his head. A driver was at the controls.
The man was working for Fehr Quality Contractors at the Statoil-Hydro plant near Conklin, about 300 kilometres northeast of Edmonton, OHS said.
Alberta delays oil sands upgrader plans
Nathan VanderKlippe
Globe and Mail
Oct. 20, 2009
On a cost basis, carbon-capture projects are madness
The small reductions gained by staggering per-tonne costs illustrate what
every independent analyst knows: The Harper government's 20-per-cent
reduction target will not be met
Jeffrey Simpson
The Globe and Mail
Published on Monday, Oct. 19, 2009 5:50PM EDT
Prime Minister Stephen Harper makes so many spending announcements, flying
like Mary Poppins on speed around the country to distribute billions of
dollars, that the news media have given up analyzing any of them.
This project was originally led by Petro Canada, the official energy supplier to the 2010 Olympic Games, until the entire company was recently bought up by Suncor Energy.
Sadly, industry representatives continue to show their wonderful even handed nature and behaviour towards anyone and anything that may (or, may not) be the slightest bit deviant from their basic line of total production everywhere, at all times, and intimidate and harass those who defy it. As such, the article below was removed from this site after a series of bizarre threats for posting the article.
Greenpeace lawyer slams Alberta Premier Stelmach
Slave River Journal, October 14, 2009
The lawyer defending Greenpeace’s oilsands activists says Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach is using his political position to try to influence the legal system and prevent a fair trial.
Brian Beresh, a well-known Albertan defense lawyer, has taken on the case of 16 activists arrested during a protest at Shell’s Scotford upgrader on October 3.
Nexen says oilsands to triple production
Cities Commit To Cut Emissions
By Dan Healing, Calgary Herald
October 8, 2009
CALGARY - The Alberta oilsands will triple production to three million barrels of oil per day, Marvin Romanow, president and chief executive of Nexen Inc., predicted Thursday, adding he's confident it will happen but is a little hazy on the timeline.
Protests in oil sands raise anxieties
Oil companies say activists are most at risk, but one security specialist warns the oil patch is a sitting duck for terrorists
NATHAN VANDERKLIPPE
CALGARY — From Monday's Globe and Mail
Published on Monday, Oct. 12, 2009
The parade of Greenpeace protesters marching through the heart of Alberta's oil sands in recent weeks has provided an embarrassing glimpse at the state of the industry's security, says a former special forces operative who has helped safeguard Canada's nuclear plants.
This unsigned editorial is not in the slightest endorsed by this website, but reproduced for your information.
-M
Don't react as protesters want
Edmonton Journal
October 7, 2009
How should industry, government and ordinary Albertans deal with Greenpeace protesters trying to put a spotlight on an industry they view as an environmental crime?
Demand their arrest?Ignore them? Maybe even learn from them?
Northern Alberta economy braces for next boom
By Archie McLean, Canwest News Service
October 3, 2009
The economic slowdown has been good for Fort McMurray. But with things picking up again in the oilsands, many wonder if they’re prepared to weather the next boom.
FORT MCMURRAY, Alta. — In recent years, simply treating employees well wasn't enough to keep them serving customers in Fort McMurray.
