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.

Stelmach wants Audience with Gore, Big Oil-- not "Consultations".

Alberta premier to 'drop by and listen' to Al Gore
April 23, 2007 | 5:01 PM MT
CBC News
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/edmonton/story/2007/04/23/oil-speech.html

Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach hopes to speak with climate change activist Al Gore at a sold-out lecture in Calgary Monday night.

Gore, the former U.S. vice-president who won an Academy Award for his climate change documentary An Inconvenient Truth, has openly criticized the oil patch and the world's reliance on non-renewable, carbon-based fuels.

National Post on Peak Oil and the Tar Sands

FYI for the non-Canadian located reader: The National Post is Canada's ultra right wing newspaper.

--M

Sands are shifting for oil supply
Expert says we should be ready for big jump in price
Diane Francis, Financial Post
Published: Saturday, April 21, 2007
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=b9a3434b-...

The world continues to run rapidly out of oil and natural gas, which points to dramatically higher prices in a handful of years.

Russia to Build Tunnel-- Rail, Highways and Pipelines-- to Alaska

Russia Plans World's Longest Tunnel, a Link to Alaska
By Yuriy Humber and Bradley Cook
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601082&sid=a5OJJzlp0xwM&refer=c...

April 18 (Bloomberg) -- Russia plans to build the world's longest tunnel, a transport and pipeline link under the Bering Strait to Alaska, as part of a $65 billion project to supply the U.S. with oil, natural gas and electricity from Siberia.

Destination Dubai: Port Approved in Kitimat, sliding towards Gateway pipelines and more

The approval of the port in Gitimaat ["Kitimat"] needs to be rescinded. This port is completely useless if there is a shipping moratorium, and with a port approval it is politically much harder to imagine both the maintenance of the shipping ban (building a port is for use) and to prevent the construction of the Enbridge Gateway Pipeline.

Priming The Pump [Walrus Magazine]

"To hell with Al Gore’s inconvenient truths; to purgatory with quisling scientists and their voluminous reports stating that Alberta’s tar sands—whether the oil there is blasted by natural gas, exploded by nukes, or even extracted in some fashion palatable to those wearing hemp or burlap—are an environmental disaster zone that, if exploited, will (by themselves) render null and void Canada’s commitment to Kyoto. Never mind. On that midsummer night, Harper, in search of foreign direct investment, was flush with energy, industry, and economic-growth models.

ConocoPhilips: No "Quick fixes"; Describes pipes from Arctic to the Gulf of Mexico

As the world increasingly becomes terrified of the consequences of climate change, peak oil realities leave only the worst possible oil left, in terms of net energy and in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. Smart corporations-- and oil and pipeline companies are definitely clever-- will start to shift from a lack of concern to "feeling the same pain" but "warning against" taking appropriate measures. If one wants, they can still make money hacking away for corporations in the Lower 48 who will pay for "studies" that disprove or downplay climate change.

World Oil Reserves Are Not Being Fully Replaced

Two notes: This story comes from within the industry.
Two: the point about "The high oil prices and sharply increased upstream spending budgets of most oil companies..." translates into how expensive it is to drill/mine/pump/dig the heavy crude out of the earth and into a pipe-- the term "upstream" means the oil equivalent of a watershed. "Downstream" would be the refinery.

Energy demand to Lessen on its own?

Sadly, this form of analysis is a pipe dream, no pipeline pun intended. In the scenario that the Democratic Party of the US actually tackling the automobile industry for mileage requirements, it would first of all be many years before any significant portion of the vehicles on the road were of any consequential difference. Second, the production of all these new cars would require energy, and the alternative energies we hear about (Ethanol, for example) do not reduce but increase reliance on fossil fuels and greenhouse gas emissions-- you just don't have to see them as directly.

Orin Hatch: Utah should "recover" Oil Shale and Tar Sands

Oil Shale, burning much like coal after a more -involved extraction process than "regular" tar sands, is perhaps the energy equivalent of a scoundrels refuge. If we see the energy economy go to this form of extraction without coming up with a plan for a non-oil existence, then we may as well give up on most everything save the immediate future, for it will be the final surrender to climate change and the destruction of the liveable biosphere, for the purpose of fuelling a riding lawn mower...

--M

Hatch urges use of Utah's tar sands and oil shale

Company plans more than 100 In-Situ Plants

Company plans more than 100 oilsands wells
Japan Canada wants to eventually produce 35,000 barrels per day

Ashok Dutta, CanWest News Service
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/business/story.html?id=5346caff-...
Published: Friday, April 13, 2007

CALGARY -- Japan Canada Oil Sands Ltd. (Jacos) is pressing ahead with a three-year program to drill more than 100 delineation wells and shoot over 65 square kilometres of new 3-D seismic data at its lease in Athabasca's oilsands.