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
Road to Riches: (Mackenzie) Pipeline Through Paradise
Road to Riches: Pipeline Through Paradise
News: The race to claim Arctic fuel reserves could revive the proposed Mackenzie River Valley pipeline.
By James Ridgeway
October 10, 2007
Keystone: Commissioners say they're not against pipeline (N Dakota)
Commissioners say they're not against pipeline
Oct 10, 2007 - 04:01:41 CDT
Associtaed Press
County commissioners along the route of a proposed oil pipeline from Canada held an impromptu meeting with Public Service Commissioner Kevin Cramer to tell him they're not all against the plan.
About two dozen commissioners met Monday night with Cramer while in Bismarck for the Association of Counties convention.
Total (France) to invest $1 billion a year in tar sands in Canada
AFX News Limited
Total to invest 1 bln usd a year in oil sands in Canada
10.11.07, 12:06 PM ET
PARIS (Thomson Financial) - French group Total is to invest 1 bln usd annually over the next few years in extracting oil from sand deposits in Canada, chairman Thierry Desmarest told an energy conference.
Desmarest said that by 2010 around 10 pct of worldwide oil production will come from oil sands and that this source of production is set to grow.
He underlined these oil sands are located in Canada, a country that does not pose any 'political problems'.
It's not just Alberta, it's the whole country
It's not just Alberta, it's the whole country
ANDREW NIKIFORUK
October 6, 2007
review: STUPID TO THE LAST DROP By William Marsden
How Alberta is Bringing Environmental Armageddon to Canada (and Doesn't Seem to Care)
The Globe and Mail
Ottawa and Alberta First Nation sign agreement-in-principle on $300M land claim
Ottawa and Alta First Nation sign agreement-in-principle on $300M land claim
Fri Oct 12, 5:42 PM
By The Canadian Press
WABASCA, Alta. - Alberta's Bigstone Cree have signed an agreement-in-principle with the provincial and federal governments that would entitle the First Nation to almost $300 million and almost 570 square kilometres of land.
The Bigstone are calling it the largest land-claim settlement in Alberta and one of the largest in Canada.
The agreement means all sides will work to finalize the settlement, which stems from a treaty signed in the late 1800s.
Tar Sands: Grist
The tar sands
Canada's version of liquid coal
Posted by Joseph Romm
11 Oct 2007
Canada has about as much recoverable oil in its tar sands as Saudi Arabia has conventional oil. They should leave most of it in the ground.
Tar sands are pretty much the heavy gunk they sound like, and making liquid fuels from them requires huge amounts of energy for steam injection and refining. Canada is currently producing about one million barrels of oil a day from the tar sands, and that is projected to triple over the next two decades.
Peak Petroleum and Public Health
Vol. 298 No. 14, October 10, 2007 JAMA
Journal of American Medical Association
Peak Petroleum and Public Health
Howard Frumkin, MD, DrPH; Jeremy Hess, MD, MPH; Stephen Vindigni, MPH
JAMA. 2007;298:1688-1690.
Transport Revolutions
TRANSPORT REVOLUTIONS
Moving people and freight without oil
by Richard Gilbert and Anthony Perl
To be published by Earthscan in December 2007
(scroll down for an overview and for advance ordering information)
Richard Gilbert
Consultant on Urban Issues
focusing on transport, energy, waste management,
and urban governance
Web site: http://www.richardgilbert.ca
Anthony Perl
Professor of Political Science
Director, Urban Studies Program
Simon Fraser University
OVERVIEW
Everyone's Downstream: A Conference on Tar Sands Realities and Resistance
- Alberta (& Saskatchewan) Tar Sands
- Enbridge Gateway Pipeline/ Offshore Tanker Traffic [BC]
- Mackenzie Gas Project / Alaska Highway pipelines [NWT/AK]
- Tarsands Infrastructure: South/ East [US & Can]
- International oil & gas
- Animals
- Climate Change / Emissions
- Economics
- Energy
- Forests
- Gender
- Health
- Indigenous
- Labour / Migration
- Land
- Nuclear
- Peak Oil
- Social Impacts
- War and Security
- Water
Everyone’s Downstream: Tar Sands Realities and Resistance
Conference to be held at:
University of Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
November 24-25th, 2007
http://oilsandstruth.org
Arctic LNG in Norway
A Quest for Energy in the Globe’s Remote Places
By JAD MOUAWAD
HAMMERFEST, Norway — For a quarter-century, energy executives were tantalized by vast quantities of natural gas in one of the world’s least hospitable places — 90 miles off Norway’s northern coast, beneath the Arctic Ocean.
Bitter winds and frequent snowstorms lash the region. The sun disappears for two months a year. No oil company knew how to operate in such a harsh environment.
