Economics

Connected by Pipeline from Canada, Tar Sands Represents Bonus and Risk to Great Lakes
Tuesday, 07 February 2012
Circle of Blue
Jacob Wheeler

Transporting and processing corrosive crude raise new questions about consequences
BP is spending nearly $4 billion to expand and modernize its Whiting, Indiana refinery to process tar sands oil from Canada - an investment that has helped to make the Great Lakes Basin both a center of commerce in the two nation’s oil production boom and a target of rising environmental risks to the largest system of fresh surface water in the world.

Tar Sands Destroying Wolf & Caribou Populations In Canada

by Beth Buczynski
February 7, 2012

Extracting oil from tar sands (aka oil sands) is detrimental to human health in a number of ways. It drastically increases greenhouse gas emissions, continues our society’s addiction to fossil fuels, and puts soil and water quality at risk.

But these aren’t the only threats posed by tar sands projects like the Keystone XL pipeline.

Possible tar sands pipeline to Portland worries environmental groups
By Matthew Arco
Feb 08, 2012
Portland Daily Sun (Maine)

Environmental groups fearing that talks to pump "incredibly destructive" crude oil from Canada to Greater Portland are once again resurfacing, are opposing the project even before one is officially put in writing.

Too Much Energy Used to Mine, Move Bitumen Says BC Firm

'Energy Return on Investment' hard to justify says P.G.-based engineering
analyst.

By: By Geoff Dembicki 6 February
2012, TheTyee.ca

A B.C. engineering consulting firm claims it has hard numerical proof that
Enbridge's Northern Gateway proposal augurs poorly for the future of modern
society.

The Prince George-based C.J. Peter Associates
Engineeringcame to this conclusion after
performing an EROI analysis on the
$5.5-billion project.

Huge BC rally in Prince Rupert protests Northern Gateway pipeline
By Lynn Herrmann
Feb 5, 2012
Digital Journal

Prince Rupert - A huge rally took to the streets on Saturday in British Columbia’s Prince Rupert, opposing Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline which would transport Alberta tar sands to Kitimat, primary access point along the province’s northwest coast.

Canada's tar sands emerging as an energy heavyweight

By SYED RASHID HUSAIN

Published: Feb 5, 2012

ARAB NEWS.

The energy world is in a transition. It is undergoing a major metamorphosis. New energy frontiers are cropping up and the global energy map is changing fast. Of these new emerging global energy centers, the landlocked province of Alberta in Canada, with its rich resource base, stands out in more than one ways. Many say Calgary, its most important city, is the Dhahran of tomorrow or at least the equivalent of it.

South Africa: Enter the Four Degrees Celsius World - the Failings of Climate Negotiations
By Saliem Fakir

12 December 2011
All Africa

Fourteen days of climate change negotiations started off with much scepticism and ended with a sense of despair despite the COP 17 outcome being declared "landmark" and "historic". COP 17 was painted, at once, as a victory for the world -- but such statements belie the real truth.

A 'mammoth project' with India?
By David Renwick
Trinidad Express
Jan 31, 2012

It may not be generally recognised but the upgrader project that Energy and Energy Affairs Minister Kevin Christian Ramnarine pursued with Reliance Industries during the Trinidad and Tobago delegation's visit to India last month, led by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, has enormous game-changing (sorry to use a now popular cliché) implications for this country's energy sector.

Factbox: Enbridge pipeline to the Pacific: facts and issues
Reuters
Mon Jan 30, 2012

(Reuters) - Enbridge Inc's Northern Gateway pipeline is aimed at opening up lucrative overseas markets for surging Canadian oil sands production, but it has become highly contentious as Ottawa and the oil companies that support the project seek to fend off opposition from environmental and aboriginal groups.

House GOP Pushing Dirtiest Fuel on Planet, Oil Shale (Much Worse than Tar Sands)
By Zachary Shahan On February 3, 2012

Oh my, they just can’t stop. The House GOP seems dead set on destroying the country and destroying the planet. Here’s the latest, via Climate Progress, on its push to develop the dirtiest fuel on the planet (you thought tar sands were bad?!):

by Joe Romm