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 explosion (at Syncrude) sends four to hospital

Alberta explosion sends four to hospital
Vancouver Sun
June 3, 2009

Canada not yet ready for China

Canada not yet ready for China
Claudia Cattaneo, Financial Post
Published: Wednesday, June 03, 2009

China and Canada have talked about developing a mutually beneficial energy relationship for a long time. Yet China seems to have made significant oil and gas investments everywhere but Canada, while Canada seems to have seen an influx of significant foreign investment in energy from everywhere but China in recent years.

Oil sands ‘back in black,' crude nears $70

Oil sands ‘back in black,' crude nears $70
Nathan VanderKlippe
Calgary — Globe and Mail Update, Wednesday,
Jun. 03, 2009

Surging oil prices and tumbling construction costs have pulled Alberta's stalled oil sands across a major threshold to future profitability, creating new expectations that a comeback may not be as far away as once feared.

Declines in the cost of steel and labour have combined with crude prices that yesterday neared $70 to bring the oil sands “back in black,” said UBS Securities analyst Andrew Potter.

Alberta Establishes Working Relationship with OPEC

ALBERTA IN TIE-UP WITH OPEC
Province will get voice in energy discussions
Claudia Cattaneo, Financial Post
Published: Monday, May 25, 2009
Chris Schwarz, Canwest News Service

For the first time, Alberta and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries have established an official relationship. It's a new strategy with big implications, including potential investment by OPEC members in Canada's oil sands.

Should green-minded Norway invest in Canadian tar-sands?

Should green-minded Norway invest in Canadian oil-sands?

Last week, Greenpeace failed in its bid to force Norway's StatoilHydro to abandon a $2 billion investment in a project that it says produces 10 times the greenhouse gases as North Sea drilling.

By Tom Sullivan | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor
from the May 27, 2009

Stockholm, Sweden - It came as little surprise when Norway's partially state-owned oil company, StatoilHydro, rejected a shareholder motion last week to pull out of a $2 billion tar-sands venture in Alberta, Canada.

Court orders tar sands corporations to list contents of tailings

Court orders oilsands to list contents of tailings
Ecojustice lawyers convince judge to overrule environment minister

By Hanneke Brooymans, The Edmonton Journal
May 28, 2009

More information about the toxic content of oilsands tailings ponds that sprawl over 130 square kilometres in northeast Alberta will soon be made public because of a Federal Court decision.

Harper kicks up trade storm over U.S.'s ambitious low-carbon fuel rules

Cloudy forecast
Harper kicks up trade storm over U.S.'s ambitious low-carbon fuel rules
Alice Klein
Now Toronto May 25, 2009

It’s been a bad political week for the tar sands. Publicly, the Tories are still clinging to the cupid face they pulled on when U.S. President Barack Obama touched down in Ottawa this winter, but they’ve just pulled out the big, fat arrows and are aiming low.

As U.S. climate initiatives rev into real action, it shamefully ain’t our love that we Canucks are sending stateside.

"Tar sands' climate threat, security promise both exaggerated -- report"

Tar sands' climate threat, security promise both exaggerated -- report
By NATHANIAL GRONEWOLD, Greenwire [NYTimes]
Published: May 22, 2009

NEW YORK -- Further development of Alberta's famous oil sands will be neither the climate disaster that activists fear nor the energy security panacea that proponents suggest it is, the Council on Foreign Relations concludes in a new report.

"Tar sands crucial to energy mix: Imperial CEO"

Oil sands crucial to energy mix: Imperial CEO
By Claudia Cattaneo, Financial PostMay 15, 2009
Canwest News Service

CALGARY -- Canada’s oil sands represent such a large part of the remaining world oil resources it’s unrealistic to exclude them from North America’s future energy mix, said the CEO of Imperial Oil Ltd.

Despite a push to stop or contain their development, Bruce March said Alberta’s deposits represent 40% of known oil resources in the world that are not under the control of national oil companies.

Hamm, producers try to combat a new concern in oil industry

Hamm, producers try to combat a new concern in oil industry
By Robert Barron, Staff Writer
May 03, 2009

The United States has been concerned for many years about the influx of foreign oil, mostly from the Middle East into the United States. But now, a new concern from Canada is beginning to worry some oil producers, and, led by Enid’s Harold Hamm, they are taking steps to fight it.