International Oil & Gas is a category for stories relating to tar sand production or climate change but not in any of the projects already listed geographically. This includes other regions of the planet with horrible environmental and high energy costs that, like the tar sands, are only a "choice" because of high prices and the global depletion of easily recoverable oil reserves. Such issues as the threat of war on Iran, "instability" in Iraq and Venezuela or disasters like Katrina will all drive up oil prices, which in turn doubly encourages tar sand production-- by price demand and energy demand.
Stock markets and global oil interests (including war) would be included here, as would attempts to get oil out of high risk, low return areas from oil shale in Colorado, to natural gas and heavy oil in the high eastern Arctic. The tar sands are part of this trend and should be seen as such. What happens with the tar sands will have a tremendous impact on what kind of choices are made elsewhere, environmentally and socially.
US Tea Party's Deep Ties to Oil Sands Giant
Owners of Koch Industries, a major processor of Alberta crude, spent millions to foment and support a movement against Obama's climate change policies.
By Geoff Dembicki, November 1, 2010, TheTyee.ca
The Tea Party movement, poised to help shift the U.S. legislature to the right and stymie President Obama's green agenda, has financial and organizational ties to Koch Industries, one of America's biggest processors of Alberta oil sands crude.
Idaho road becomes oilsands battleground
By Shaun Polczer,
Calgary Herald
October 23, 2010
A twisting highway in the scenic Pacific Northwest has become the latest battleground for anti-oilsands activists hoping to block development of the world's second-largest oil reserves.
More than 200 process modules for Imperial Oil's $8-billion Kearl oilsands mine began arriving in Vancouver, Wash., on Oct. 3 and are being barged up the Columbia and Snake rivers to Lewiston, Idaho, without permits from state authorities to ship them 1,300 kilometres overland to the Alberta border.
Some investment
Published Oct 25, 2010
I’m beginning to wonder if Gov. Gary Herbert has his head buried in Utah’s tar sands. I just endured a TV ad that ended with him looking smugly out a window as the words “Education: Utah’s single biggest investment” popped up on the screen.
Is Herbert making a mockery of us? Utah ranks last in the nation in per-pupil spending, spending on instruction per student, teacher salaries per student and school administration.
That’s an impressive list for our “biggest investment.”
Can the Canadian Economy Afford the Tar Sands?
Jeffrey Rubin
Economist // October 19, 2010
America is banking on a lot more Canadian bitumen exports to supply it with oil in the future. Already the single largest source of the US's imported oil, the Alberta tar sands' supply could soon comprise as much as almost a third of America's total oil imports -- apart from the fact that it's far from clear whether or not the rest of the Canadian economy could afford the consequences.
It goes against our nature; but the left has to start asserting its own values
The progressive attempt to appeal to self-interest has been a catastrophe. Empathy, not expediency, must drive our campaigns
o George Monbiot
o guardian.co.uk, Monday 11 October 2010
So here we are, forming an orderly queue at the slaughterhouse gate. The punishment of the poor for the errors of the rich, the abandonment of universalism, the dismantling of the shelter the state provides: apart from a few small protests, none of this has yet brought us out fighting.
North America's risky race to exploit oil sands and shales
* Keith Schneider for Yale Environment 360
* guardian.co.uk,
1 October 2010
Yale Environment 360: Energy companies are rushing to exploit new sources of oil in Canada and the western US - but government officials don't seem concerned about the environmental consequences
The most direct path to America's newest big oil and gas fields is U.S. Highway 12, two lanes of blacktop that unfold from Grays Harbor in Washington State and head east across the top of the country to Detroit.
Foundations and the Environmental Movement
September 13, 2010
An Interview With Daniel Faber
By MICHAEL BARKER
Utah agency approves oil-sands project
By PAUL FOY (AP) – September 13, 2010
SALT LAKE CITY — A top Utah regulator approved plans Monday for the first commercial U.S. oil sands project.
John Baza, director of Utah's Division of Oil, Gas & Mining, upheld an earlier decision by his staff to give Earth Energy Resources Inc. a permit to mine a 62-acre pit in eastern Utah.
Environmental activists had objected to the project and demanded a hearing held by Baza in July.
Canada Helps Create an Oil Sands World
Alberta is showing the way for nations with similar reserves. Brace for a global 'age of tough oil.'
By Geoff Dembicki, Yesterday, TheTyee.ca
Efforts to develop oil sands in Alberta are serving as a model for many other nations eager to exploit similar reserves within their borders.
