Tar Sands 101
The Tar Sands "Gigaproject" is the largest industrial project in human history and likely also the most destructive. The tar sands mining procedure releases at least three times the CO2 emissions as regular oil production and is slated to become the single largest industrial contributor in North America to Climate Change.
The tar sands are already slated to be the cause of up to the second fastest rate of deforestation on the planet behind the Amazon Rainforest Basin. Currently approved projects will see 3 million barrels of tar sands mock crude produced daily by 2018; for each barrel of oil up to as high as five barrels of water are used.
Human health in many communities has seriously taken a turn for the worse with many causes alleged to be from tar sands production. Tar sands production has led to many serious social issues throughout Alberta, from housing crises to the vast expansion of temporary foreign worker programs that racialize and exploit so-called non-citizens. Infrastructure from pipelines to refineries to super tanker oil traffic on the seas crosses the continent in all directions to allthree major oceans and the Gulf of Mexico.
The mock oil produced primarily is consumed in the United States and helps to subsidize continued wars of aggression against other oil producing nations such as Iraq, Venezuela and Iran.
To understand the tar sands in more depth, continue to our Tar Sands 101 reading list
Tar Sands photo albums by project
- Alberta (& Saskatchewan) Tar Sands
- Enbridge Gateway Pipeline/ Offshore Tanker Traffic [BC]
- Tarsands Infrastructure: South/ East [US & Can]
- International oil & gas
- 2010 Olympics
- Animals
- Climate Change / Emissions
- Corruption
- Economics
- Energy
- Forests
- Gender
- Health
- Indigenous
- Labour / Migration
- Land
- Peak Oil
- Social Impacts
- War and Security
- Water
This past summer, myself and friends were able to "tour" many of the projects in the Athabasca mining region and south of Fort McMurray (one of many places) where SagD/In Situ operations rule the day. These are albums belatedly created from that trip. This does not comprise anything remotely coming towards an exhaustive set of the multiple projects.
(you do not need to have a Facebook identity to see these albums).
Photos are from the land and the air.
Opti-Nexen's Long Lake (North) Project & CP's Surmont Project.
Environment Canada says tar sands pollution will get worse: Toronto Star
Environment Canada says tar sands pollution will get worse: Toronto Star
Chris Gardner
1/21/2009
The Toronto Star has obtained documents from Environment Canada that say pollution will continue to plague Alberta's oil sands despite plans to pipe harmful greenhouse gases deep underground.
Campbell's Global Warming Game
Campbell's Global Warming Game
Talking 'climate for change' at the Vancouver Board of Trade.
While eagerly enabling tar sands and freeways, he's cooled out green foes.
By David Beers
January 26, 2009
TheTyee.ca
"Let's be honest," Michael Ignatieff told young followers last week in Vancouver. "We got killed at the doorstep with the Green Shift."
The new federal Liberal leader is clear that campaigning on a carbon tax was suicide.
But in British Columbia, Premier Gordon Campbell is sticking with his own carbon tax as he leads his BC Liberals into a May election.
Economist: Canada oil boom shifts on sands of time
Canada oil boom shifts on sands of time
Canada's five-year-long energy boom has ended, but how deep and how painful the resulting bust will be remains to be seen.
By The Economist
January 22, 2009
Look west from the office towers of the energy companies that dominate Calgary, and the view is spectacular: Rolling prairies rise to tree-clad foothills, with the jagged, snow-capped peaks of the Rockies on the horizon.
"Ignatieff touts Alberta tar sands"
The scale and scope of the political shift in Canada as a result of Ignatieff taking power is not really yet understood.
From ten years ago, where only the Reform Party and then after that, The Alliance, would openly support the US military adventures around the world we now have both the top party and the opposition who are:
Completely pro tar sands, completely pro-Iraq War, unquestioning of Israel and advocates of torture on prisoners.
Forest Ethics induced forest die off & species extinction
British Columbia:
Forest Ethics induced forest die off & species extinction
Your article about Minister of Forests and Range Pat Bell (NDN, Jan.
13) stated that the Valhalla Wilderness Society has criticized the BC
government’s plan to protect the mountain caribou. Indeed it has! Most
of the so-called habitat protection was to be placed largely outside
of the areas where the habitat is being destroyed by logging. But that
was fifteen months ago. Today very little of the protection promised
has materialized, an approved plan doesn’t even exist and the
Federal government commits to Mackenzie Gas Project
Federal government commits to Mackenzie Gas Project
JENNIFER HILLIKER, METRO CALGARY
January 19, 2009 05:49
The $16.2-billion Mackenzie Gas Project may finally go forward.
The project includes construction of a natural-gas pipeline from the Mackenzie River Delta, north of the Arctic Circle, to Alberta. It has been subject to years of delays but Environment Minister Jim Prentice announced Monday in Calgary that the federal government has made a financial offer to the backers of the project.
From November 2006: Israel sees shale replacing oil
Israel sees shale replacing oil
LEAH KRAUSS, UPI
The Israeli process for producing energy from oil shale will cut its oil imports by one-third, and will serve as a guide for other countries with oil shale deposits, according to one company.
A.F.S.K. Hom Tov presented its oil shale processing method on Tuesday, outside Haifa and just down the street from one of the country's two oil refinery facilities.
Opti-Nexen Long Lake upgrader begins operation
Definitely the largest of all the SagD plants in operation within Alberta, this plant has now officially begun operations involving "Or Crude"-- a process developed and patented within 1948 conquered Palestine ["Israel"] to reduce energy costs in development of the large oil shale deposits within those borders.
Lawsuit Filed To Stop Tar Sands Development in Utah
Lawsuit Filed To Stop Tar Sands Development in Utah
01/20/2009
SustainableBusiness.com News
The Sierra Club and the Indigenous Environmental Network are fighting an unprecedented project that would bring one of the dirtiest forms of energy extraction in the world to eastern Utah. The proposed Antelope Creek tar sands oil project threatens to disrupt wildlife, poison and dry up rivers, and imperil human health with hazardous air pollutants, the groups claim. The project would also produce an exorbitant amount of the greenhouse gases.
