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.
CERI warns on Alberta oil sands investment
Claudia Cattaneo, Financial Post
February 05, 2009
CALGARY -- The global credit crunch and collapse of oil prices have cancelled the Alberta oil sands boom, resulting in a loss in investment of $97-billion to $241-billion in the next decade that will be felt throughout the Canadian economy, the Canadian Energy Research Institute said in a report Thursday.
Suncor ordered to test Athabasca
Oilsands giant discharged too much grease and oil into river Tuesday
By CAROL CHRISTIAN
McMurray Today staff
Suncor Energy is testing the quality of the Athabasca River after it discharged more grease and oil than allowed into the river Tuesday.
"And Then Let's Go For That Justice" Part II
Indigenous women demand respect in Ottawa
by Maya Rolbin-Ghanie
The Dominion - http://www.dominionpaper.ca
The February 14 memorial march in Vancouver's Downtown East Side is held annually to remember and honour missing women and support their families and friends. Photo: Dawn Paley
In honour of missing and murdered indigenous women, the Walk4Justice began in Vancouver on June 21, Aboriginal Day, and ended with a rally of about 250 on Parliament Hill on September 15.
"And Then Let's Go for that Justice" Part I
The Walk4Justice
by Maya Rolbin-Ghanie
The Dominion - http://www.dominionpaper.ca
Some of the many Indigenous women and men who walked across Canada to draw attention to systemic abuses against First Nations women. Photo: Maya Rolbin-Ghanie
This article is part one of two on the Walk4Justice.
Alta. delta gets special international designation
by Margaret Munro, Canwest News Service
February 3, 2009
The Peace-Athabasca Delta in northern Alberta was declared one of the Western Hemisphere's most extraordinary and endangered places Tuesday by a leading environmental group that named the delta a "BioGem" it will campaign to save.
New rules govern cleanup of tailings ponds
KATHERINE O'NEILL
February 4, 2009
EDMONTON -- A controversial byproduct of oil-sands operations at the centre of an environmental scandal last spring involving 500 dead ducks will be subjected to tougher rules by Alberta's energy regulator.
Tailings ponds - the toxic, watery waste left over from bitumen processing - must be cleaned up and better managed under new targets and timelines for oil-sands producers.
2009 January 25 - The Integrity of Creation and the Athabasca Oil Sands
A Pastoral Letter on The Integrity of Creation and the Athabasca Oil Sands to The Faithful of the diocese of St. Paul on The Occasion of the Jubilee Year in Honour of St. Paul by
†Luc Bouchard Bishop of St. Paul in Alberta, Canada
January 25th, 2009
The Integrity of Creation and the Athabasca Oil Sands
“Faced with the widespread destruction of the environment people
everywhere are coming to understand that we cannot continue to
use the goods of the earth as we have in the past. . . a new ecological
Canada delusional about oil
Jan 26, 2009 04:30 AM
David Crane
There is this Canadian delusion that the Alberta oil sands will give
us special influence with the new Obama administration, that energy is
our trump card in the Canada-U.S. relationship because, it's argued,
the United States desperately needs our oil. It fosters the false
belief that we can get concessions from the U.S. in other areas by
producing more oil.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has talked of Canada as an "energy
superpower"; Environment Minister Jim Prentice talks of Canada's
This past summer, myself and friends were able to "tour" many of the projects in the Athabasca mining region and south of Fort McMurray (one of many places) where SagD/In Situ operations rule the day. These are albums belatedly created from that trip. This does not comprise anything remotely coming towards an exhaustive set of the multiple projects.
(you do not need to have a Facebook identity to see these albums).
Photos are from the land and the air.
Opti-Nexen's Long Lake (North) Project & CP's Surmont Project.
Environment Canada says tar sands pollution will get worse: Toronto Star
Chris Gardner
1/21/2009
The Toronto Star has obtained documents from Environment Canada that say pollution will continue to plague Alberta's oil sands despite plans to pipe harmful greenhouse gases deep underground.
