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
Alaska votes to award TCPL The Alaska Highway Pipeline
Alaska House OKs gas pipeline license for TransCanada Corp.
11 hours ago
JUNEAU, Alaska — The Alaska State House of Representatives has approved a state license for a Canadian company to pursue a natural gas pipeline project that could unlock 130 million cubic metres of North Slope gas reserves daily.
The House backed the plan on a 24-16 vote Tuesday. A reconsideration vote is planned Wednesday, but that's usually a formality. If approved then, the bill will go to the state Senate, which must approve or reject it before Aug. 2.
Why Alberta’s $4 billion greenwash doesn’t add up to much of anything
Issues - 2 + 2 = 5
Why Alberta’s $4 billion greenwash doesn’t add up to much of anything
RICARDO ACUÑA / ualberta.ca/parkland
It seems lately that the role of government in Alberta has become more and more about image and spin than about actually doing anything concrete and positive in the public interest. The attitude seems to be that it doesn’t really matter if you are actually doing anything positive, as long as you can convince people that you are.
Understanding Energy Return On Energy Investment (EROEI)
Understanding Energy Return On Energy Investment (EROEI)
POSTED July 15, 3:47 PM
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Energy Return On Energy Investment (EROEI) is an important concept to understand and a concept that is severely lacking in our current political debate on new energy sources.
EROEI is simply defined as:
EROEI = Energy Produced / Energy Used
Groups Dare Investors to Drink Community Water
Alberta First Nations and Allies Deliver Message To Investment Symposium in Calgary:
Dirty Tar Sands Oil Is A Risky Investment
Groups Dare Investors to Drink Community Water
CALGARY - July 16 - Members of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation and the Mikisew Cree First Nation and environmental and social justice advocates traveled to Calgary today to the Oil and Gas Investment Symposium hosted by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers with a message for the hundreds of investors from the United States and around the world that Canada’s Tar Sands are a risky investment.
The Pentagon's Toxic Legacy
The Pentagon's Toxic Legacy
July, 01 2008 By Jeffrey St.Clair and Joshua Frank
Suncor Pipeline Springs Leak
Suncor says oil sands pipeline shut after leak
Thu Jul 17, 2008
CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - A pipeline carrying diesel fuel from Suncor Energy Inc's northern Alberta oil sands operations sprung a leak on Tuesday, but production at the facilities has not yet been affected, the company said.
Suncor, the No. 2 oil sands producer, said a leak on its pipeline running from Fort McMurray, Alberta, to Edmonton was detected at 11:30 a.m. local time on July 15 and the pipeline was shut down.
Tar sands boom swamps the Canadian wilderness
Oil sands boom swamps the Canadian wilderness
Environmentalists want tougher laws to halt the damage, writes Tim Webb
* Sunday July 20, 2008
Todd Dahlman scoops up a handful of oily sand and smiles. 'This is the
money - it even smells like money,' says the manager of Shell's Muskeg
River oil sands mine in the Athabasca region of North Alberta in Canada.
We are standing in the middle of a pit 50m deep that giant diggers
have hollowed out of the earth. Some 150m beneath our feet lie almost
a billion barrels of oil.
2010 Organizing and the Tar Sands: Inspiring the SPP and Helping the Olympics
2010 Organizing and the Tar Sands: Inspiring the SPP and Helping the Olympics
By Macdonald Stainsby; July 14, 2008 - Znet
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/18182
For much of the last year, many of the anti-capitalist and anti-authoritarian forces across Canada have started to work towards converging many of the bigger issues to take place in 2010 into a larger whole.
Enbridge delays Gulf Coast pipeline
Enbridge delays Gulf Coast pipeline
Company blames lagging output in oil sands as it pushes back project to 2014
NORVAL SCOTT AND SHAWN MCCARTHY
July 10, 2008
CALGARY, OTTAWA -- Enbridge Inc. is pushing back plans to build a $2.6-billion pipeline that would connect the oil sands to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast, blaming the delay on the slow pace of development in Alberta.
Stupid Tar Sands Schemes
Stupid oilsands schemes
Oilpatch welfare smacks of Don Getty years
By NEIL WAUGH, EDMONTON SUN
Tue, July 15, 2008
Premier Ed Stelmach was spreading the good news last week in hopes of deflecting any bad news he might get later this week when he meets his provincial counterparts in Quebec City.
"We need to spread the word," the premier told oil industry execs a day after unleashing $2 billion in oilpatch welfare, which had haunting echoes of the pump-priming Don Getty years.
"Our province is a reliable supplier of abundant energy produced in a responsible manner."
