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.

Vanoc expects no profit in 2010 Games with economic slump

The organizers of the 2010 Winter Olympics no longer expect to leave a
financial surplus for future sport development.

The same worldwide economic downturn that has bankrupted companies and
left tens of thousands of people without jobs has also eaten up — for
now — any potential Olympic profit, John Furlong, the head of the
Vancouver Organizing Committee, said Wednesday.

Furlong said Vanoc is struggling just to make sure it breaks even when
the Games end next year.

Stephen Harper announces cancellation of Earth Day

By rabble staff | April 1, 2009

LONDON, UK -- "Canada, among all the advanced countries, is best positioned to prosper and profit from the ecological crisis," announced Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper shortly after arriving for the opening of the G20 summit.

Fowl fatal figure flap

Wed, April 1, 2009
Fowl fatal figure flap
Syncrude reveals duck tragedy triple initial toll - which it and province knew in July
By KERRY DIOTTE, LEGISLATURE BUREAU CHIEF

Province knew in July the real toll at the tailings pond.

Syncrude and the Alberta government knew nine months ago that three times as many ducks died in an oilsands tailings pond than initially reported - but officials didn't make the higher death toll public until yesterday.

Becoming No. 1: Suncor's story

Becoming No. 1: Suncor's story
March 23, 2009
CBC News

If the deal goes down, one of the first companies to pull oil from the sticky tar sands of Alberta is about to become Canada's biggest energy company and the fifth-largest in North America.

Suncor and Petro-Canada plan a merger that would give the company a market capitalization of $43.3-billion US. For comparison, energy giants Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips are worth about $326.6 billion and $55.97 billion, respectively.

What is Suncor?

Abu Dhabi National Said to Be Chasing Canadian Tar Sands Deals

Abu Dhabi National Said to Be Chasing Canadian Deals
By Joe Carroll

March 30 (Bloomberg) -- Abu Dhabi National Energy Co., the Persian Gulf petroleum and power producer known as Taqa, is hunting for acquisitions in Canada’s tar sands, home of the world’s second-largest crude deposits outside Saudi Arabia, according to two people involved in the search.

Taqa is assessing multiple potential targets that extract crude from Canada’s oil-soaked bogs and river valleys, according to people who asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to make the information public.

Most attractive leases in the tar sands snapped up

Alberta (& Saskatchewan) Tar Sands

Most attractive leases in the oil sands snapped up
By Carrie Tait, Financial Post
March 27, 2009

CALGARY, Alberta -- In Alberta’s oil sands, an area roughly the size of Florida, the best real estate is off the market.

Kevin Meyers, head of ConocoPhillips Canada, Friday said the most attractive leases in the oil sands have been snapped up, and his company plans to finish projects it has under construction despite spending cuts.

Devon Jackfish worker in coma after skull fractured in accident

Oilsands worker in coma after skull fractured in accident

By Ben Gelinas, edmontonjournal.com
March 29, 2009

EDMONTON — A 19-year-old contractor for Devon Energy is in an induced coma after he was hit in the head with a 2X4 on a construction site about 30 kilometres southeast of Conklin at the company's Jackfish 2 oilsands site.

The man was operating a small ride-on packer, levelling a tank base under construction around 9 a.m. Saturday, when his machine caught a rope used to secure a wooden light-tower nearby.

UTS Energy rejects Total bid

Oil sands firm rejects Total bid

By Dina O'Meara, Calgary Herald
March 27, 2009

Oil sands junior UTS Energy Corp. again publicly rejected an unsolicited bid by Total E&P Canada, Friday labeling the French energy giant's offer as inadequate against a "significant" new oil sands discovery and improved financial environment.

UTS is a minority stakeholder in the $21-billion Fort Hills oilsand project led by Petro-Canada, which this week announced it was merging with Suncor Energy Inc.

Yesterday's fuel, yesterday's deal

Yesterday's fuel, yesterday's deal
The real 'crude' in Suncor's takeover of Petro-Canada — long stripped of its Canada-first credentials — is the push to deliver ever more 20th-century fossil fuels when the world is moving to renewables
GORDON LAXER

From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
March 25, 2009

Oil firms have started buying each another again

This is the real nature of what will happen during the economic downturn if we "leave the market devices to take care of things themselves"-- the amalgamation of tar sands operators into the world's largest energy companies only. As capital hurts, the biggest players survive and the medium to smaller players disappear. We must escalate the campaigns while they are teetering or else have a much harder time when the reality of peak oil inevitably drives the price of tar sands bitumen (and oil in general) right back where it all started a year ago.

--M

Well matched
Mar 26th 2009