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
Right Wing Backlash against "Tar Sands: The Selling of Alberta" Documentary
Another hatchet job on oilsands
Industry threatens sovereignty, doc says
Gary Lamphier, The Edmonton Journal
Published: Saturday, March 15
EDMONTON - I fully expected a one-sided slag job, featuring the usual assortment of capitalist-bashing, America-loathing lefty ideologues.
I wasn't disappointed. Thursday's airing of Tar Sands: The Selling of Alberta, on CBC Television's Doc Zone, was merely the latest in a string of sensationalist hatchet jobs on Alberta's key industry, courtesy of the national media.
Tar sands emissions could triple under Conservative plan
Oilsands emissions could triple under Conservative plan
Mike De Souza, Canwest News Service
Published: Friday, March 14, 2008
Meantime, Environment Canada has confirmed that millions of tonnes of pollution from small facilities will be exempt for companies in sectors such as oil and gas, natural gas pipelines, electricity, chemicals and fertilizers.
Suncor's Real Agenda in the Tar Sands: Conservation "Offsets"
Here's the real reason for Suncor's participation in the Pew/Sunoco funded Canadian Boreal Initiative -- allow for endless tarpit expansion while taking credit for some low-hanging fruit protected areas elsewhere in the boreal forest. An excellent business strategy indeed, especially given the fact that Pew/Sunoco actually *founded* Suncor in 1967. Though Pew/Sunoco sold off Suncor in 1995, they continue to refine large amounts of synthetic (mock) crude oil from the tarpits and desperately want more.
Tarpit Pete
North Dakota: Keystone Pipeline can and must be stopped
IN THE MAIL: Pipeline can and must be stopped
Grand Forks Herald
Published Wednesday, March 12, 2008
GRAND FORKS — The Keystone oil pipeline should not be built in the location where the state Public Service Commission has given permission to begin construction.
The tar sands omerta
The oil sands omerta
Norval Scott, March 12, 2008 at 3:58 PM EDT
According to oil executives speaking at the World Heavy Oil Congress
in Edmonton this week, a big challenge for the oil sands industry is
to overcome adverse public perceptions of their work. To a man, the
Canadian representatives speaking – including the chief executives of
Suncor Energy Inc. and Nexen Inc. – referred to the need to do better
in the PR battle, and emphasized that this was a priority.
It’s a fight that the companies aren’t winning, and it’s their own
Doc builds convincing case against tar sands
Doc builds convincing case against tar sands
KATE TAYLOR
ktaylor@globeandmail.com
March 13, 2008
When Norway began extracting North Sea oil, its government worried that the sudden influx of revenue would distort the economy, so it placed its new wealth in a rainy-day fund. Now that the North Sea reserves are diminished, Norway's state-owned oil exploration company is looking elsewhere, to Alberta's tar sands.
Everything You Didn't Really Want to Know About Tar Sands
Everything You Didn't Really Want to Know About Tar Sands
Do you ever think about the spot between the wall and the back of the stove? You know, the place where stray bits of dinner, splashes of marinara sauce and inexplicable assorted chicken parts gather to create a nasty, smelly, horrible part of your kitchen — your otherwise glorious, sparkling (OK, not so sparkling but in the right light it looks just lovely), bejewelled food preparation space, the place where you pack the kid's lunch, where you sit and read the paper and listen
"New projects pitched to ease Fort McMurray housing woes"
New projects pitched to ease Fort McMurray housing woes
By The Canadian Press - For Business Edge
Published: 03/07/2008 - Vol. 8, No. 5
The Wood Buffalo Housing and Development Corp. is looking to get into the land development business to alleviate Fort McMurray's housing crunch.
The municipally-owned, non-profit corporation presented a proposal to regional council last week for developing two areas of Fort McMurray north of the Athabasca River.
Treaty chiefs want tar sands moratorium
Aboriginal chiefs want oilsands moratorium
Renata D'Aliesio, Calgary Herald
Published: Monday, February 25, 2008
EDMONTON - Alberta's aboriginal chiefs are calling for a moratorium on new oilsands development until they've completed plans to manage water and resource development in the region.
Nuclear provider targets tar sands
Nuclear provider targets oilsands
Natural gas shortage looms by 2030: Areva
Shaun Polczer, Calgary Herald
Published: Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Alberta's oilsands industry faces a natural gas shortage by 2030 without new energy sources to offset gas use in oilsands expansions, the head of nuclear power giant Areva Canada Inc. said Monday.
Speaking in Calgary, Areva CEO Armand Laferrere said continued oilsands development would consume virtually all of Canada's current natural gas supply -- some 92 per cent -- by 2030.
