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.

Alberta's Conservatives well past their due-date

Published July 2, 2009 by Fast Forward Weekly reader in Letters

After Alberta Finance Minister Iris Evans’s misguided remarks about how mothers should stay home to raise young children (ignoring social and economic reality), it was hard to see how Conservative obliviousness about Albertans’ contemporary values could be made clearer. But Edmonton-Calder’s Conservative MLA Doug Elniski has topped his colleague with his repulsively sexist remarks on the web.

IEA still sees major role for Canadian tar sands

IEA still sees major role for Canadian oil sands

Peter O’Neil, Canwest News Europe Correspondent, Canwest News Service
Monday, June 29, 2009

The Canadian oil sands “appears to be the sector hardest hit by the recession and the sharp fall in oil prices,” the Paris-based agency said in a report assessing the impact of the economic crisis on the world’s oil and gas supplies.

PARIS -- The Canadian oil sands sector is "down but not out" in its role as a major and secure safety net in the global energy market, the International Energy Agency reported Monday.

Proposed law would allow co-operation in energy purchasing (Tar Sands)

Proposed law would allow co-operation in energy purchasing

Energy firms would be able to consult each other on project timing, to allow them to balance spending and help prevent cost overruns.

NATHAN VANDERKLIPPE

CALGARY —
Tuesday, Jun. 30, 2009
Globe and Mail.

Canada's energy giants could be allowed to consult each other on new oil sands projects, a key change that would give them greater purchasing power to help prevent cost overruns and speed construction timelines.

Book documents discarding of three decades of tar sands knowledge

Book documents discarding of three decades of oilsands knowledge
By Darcy Henton, Edmonton Journal
June 29, 2009

Some might call it '32 lost years.'

When Edmontonian Larry Pratt wrote his book Tarsands in 1976, he warned Albertans about the environmental, social and economic ramifications of rapid development of the oilsands, north of Fort McMurray. Thirty-two years later, Calgarian Andrew Nikiforuk provides in shocking detail in his book, also called Tarsands, just where that frenzied development has got us.

It raises the question: Where was everybody during those three decades?

Shell To Become Most CO2-Intensive Oil Co -Study

UPDATE: Shell To Become Most CO2-Intensive Oil Co -Study

LONDON (Dow Jones)--Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSB.LN) is on track to become the most carbon intensive international oil company because of its focus on unconventional oil resources like Canadian tar sands, said a study published by a coalition of environmental groups Monday.

"In the age of carbon reduction, Shell is fast heading in the opposite direction, massively increasing the carbon intensity of its production of oil and gas," the report said. "This represents a real risk for Shell, for investors and for the climate."

Could tar sands be behind high rates of cancer in Fort Chipewyan?

Could tar sands be behind high rates of cancer in Fort Chipewyan?
By Stephanie Dearing.
Published June 29, 2009

Is the extraction of oil from Alberta's tar sands responsible for the disproportionate increase in cancers in a down-stream community?

A northern Alberta First Nations community, sited down river from the tar sands, is suffering from a higher-than-normal incidence of cancer. Dr. John O'Connor was instrumental in drawing attention to the cancer rate. So why is he seen as a bad guy?

Separating truth from greenwashing in the West's energy export boom

Separating truth from greenwashing in the West's energy export boom
By Andrea Harden-Donahue
| June 24, 2009

Reading the Saskatchewan government's news release announcing the Energy Council conference, I couldn't help but reflect on the connections with the news of a proposed Western Energy Corridor, recently reported in the Star Phoenix following the Western Governors Association (WGA) Annual Conference. While both are riddled with words like 'sustainability' and 'clean energy,' red flags are going up in seeing emerging themes that raise some serious questions.

Thunder Bay, On: Local work helping western tar sands

Local work helping western oil sands
By Leith Dunick, tbnewswatch // June 26, 2009

It’s big, it looks complicated, it’s worth a half a million dollars and it’s an integral part of Thunder Bay’s economic future.

On Friday Venshore Mechanical Ltd. unveiled one of two fuel offloading modules it has built – with the assistance of several other local-area companies – and plans to deliver to western Canada for use in the multi-billion oil sands project.