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
Imperial fears year delay to Kearl tar sands project
Imperial fears year delay to Kearl oilsands project
Claudia Cattaneo, Financial Post Published: Thursday, May 08, 2008
CALGARY -- Imperial Oil Ltd. said in Federal Court Thursday its $8-billion Kearl oilsands project faces a delay of a year or more if a key water permit pulled by the federal government isn't quickly re-instated.
"It took nine months to get this piece of paper," lawyer Munaf Mohamed, of Fraser, Milner Casgrain LLP, argued before Justice Douglas Campbell. "What
is sufficient in terms of the sting of the lash?
Industry backlash against BC uranium mining ban
B.C.'s uranium ban is irrational, economically irresponsible
Vancouver Sun
Friday, May 09, 2008
The provincial government has slapped a ban on exploration for uranium, outlawed any development of known deposits and imposed a "no registration reserve" to ensure no future claims include rights to the mineral. It has offered no rationale for these draconian measures.
Citizen Opposition to the Proposed Nukes in Peace River
No mention here about the real reason for locating the nukes in Peace River, which is to supply power for Shell in the nearby Grosmont formation for their electric heaters to extract bitumen from limestone.
-Tarpit Pete
Alberta's Peace River area split over bid to build nuclear power plant
1 day ago
PEACE RIVER, Alta. — Dan and Huguette Ropchan stand on the grainy edge of ice-crusted Lac Cardinal in northwest Alberta and worry that in a decade they'll have to raise their wheat and canola in the shadow of monster nuclear cooling towers.
The Real Need for Nukes in Peace River
After over a year of very low-key manoeuvering through their privately held subsidiary Sure Northern Energy, Shell finally comes clean with their proposal to use electric heaters to extract bitumen from the limestone-based Grosmont formation, which may host more oil than all the other tar sands combined. If successful, this new "in-situ" method will require massive amounts of electricity convenienty located to the south at the proposed nuclear plants in Peace River and possibly Whitecourt. The perversity of using nukes to heat the earth to extract mock oil is utterly astounding!
Scenes From the Tar Wars
Scenes From the Tar Wars
NEWS: As Canada scrambles to dig up some of the world's dirtiest oil, a bush doctor
tracks mysterious diseases, poisoned rivers, and shattered lives.
By Josh Harkinson
May/June 2008 Issue
At a small airport in the northern Alberta town of Fort McMurray, a rickety,
single-engine Cessna hurtles off the ground with a roar. Dr. John O'Connor ignores
the shuddering fuselage, the tail wiggle, the steep climb above the spruce trees at
the end of the runway. For O'Connor, a bush doctor who has tended to some of
The Deafening Silence of Ducks Unlimited about over 500 dead ducks in the tar sands
Could it be because Syncrude donated $300,000 to Ducks Unlimited in 2001 and that Suncor recently donated another $1.5 million?? After all, Ducks Unlimited only wants to help industry to "soften" its impact on the environment. Never mind all the other cash donations from Weyerhaeuser, Alpac, and Enbridge....
- Tarpit Pete
DU Conservation Awards presented to Alberta Chamber of Resources Companies
Dehcho Land Use Plan revisions increase development
Dehcho Land Use Plan revisions increase development
Roxanna Thompson
Northern News Services
Published Thursday, May 01, 2008
DEH GAH GOT'IE KOE/FORT PROVIDENCE - A revised Dehcho Land Use Plan could be completed as early as this fall, according to members of the Dehcho Land Use Planning Committee.
The planning committee has been working steadily since last fall to resolve the differences over the plan between the Dehcho First Nations (DFN) and the territorial and federal governments, said Michael Nadli, the chair of the committee.
Dehcho Process at crossroads
Dehcho Process at crossroads
Paul Bickford and John Curran
Northern News Services
Published Thursday, April 10, 2008
K'ATLODEECHE/HAY RIVER RESERVE - There was not a lot of optimism about the Dehcho Process coming out of last week's leadership meeting on the Hay River Reserve.
Deh Cho leaders were disheartened following a report on the negotiations with the federal government.
"I feel that Canada is negotiating in bad faith," said Jerry Antoine, interim grand chief of Dehcho First Nations (DFN), following the meeting.
One key area of concern is land selection.
Native People Warn U.N. of Biofuels Disaster
From the article below: "Experts on agro-economics say biofuels production is
largely responsible for the current food shortages and soaring prices. The crisis,
according to them, is not going to end unless the rich countries change their energy
consumption patterns.
If rich nations stopped biofuels production this year, it would lead to a price
decline in corn by about 20 percent and wheat by about 10 percent within the next
two years, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute, a think
tank in Washington."
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More dead birds giving tar sands a blackeye
More dead birds giving Oilsands a blackeye
May 05, 2008 - 7:25 am
Kevin Usselman & Bryce Kelley
The Alberta oilsands is coming under fire again after a loon was found dead
and two others in distress at the ConocoPhillips tar sands site over the
weekend.
A campaigner with Greenpeace says he received the tip about the loons on
Saturday. It's the second incident involving birds in the oilsands in about
a week.
Last week, 500 ducks were found dead on a tailings pond at the Syncrude
oilsands site. That's because the birds, were found in a pond that has high
