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
TransCanada vying for $30-billion pipeline project
Excerpt:
"Because construction isn't likely to begin before 2013 or 2014, the Alaska project isn't likely in direct competition with a plan to build a gas pipeline from the Mackenzie Delta in the Northwest Territories to Alberta. Mackenzie construction could start in late 2009 if it receives regulatory approval."
Mackenzie Valley pipeline hearings wrap up in Inuvik
Since the hearings have successfully carried the lie and the crime against the environment of not being a cumulative impact assessment-- steadfastly ruling that the hearings could not cover the tar sands, and included denials and obfuscations of the final end goal of the natural gas being to help ramp up the ecological, genocidal and grotesquely anti-human tar sands operations north of Fort Muck, it should be VERY CLEAR why the North Central Corridor was officially announced only as the hearings on the MGP are finishing.
AFL group: oilpatch boom causes companies to cut corners on safety
Labour group: oilpatch boom causes companies to cut corners on safety
Canadian Press, Calgary, Alberta, November 29, 2007
The head of Alberta's Federation of Labour says the province's economic boom has caused some companies to cut corners on worker safetyan issue highlighted this week when a fire killed two workers on a major Enbridge Inc. (TSX:ENB) pipeline in Minnesota.
"Health and safety has become much more of an issue in Alberta workplaces right across the board since the economy has gone on such a booming trend," Gil McGowan said Thursday in an interview.
Bruce Power (TransCanada Pipelines, Cameco etc.) to buy out Peace River Nuke Project for Tarpits
Bruce Power jumping into Alberta nuclear project
Jon Harding, Financial Post
Published: Thursday, November 29, 2007
CALGARY -- Bruce Power LP, operator of Canada's largest nuclear plant in western Ontario, has signed a letter of intent to buy some assets from Energy Alberta Corp., the private Calgary-based company that had planned to build a nuclear reactor in northern Alberta.
As part of the transaction, Bruce Power, which is majority owned by Calgary-based pipeline giant TransCanada Corp., will acquire exclusive rights to use CANDU technology in Alberta.
Pembina's Unlikely Corporate Allies: Making Xmas Baskets for Coal Bed Methane companies?
Pembina Institute Releases Report, Hosts Forum on "Unlikely Allies"
Media Contact: Ed Whittingham
Calgary-November 28, 2007-The Pembina Institute, a national environmental think tank, today released a case study compendium and hosted a forum on innovative partnerships between unlikely allies who help make resource development sustainable. The unlikely allies comprise resource companies and their external stakeholders such as communities, landowner associations and environmental groups. This is the first report of its kind to document Canada-based examples.
The Origins of Neoliberal Environmentalism
Weekend Edition
November 24 / 25, 2007
The Origins of Neoliberal Environmentalism
Justice Stephen Breyer and Cancer Bonds
By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
Any man admired by both Senators Ted Kennedy and Orin Hatch can't be all good. And, in fact, Stephen Breyer's elevation to the highest bench illustrates concisely how, across the past twenty years, Kennedyesque liberalism and Hatchian conservatism have merged into a unified, pro-corporate posture.
Group calls officials to Keystone hearings
Group calls officials to Keystone hearings
Argus Leader, South Dakota
By staff reports
November 27, 2007
The WEB Rural Water system in Aberdeen is calling eight state officials to appear and respond to questions when the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission holds hearings in December on whether to grant TransCanada a permit for its proposed Keystone Pipeline.
The pipeline would run the length of South Dakota and could carry almost 600,000 barrels of crude oil daily from Alberta to oil refineries in Illinois and Oklahoma.
Rise in tanker traffic sparks fear of spills
Rise in tanker traffic sparks fear of spills
Concern about a crude spill has one councillor trying to slow the increase of exports from Burnaby terminal
DON WHITELEY
Special to The Globe and Mail
November 27, 2007
VANCOUVER -- The potential for large increases in exports of crude oil through the Port of Vancouver has local politicians concerned about the port's growing vulnerability to oil spills.
"Scale of tar sands project impresses Ritter"
Colorado, unlike much of the US, cannot convince its commerce department and those involved in industry that it is alright to ignore Alberta's hydrocarbon devastation programs. Many have shown how the American media in publications such as the Washington Post or New York Times can be quite honest about the death of the land and air north of Fort McMurray and elsewhere.
TransCanada Corp. seeks permit to build $983M gas pipeline in Alberta
TransCanada Corp. seeks permit to build $983M gas pipeline in Alberta
at 16:24 on November 21, 2007, EST.
THE CANADIAN PRESS
CALGARY - A TransCanada Corp. (TSX:TRP) subsidiary is seeking permission to build a 300-kilometre natural gas pipeline in Alberta at an estimated cost of $983 million, largely to transport fuel to oilsands operations in the province's northeast.
TransCanada said Wednesday that Nova Gas Transmission's application to the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board comes after 11 years of considering the North Central Corridor.
