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.

Stelmach named ‘Canadian Fossil Fool of the Year’ by environmental groups

Stelmach named ‘Canadian Fossil Fool of the Year’ by environmental groups
Award

SCOTT HARRIS / scott@vueweekly.com

Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach has been crowned “Canadian Fossil Fool of the Year” by a coalition of youth environmental organizations.
Stelmach was given the award, also dubbed a “Foolie,” for promoting increased production in Alberta’s tar sands and in recognition of the provincial government’s recent climate change plan, which focusses on intensity-based targets rather than absolute reductions in emissions.

Don't let our country sink into this stuff

Don't let our country sink into this stuff
By WAYNE MADSEN
Special to McClatchy-Tribune

WASHINGTON -- Anything that allows America to continue its narcotic-like dependence on carbon fossil fuels -- whether the sprawling tar sands of Canada or the petroleum pools under Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge -- misses the point about shifting to alternative energy.

Alternative sources should be real energy alternatives such as wind, solar and geothermal power rather than alternative fossil fuel sources that often give off more greenhouse gases than conventional crude oil.

Alberta hit with 800 complaints from foreign workers

Alberta hit with 800 complaints from foreign workers
Accommodation, unfair wage deductions cited
Kelly Cryderman, Calgary Herald
Published: Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Just a day before a House of Commons committee meets in Edmonton to discuss the issue of temporary foreign workers, the province revealed it has received more than 800 complaints from foreign labourers in the past 31/2 months.

The most common complaints revolve around perceived unfair wage deductions, fees charged by recruitment agencies and accommodation issues.

Groups slam foreign worker program

Groups slam foreign worker program
By BROOKES MERRITT, SUN MEDIA

Alberta's temporary foreign worker program has no oversight and is mired in so much bureaucracy that employers are allowed to treat hopeful immigrants like indentured labour.

That's what a federal committee travelling Canada to examine immigration issues heard in Edmonton yesterday, during a lengthy meeting in which several interest groups blasted the provincial and federal governments.

'INHERENTLY EXPLOITIVE'

Tar Pits Tailings Mined for Minerals

Oilsands tailings mined for minerals

By CAROL CHRISTIAN
Today staff
Tuesday April 01, 2008
Mineral rich waste from oilsands mining may soon be the source used to produce a long list of manufactured products from ceramic tiles and paints to electronics and medical appliances.
This could all come about thanks to a pilot project initiated by Titanium Corporation, and funded, in part, through Alberta Energy’s Innovation Fund. The Alberta grant is valued at $3.5 million, an amount being matched by the Toronto-based company.

"Don't let tar sand oil slip away"-- American PR for the tar sands industry

The war about what to do about the tar sands oil is well under way, and the article below is the kind of propaganda we should get used to about how much the US needs the tar sands product. In the case of the Michigan area, it should be noted that the expanding refinery capacity would include dumping into the Great Lakes. All of it increases the destruction in Northern Alberta. So these arguments are purely based (below) on a "so lifestyle and consumption patterns don't change" line of thinking.

--M

Don't let tar sand oil slip away

BY MARK J. PERRY • March 31, 2008

Imperial Oil Loses Tar-Sands Water Permit (Kearl Project), Globe and Mail Says

Imperial Oil Loses Oil-Sands Water Permit, Globe and Mail Says

By Sean B. Pasternak

March 31 (Bloomberg) -- The Canadian government revoked a water permit that is key to Imperial Oil Ltd.'s C$8 billion ($7.8 billion) Kearl oil-sands project, the Globe and Mail reported.

Canada rushes for its [mock] black gold

Canada rushes for its black gold

Released on 27/03/2008

[B]lack gloop is behind a massive boom that is pushing Canada’s construction spend to record heights and sucking skilled workers from all over the country and the world.

Before 2003 Fort McMurray was a quiet town just about as far north in the Canadian province of Alberta as you’d wish to go. Now it’s the epicenter of a building boom that is pushing the whole country’s construction spend to record heights, and a trailer there costs more than a house in downtown Toronto.

Shell wants to produce five times more oil from tar sands

* Terry Macalister
* The Guardian,
* Tuesday March 18 2008
This article appeared in the Guardian on Tuesday March 18 2008 on p32 of the Financial section. It was last updated at 00:49 on March 18 2008.

Shell is gearing up for a huge expansion of its carbon-intensive tar sands operation in Canada at a time when it has been struggling to replace conventional reserves.

Tar sands: environmental justice and Native rights

"The river used to be blue. Now it's brown. Nobody can fish or drink from it. The air is bad. This has all happened so fast."

by Clayton Thomas-Müller
March 25, 2008

The application of treaty rights as a legal strategy implemented by the First Nations themselves must be the key focus in efforts to challenge Big Oil in Alberta.