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
Can Pew's Charity be Trusted?
US foundations give millions to Canadian environmental groups
By Dru Oja Jay, the Dominion
Since major foundations in the US began funding environmental groups in the late 1980s, many grassroots environmental activists have sounded the alarm about the rise of the "Big Greens." Featuring six-figure salaries and foundation funding, critics say the large environmental NGOs coopt grassroots movements and excercise control over what issues are brought up.
What in Tar Nation?
November 23, 2007
What in Tar Nation?
Life among the tar sands
by Maya Rolbin-Ghanie
The Dominion - http://www.dominionpaper.ca
A plume of smoke from a Syncrude processing plant, viewed from Fort Mackay. Photo: Dru Oja Jay
We leave Fort McMurray and hitch a ride to Fort MacKay, a Native community 40kms north, where we stay for three days.
The tar sands and slavery
"The system of slavery is like holding a wolf by its ears: you don't like
it, but you don't dare let go."
- Thomas Jefferson
The oil sands and slavery
By Frederick Douglass*
It was once the case that slaves were the most valuable asset in America. As the horrors of slavery began to be documented and a concern that this was a horrible practice spread, the justifications for continued slavery sound eerily familiar to the justifications for the continuation and massive expansion of the oil sands.
"SPEAKERS AIM TO PUT A HUMAN FACE ON THE OIL SANDS DEBATE"
SPEAKERS AIM TO PUT A HUMAN FACE ON THE OIL SANDS DEBATE
Scott Harris / scott@vueweekly.com
So much has been written, opined, investigated and studied about the oil sands that one could almost be forgiven for believing that the primary product being produced in northern Alberta is not bitumen, but statistics and reports.
Flashback to 2004: According to Transcanada the North-Central Corridor had nothing to do with Mackenzie Valley gas
System Design in NW Alberta
Media coverage of energy developments often refers to the facilities TransCanada may construct to accommodate new sources of gas in Northwest Alberta. One recent article indicated TransCanada is building a direct pipeline from the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline to Fort McMurray. This is not the case.
To ensure customers have a clear understanding of TransCanada's plans for expansion of the Alberta System, we sat down with Dave Murray, Manager, Mainline Planning West for an overview of the subject.
$983M jumbo pipeline project touted by TCPL [North Central Corridor]
Intro Rant:
It is very important we think about this correctly: The North-Central Corridor is the "alternative" to nuclear power. Both of these proposals are entirely driven by the energy input needs of cooking, digging, flipping and poisoning the earth in the Athabasca region, north of Fort McMurray. Both would devastate yet further many indigenous territories in the north, including the "Tear Drop" traditional territory of the Lubicon Cree Nation. Both would not only facilitate but vastly expand the consumption of energy for the increased output of the tar pits.
CARC’s Final Argument: Get More Information or Reject [Mackenzie] Pipeline Project
NEWS RELEASE 21/11/07
CARC’s Final Argument: Get More Information or Reject Pipeline Project
Top 100 Ways Climate Change will Change Your Life
Warning: Depressing content.
Center for American Progress
AlterNet (September 29 2007)
Say Goodbye to French Wines. Wacky temperatures and rain cycles brought
on by global warming are threatening something very important: Wine.
Scientists believe global warming will "shift viticultural regions
toward the poles, cooler coastal zones and higher elevations". What that
means in regular language: Get ready to say bye-bye to French Bordeaux
and hello to British champagne. [LA Times]
Say Goodbye to Light and Dry Wines. Warmer temperatures mean grapes in
Officially Announcing the North-Central Corridor! A pipe for the pits!
TransCanada files for natural gas permit
By Staff Reports
Argus Leader
PUBLISHED: November 21, 2007
TransCanada Corp., which is seeking to build the crude oil Keystone Pipeline through South Dakota to supply refineries in Illinois and Oklahoma with oil from Alberta, is also looking to expand its natural gas carrying capacity to better serve the Canadian oil industry which is the source of that crude.
North-Central Corridor application exactly equal to Mackenzie pipeline initial production (0.8 billion cubic feet per day)
TransCanada Seeks to Build C$983 Million Gas Pipeline (Update4)
By Jim Polson
Nov. 21 (Bloomberg) -- TransCanada Corp. will seek approval for a C$983 million ($996 million) natural-gas pipeline project to increase access to production in northwestern Alberta needed by Canadian oil-sands producers.
A permit for the North Central Corridor project will be filed today with the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board for the 300-kilometer (186-mile) pipeline and associated facilities, TransCanada said in a statement. The company's pipeline system already is the largest in Canada.
