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
Could jittery sponsors drop the torch?
Could jittery sponsors drop the torch?
Globe and Mail, November 18, 2008
ROD MICKLEBURGH // VANCOUVER
— Are economic vultures beginning to hover over the 2010 Winter
Olympics? Or is it business as usual despite concerns that many parts
of the world, including North America, are slipping into recession?
The questions are pertinent because more than half of the Games'
$1.63-billion operating budget is to be covered by corporate
sponsorships, and at least two key 2010 sponsors, Nortel and GM Canada,
are having an exceedingly tough time making any kind of ends meet.
"Green groups ramp up attacks on tar sands"
Green groups ramp up attacks on oil sands
Claudia Cattaneo, Calgary Bureau Chief, Financial Post Published: Wednesday, November 19, 2008
CALGARY - Environmental organizations in Canada and the United States are stepping up their campaign to derail Alberta's oil sands and seeking funding from deep-pocketed endowments, including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
Obama no threat to tar sands: CNRL
Obama no threat to oil sands: Canadian Natural Resources
Carrie Tait, Financial Post
November 11, 2008
CALGARY -- Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. does not expect US president-elect Barack Obama to implement policies that would crush Alberta's oil sands industry, even though he made anti-oil promises on the campaign trail.
Réal Cusson, senior vice-president of marketing, made the assertion while explaining that it is cheaper for oil sands companies to ship their bitumen to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast for processing than it would be to build new upgraders in Alberta.
Energy consumption up across the board in 2007: StatsCan
Energy consumption up across the board in 2007: StatsCan
Canadian Press
November 18, 2008
OTTAWA — A new study says Canada's demand for energy rose 5.5 per cent last year as consumption increased in the country's industrial, transportation, residential and commercial sectors.
Statistics Canada reports Canadians consumed 7,968 petajoules of energy in 2007, up from 7,551 in 2006.
The agency says one petajoule equals roughly the amount of energy required to operate the Montreal subway system for one year.
Sands shifting under Alberta oil sector
Sands shifting under Alberta oil sector
Claudia Cattaneo, Financial Post
November 18, 2008
CALGARY -- Environmental organizations in Canada and the United States are stepping up their campaign to derail Alberta's oil sands and seeking funding from deep-pocketed endowments including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
Petrocan syndicate puts Fort Hills on ice
Petro Canada is the "official energy supplier" to the Olympics. Perhaps that could shelve that disastrous project as well?
--M
Petrocan syndicate puts Fort Hills on ice
Consortium shelves oil sands project, citing global financial turmoil, lower oil prices and high financing costs
NORVAL SCOTT
November 18, 2008
CALGARY -- The Fort Hills oil sands project was going to turn Petro-Canada into a contender.
Its 140,000 barrels a day of new crude output would end years of underperformance. No longer would Petrocan's share price lag those of its peers.
TransCanada invades Lubicon Territory
TransCanada Pipelines is an official supplier to the 2010 Games.
This pipeline will provide enough gas to *almost triple* current already
insane tar sands production levels.
Lubicon lands will be destroyed so that the speed with which the
destruction of the tar sands advances through towards Fort Chip and
elsewhere can go up massively and much faster.
Little Buffalo still has no running water.
The lake has not been potable for a few decades now.
--M
TransCanada invades Lubicon Territory
... in order to "meet the public interest"?
Now this deserves a response.
Facing Peak Oil in Motown
by John Michael Greer
The Archdruid Report (November 12 2008)
Druid perspectives on nature, culture, and the future of industrial society
The weekend before the election, as I mentioned in last week's post
here, I went to Michigan to attend a peak oil conference: the Fifth
Annual Conference on Peak Oil and Community Solutions, to give it its
full moniker. In more ways than one, it provided me with a wide-angle
snapshot of one end of the peak oil movement; since the peak oil story
is as much about human responses to geological realities as it is about
Alberta Chiefs unanimously support Lubicon in dispute with TransCanada
November 16, 2008
The Assembly of Treaty Chiefs, representing the Chiefs from Treaties 6, 7 and 8 unanimously issued a formal resolution of support for the Lubicon Lake Indian Nation in their dispute with TransCanada Corporation.
Notably, Treaty 8 covers the lands surrounding Lubicon Territory through which the North Central Crossing Pipeline is also intended to pass -- meaning that Chiefs all along the pipeline route have declared their support for the Lubicon position.
Enbridge Gateway pipeline back on track in B.C.
Enbridge Gateway pipeline back on track in B.C.
Customers demanding new facilities despite sliding oil price
Scott Simpson, Vancouver Sun
Published: Thursday, November 13, 2008
Enbridge Inc. is shrugging off the effects of a sagging world economy to restart its dormant Northern Gateway pipelines project in British Columbia and Alberta.
Northern Gateway Pipelines communications director Neil Sweeney said in an interview that the project, which bore a $4.5-billion price tag when it was suspended in 2006, is likely to be submitted to the National Energy Board in 2009.
