Oil Sands Truth: Shut Down the Tar Sands

Peak Oil

Peak Oil is starting to be understood across a broad spectrum, but the direct connection between peak oil, climate change and the American market-led attempt to squeeze all energy out of Alberta cannot be overstated. The smaller the global supply of oil gets, the more CO2 has been emitted and the more climate change will have advanced. This leads to more interest in the tar sands—because the profit margin goes ever higher the fewer alternatives there are for petroleum. Without Peak Oil bearing down on humanity, no economical reason would exist to produce this energy intensive, low-output petrol.

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Peak Oil is starting to be understood across a broad spectrum, but the direct connection between peak oil, climate change and the American market-led attempt to squeeze all energy out of Alberta cannot be overstated. The smaller the global supply of oil gets, the more CO₂ has been emitted and the more climate change will have advanced. This leads to more interest in the tar sands—because the profit margin goes ever higher the fewer alternatives there are for petroleum. Without Peak Oil bearing down on humanity, no economical reason would exist to produce this energy intensive, low-output petrol.

Eastern Canada Vulnerable to Oil Shortages

Eastern Canada Vulnerable to Oil Shortages
New Report Calls for Canada to Set Up Strategic Petroleum Reserves

EDMONTON
Canada is currently the most vulnerable country in the industrial world
to short-term oil supply crises, and we need to establish strategic petroleum
reserves to remedy the problem. This is the key finding of a report released
today by Alberta’s Parkland Institute in conjunction with the Polaris Institute.

Freezing in the Dark: Why Canada Needs Strategic Petroleum Reserves points out

"The kinder, gentler energy superpower"

While a few small nuggets of things are coming through in the Globe's series on the tar sands, the articles are not only omitting a lot of important facts, they are distorting others. When the articles talk about "Albertan" opinions on the tar sands, they omit/distort the fact that the province is really split into north and south-- and that a majority of those as far north as Edmonton, let alone south like in Medicine Hat, Calgary and Lethbridge, have never actually seen the tar sands mines (or in-situ operations).

Climate Neros fiddle while Rome burns

Jan 28, 2008 04:30 AM
Tyler Hamilton
Energy Reporter

Governments and industry love to talk about the things they plan to do, perhaps to detract attention away from what they haven't done or aren't doing.

How many radio or television debates have shown an environmentalist pointing out the devastating effects of oil sands and power production in Alberta, only to have industry officials tout concepts like "clean coal" or "carbon capture and sequestration" – as if the solution is here and the problem is being overcome as they speak?

"Re-learning" what we've forgotten

by Chris Maser

Culture Change (January 06 2008)

Editor's note: This is Chris Maser's Part Three of his series for
Culture Change. I ate this one up, because ever since I read a 1987
article in Discover magazine by Jared Diamond, about hunter-gatherers'
working only a few hours a day a few days a week, I've been aware that
our modern way of life is not what it's cracked up to be. In Maser's
article there is solid anthropological insight applicable to our current
challenge as a dysfunctional society facing extinction. In his eighteen

Oil Exec Explains the Hunt for Unconventional Oil in Lower 48

Five questions with George Stapleton
Looking for oil where others don't
Jan. 24, 2008, 10:50PM
Moneymakers
Brett Clanton

It's not Saudi Arabia. But there is oil in Kansas. In Montana and Missouri, too.

In fact, the lower 48 U.S. states contain enough heavy crude oil deposits to power the nation's economy for several years. But they've been largely overlooked in favor of much bigger heavy oil deposits in Canada's oil sands and elsewhere.

Time for us to say "No More Oil for War" to the US

TIME FOR US TO SAY 'NO MORE OIL FOR WAR' TO US

RICARDO ACUÑA / ualberta.ca/parkland

There are few things we progressive Albertans enjoy more than the opportunity to take a holier-than-thou attitude towards the United States.

Peak oil: Why is it so difficult to explain/understand?

Published on 10 Jan 2008 by Energy Bulletin. Archived on 20 Jan 2008.
Peak oil: Why is it so difficult to explain/understand?

by Martin Payne

After several years of partial success in explaining the physics-based phenomenon sometimes known as “Peak Oil”, this author has come to one conclusion: Peak Oil is difficult to explain, and it is difficult for most people to understand.

Greenland Opens to Oil Firms

Greenland Opens to Oil Firms
Associated Press 01.14.08, 4:50 PM ET
HOUSTON -

Rising temperatures are giving Greenland the opportunity to tap into billions of barrels of oil and gas trapped under ice.

The Peak Oil Crisis: Storm of the Century

The Peak Oil Crisis: Storm of the Century
by Tom Whipple

Falls Church News Press (December 27 2007)

A "Perfect storm" refers to the simultaneous occurrence of events which,
taken individually, would be far less powerful than the result of their
chance combination. Such occurrences are rare by their very nature. --
Wikipedia

In recent weeks we have been bombarded with reports of perturbations in
the mortgage/liquidity crisis that is creating havoc in the financial world.

The travails of the "financial industry", as it is called these days,

High oil prices? You ain’t seen nothing yet

High oil prices? You ain’t seen nothing yet
Week of January 13, 2008 // Petroleum News

If you think $100 per barrel oil is costly, consider $180 per barrel oil.

The former is here, while the latter may be in our not-too-distant future, according to two well-known oil industry analysts.

While energy prices retreated during the second week of January amid continued signs of a slowing economy and forecasts for mild weather in the Northeast, crude oil prices are still hovering about 70 percent higher than year-ago levels.