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
Author Andrew Nikiforuk fears tar sands undermine democracy
Georgia Straight October 23, 2008
Author Andrew Nikiforuk fears tar sands undermine democracy
By Charlie Smith
A Calgary author and journalist says most Canadians don’t understand that
we’re living in a “petrostate” that could undermine our democracy. Andrew
Nikiforuk, author of Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent
(Greystone Books, $20), told the Georgia Straight in a phone interview that
Canada needs a national debate on the topic. “I think the tar sands has
created a political emergency for the country,” he said.
Somebody local with a grudge targeting oilpatch?
Somebody local with a grudge targeting oilpatch?
Stephen Hume
Vancouver Sun
Monday, October 20, 2008
News of a second pipeline bombing in British Columbia's Peace River district splashed across headlines from New York to New Zealand.
Almost as quickly, anxious residents of Tomslake, about 700 kilometres northeast of Vancouver, speculated about al-Qaida, first nations militants and eco-extremists.
Hunker down, happy hour is over
Hunker down, happy hour is over
October 16, 2008
Back in the summer, Randy Eresman, the meticulous engineer who runs the country's largest energy company, sat down in a brown leather chair and talked about how Breaking Up is Hard to Do. EnCana Corp.'s executive group was drawing two lists - who would stay, and who would go to the new oil spinoff. And it was tough.
"It's going to be a sad day when we actually end up splitting and moving people apart that have worked together for a very long period of time," he said.
Trillions of dollars' worth of oil
Trillions of dollars' worth of oil
High Stakes in Canada’s Vast Oil-Sands Fields
George Tombs, The Christian Science Monitor
The relentless search for oil has led explorers to the boreal forest of northeastern Alberta, among the jack pines and black spruce trees an hour's drive from the boom town of Fort McMurray. Kelly Hansen, operations manager at ConocoPhillips's $1 billion Surmont oil-sands plant, holds up the prize: a beaker of sticky black “synbit,” a 50-50 blend of bitumen (a viscous, tarlike petroleum) and synthetic oil.
TAR SANDS-PART 3: Biggest Customer Has Second Thoughts
OIL SANDS-PART 3: Biggest Customer Has Second Thoughts
By Chris Arsenault*
FT. MCMURRAY, Oct 20 (IPS) - As Canada's tar sands extraction expands full steam ahead, a perfect storm of internal and external opposition could derail some of the voracious growth at the world's largest energy project.
Together, skyrocketing construction costs, falling crude prices, increasingly vocal opposition from some native groups, and a little known section of the 2007 U.S. Energy Independence and Security Act all threaten growth projections in northern Alberta.
Opti-Nexen Rethinking Long Lake Expansion
Nexen, Opti delay decision on next oil sands phase
Mon Oct 20, 2008 1:22pm EDT
CALGARY, Alberta, Oct 20 (Reuters) - Nexen Inc and Opti Canada Inc have postponed a decision to expand their new Long Lake, Alberta, oil sands project, citing the financial market crisis and uncertainty over costs to curb carbon emissions, a Nexen official said on Monday.
The partners in the C$6.1 billion ($5.1 billion) development, which is now in start-up mode, had expected to decide by the end of this year whether to begin work on twinning the project.
Mackenzie Gas Project Creeps Ever Closer
Positive step forward for pipeline
Paul Bickford
Northern News Services
Published Monday, October 6, 2008
INUVIK - A major piece of the puzzle that is the Mackenzie Gas Project has fallen into place.
Access and benefits agreements have been reached between the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation and project proponents.
NNSL Photo/Graphic
Construction of the $16.2 billion Mackenzie Valley Pipeline is awaiting regulatory approval and the inking of access agreements similar to one signed by the Inuvialuit last week. - NNSL file photo
"Terrorists target U.S.A. via Alberta"
Hopefully this can begin a discussion about what activists resisting the largest project in human history and the second largest oil deposit on the planet will do when the state sees us as dangerously effective.
Shysters enslave foreign workers
Shysters enslave foreign workers
By TOM GODFREY, SUN MEDIA
19th October 2008
Immigration officials are targeting a network of shady recruiters who are charging foreign construction workers huge fees for jobs that are available free in Canada.
The shysters are forcing workers to turn over their earnings and live like slaves after they arrive here.
