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.
Syncrude faces charges over death of ducks
By Scott Haggett
Feb 9, 2009.
CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - The province of Alberta and the Canadian laid charges against the Syncrude Canada Ltd joint venture after 500 ducks died after landing on a tailings pond at its oil sands operation in April.
The province alleges Syncrude, the world's biggest oil sands producer, failed to have appropriate deterrents in place to keep the ducks from landing on the toxic waste-water pond.
Imperial backs oil sands
$3.88B profit helps drive Kearl project
By Claudia Cattaneo, Calgary Bureau Chief, Financial Post
January 30, 2009
In the thick of the global economic downturn, Imperial Oil Ltd., Canada's largest oil company, posted another record annual profit and said it's increasing spending by 60% this year as it moves forward with the Kearl oil sands project.
Alberta serious about oil sands clean up: minister
Strict New Rules
By Darcy Henton and Dan Healing, Canwest News
February 4, 2009
Alberta's energy minister says strict new rules governing oil sands tailings ponds will show the world that Alberta is serious about cleaning up the province's oil sands developments.
"I think the market community internationally [is] going to see that the province of Alberta and this government are very serious about how we move forward with ... development that's environmentally friendly," said Mel Knight.
UTS Energy Rejects Total’s Offer as ‘Inadequate’
By Jim Polson
Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) -- UTS Energy Corp.’s board said Total SA’s C$617 million ($506 million) offer for the Canadian oil- sands explorer is “inadequate” and recommended shareholders reject the bid by Europe’s third-largest petroleum company.
The board formed a special committee to “pursue various initiatives with the objective of maximizing value for all shareholders,” Calgary-based UTS said today in a statement.
Fort Chip cancer rates higher than expected: report
February 6, 2009
CBC News
The number of cancer cases in Fort Chipewyan, Alta., is higher than expected, says a report from Alberta Health Services released Friday.
Fifty-one cancers in 47 people were found in Fort Chipewyan between 1995 and 2006, a dozen more than the 39 cancers that were expected, and the incidences of some cancers warrant more followup, the report said.
During an economic downturn, scapegoats are preferred by capital to distract us from our real problems. This thinly-disguised racism is coming about through the modern populist cry against "foreigners", which inevitably means non-whites. Leave it to the Edmonton Sun to be the first to exploit this situation to turn worker upon worker.
Petrocan CEO is on the hot seat
Andrew Willis,
February 2, 2009
Welcome to the hot seat, Ron Brenneman.
Petro-Canada's CEO faces a full-scale shareholder revolt in coming weeks, as the much-watched Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan leads a campaign for better performance from the former Crown corporation.
Mr. Brenneman must defend a strategy that's seen Petrocan build a diverse collection of assets, a number of which are yielding relatively low returns, at a time when rivals for focusing their operations.
Tar sands-related cancer study to be released today
edmontonjournal.com
February 6, 2009
EDMONTON - A study of the incidence of cancer in the northern Alberta community of Fort Chipewyan is to be released Friday at noon.
Dr. Tony Fields of Alberta Health Services is to discuss the findings at Edmonton's Cross Cancer Institute.
Fort Chipewyan is downstream from oilsands development, which some in the area have blamed for higher than normal rates of rare cancer. The study was meant to determine whether that was the case.
Football Field Sized Trucks Head to Canadian Tar Sands with Superloads
Written by Jennifer Lance
February 1st, 2009
People in Montana have been noticing some big rigs on their highways, really big rigs.
Special trucks the size of a football field are carrying equipment cargo in “superloads” to the Canadian Tar Sands for oil extraction.
The Billings Gazette reports on the massive size of the trucks:
Low oil prices force Devon writedown
Us$6.8B Loss; Will continue oil sands development
Claudia Cattaneo, Calgary Bureau Chief,
Financial Post
February 05, 2009
Low oil prices at the end of December forced U. S. oil and gas producer Devon Energy Corp. to write down all its thermal oil sands assets in Alberta, contributing to a loss of US$6.82-billion in the fourth quarter, the largest in its history.
