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
Don't let our country sink into this stuff
Don't let our country sink into this stuff
By WAYNE MADSEN
Special to McClatchy-Tribune
WASHINGTON -- Anything that allows America to continue its narcotic-like dependence on carbon fossil fuels -- whether the sprawling tar sands of Canada or the petroleum pools under Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge -- misses the point about shifting to alternative energy.
Alternative sources should be real energy alternatives such as wind, solar and geothermal power rather than alternative fossil fuel sources that often give off more greenhouse gases than conventional crude oil.
Alberta hit with 800 complaints from foreign workers
Alberta hit with 800 complaints from foreign workers
Accommodation, unfair wage deductions cited
Kelly Cryderman, Calgary Herald
Published: Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Just a day before a House of Commons committee meets in Edmonton to discuss the issue of temporary foreign workers, the province revealed it has received more than 800 complaints from foreign labourers in the past 31/2 months.
The most common complaints revolve around perceived unfair wage deductions, fees charged by recruitment agencies and accommodation issues.
Groups slam foreign worker program
Groups slam foreign worker program
By BROOKES MERRITT, SUN MEDIA
Alberta's temporary foreign worker program has no oversight and is mired in so much bureaucracy that employers are allowed to treat hopeful immigrants like indentured labour.
That's what a federal committee travelling Canada to examine immigration issues heard in Edmonton yesterday, during a lengthy meeting in which several interest groups blasted the provincial and federal governments.
'INHERENTLY EXPLOITIVE'
Al-Jazeera: Alberta's heavy oil burden
Alberta's heavy oil burden
Alberta's oil reserves are seen as a long-term supply option for the United States
Al Jazeera's People & Power programme recently visited the Candian province of Alberta where the region's vast oil reserves are provoking both prosperity and opposition.
Much of the terrain is blanketed in trees but underneath the forests of the remote north of the Canadian province of Alberta are an estimated 174 billion barrels of heavy crude oil.
Tar Pits Tailings Mined for Minerals
Oilsands tailings mined for minerals
By CAROL CHRISTIAN
Today staff
Tuesday April 01, 2008
Mineral rich waste from oilsands mining may soon be the source used to produce a long list of manufactured products from ceramic tiles and paints to electronics and medical appliances.
This could all come about thanks to a pilot project initiated by Titanium Corporation, and funded, in part, through Alberta Energy’s Innovation Fund. The Alberta grant is valued at $3.5 million, an amount being matched by the Toronto-based company.
"Don't let tar sand oil slip away"-- American PR for the tar sands industry
The war about what to do about the tar sands oil is well under way, and the article below is the kind of propaganda we should get used to about how much the US needs the tar sands product. In the case of the Michigan area, it should be noted that the expanding refinery capacity would include dumping into the Great Lakes. All of it increases the destruction in Northern Alberta. So these arguments are purely based (below) on a "so lifestyle and consumption patterns don't change" line of thinking.
--M
Don't let tar sand oil slip away
BY MARK J. PERRY • March 31, 2008
Imperial Oil Loses Tar-Sands Water Permit (Kearl Project), Globe and Mail Says
Imperial Oil Loses Oil-Sands Water Permit, Globe and Mail Says
By Sean B. Pasternak
March 31 (Bloomberg) -- The Canadian government revoked a water permit that is key to Imperial Oil Ltd.'s C$8 billion ($7.8 billion) Kearl oil-sands project, the Globe and Mail reported.
Canada rushes for its [mock] black gold
Canada rushes for its black gold
Released on 27/03/2008
[B]lack gloop is behind a massive boom that is pushing Canada’s construction spend to record heights and sucking skilled workers from all over the country and the world.
Before 2003 Fort McMurray was a quiet town just about as far north in the Canadian province of Alberta as you’d wish to go. Now it’s the epicenter of a building boom that is pushing the whole country’s construction spend to record heights, and a trailer there costs more than a house in downtown Toronto.
Shell wants to produce five times more oil from tar sands
Shell wants to produce five times more oil from tar sands
* Terry Macalister
* The Guardian,
* Tuesday March 18 2008
This article appeared in the Guardian on Tuesday March 18 2008 on p32 of the Financial section. It was last updated at 00:49 on March 18 2008.
Shell is gearing up for a huge expansion of its carbon-intensive tar sands operation in Canada at a time when it has been struggling to replace conventional reserves.
Tar sands: environmental justice and Native rights
Tar sands: environmental justice and Native rights
"The river used to be blue. Now it's brown. Nobody can fish or drink from it. The air is bad. This has all happened so fast."
by Clayton Thomas-Müller
March 25, 2008
The application of treaty rights as a legal strategy implemented by the First Nations themselves must be the key focus in efforts to challenge Big Oil in Alberta.
