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.

Take a stand against the sands

Take a stand against the sands
Canada’s disaster
By Graeme Bousada

Suncor, Petro-Canada announce merger

Suncor, Petro-Canada announce merger
Last Updated: Monday, March 23, 2009
CBC News

Appealing to Canadian nationalism, Suncor Energy Inc. and Petro-Canada said Monday that a proposed merger between the two oil players would create the country's largest energy company and provide the oil patch with protection against potential foreign buyouts.

"I don't know if it is a marriage made in heaven. But it is a match made in Canada," said Suncor's president and CEO Rick George in announcing the all-stock deal to create a $43 billion behemoth.

From the Athabasca to the Saint Lawrence and the Great Lakes

From the Athabasca to the Saint Lawrence and the Great Lakes:
Events in Montréal, Toronto, Ann Arbor and Chicago.

Montreal Event:
Tar Sands: Stopping the flow of destruction
from the ATHABASCA to the SAINT LAWRENCE
WHEN: Friday March 20, 7pm
WHERE: Room 26, Stephen Leacock Bldg (855 Sherbrooke Ouest)

Toronto Event:
WHEN: Saturday, March 21, 7pm
WHERE: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE)
252 Bloor St. West, Room 5-250

Ann Arbor Event:
Tuesday, March 24. TBA

Chicago Event:
WHEN: Wednesday, March 25. 6:45pm.
WHERE: The Lincoln Park Library Auditorium.

Former Fort Chip doctor calls for tar sands slowdown

Former Fort Chip doctor calls for oilsands slowdown
Last Updated: Monday, March 9, 2009
CBC News

Dr. John O'Connor, shown here in Edmonton Sunday, is featured in Downstream, a documentary by American filmmaker Leslie Iwerks. Dr. John O'Connor, shown here in Edmonton Sunday, is featured in Downstream, a documentary by American filmmaker Leslie Iwerks. (CBC)

The doctor who first raised concerns about cancer rates in Fort Chipewyan, Alta., three years ago — and became the target of a professional complaint — said on Sunday he'd do it all again.

Big-league players step up for tar sands

Alberta (& Saskatchewan) Tar Sands

Big-league players step up for oil sands
U.S. lobbying
Claudia Cattaneo, Financial Post
March 11, 2009

As Alberta's oil sands industry struggles with depressed oil prices and opposition from the environmental movement, a new front is emerging to support it -- in Washington.

CNRL PR: First oil produced at Horizon project

ALBERTA — The first synthetic crude oil from the Horizon oil sands project was produced on Feb. 28, 2009, reported owner Canadian Natural Resources Ltd (CNRL). The event marked four years of construction work.

Double talk on tar sands

Double talk on tar sands
Mar 01, 2009 04:30 AM
Toronto Star

Alberta's tar sands have always been a political hot potato. Now they are being tarred by no less an authority than National Geographic as a blight on the boreal forests and a pox on the planet.

There is something about being featured in foreign publications that captures the attention of Canadians unlike anything else. Now, federal politicians are weighing in with alacrity, if not quite clarity, about the place of the tar sands in Canada's future.

Tarsands are an addiction

Tarsands are an addiction
By SILVER DONALD CAMERON
Sun. Mar 15 - 6:22 AM

THE ALBERTA tarsands, says Andrew Nikiforuk, represent "a nation-changing event" which has made the rest of Canada into "a suburb of Fort McMurray." A distinguished Calgary-based journalist, Nikiforuk was in Nova Scotia in early March to discuss his new book, Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent (Greystone, $20).

Suncor, contractors charged with dumping into Athabasca

Suncor, contractors charged with dumping into Athabasca (article one of two)
JEFF CUMMINGS, METRO EDMONTON
March 11, 2009

Oilsands powerhouse Suncor and two of its contractors have been charged under Alberta’s Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act with 90 counts of dumping poorly treated sewage water into the Athabasca River.

The companies, which were all charged back in February 2008, are also accused of providing misleading and false information to the province for two years at Suncor’s work camp north of Fort McMurray.

Canada’s carbon sink has sprung a leak

Until recently, its vast forests vacuumed up carbon dioxide. Now that process has been thrown in reverse.

By Mark Clayton | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor/ March 10, 2009 edition

Reporter Mark Clayton discusses the dilemma facing Canadian foresters and climate scientists: is it worse to cut trees threatened by beetle infestation, or to allow them to remain in a natural state?