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
EUB Spies on Landowners; New EUB Chair also brokered the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline
Note that Bill Tilleman, the new chair of the EUB was also involved in brokering the "streamlined" regulatory review of the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline as a special advisor to then Indian Affairs Minister Nault
-Petro-Pete
Alberta names new chairman for embattled regulator
Reuters
Monday, September 17, 2007
CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - Alberta has appointed a prominent lawyer to head the oil-rich province's energy regulator and restore public confidence after a spying scandal sparked calls for resignations at the agency's senior levels.
West's ravenous oil appetite may lead to tough sacrifices (like giving up your equestrian estates and SUV's)
My heart bleeds for the oiligarchy wringing their hands in their country estates.
-Petro-Pete
West's ravenous oil appetite may lead to tough sacrifices
GWYN MORGAN
Read Bio | Latest Columns
September 17, 2007
CALGARY -- The Southern family's Spruce Meadows equestrian centre near Calgary is ranked as the world's top show-jumping venue. Each September, its flagship Masters Tournament brings together the sport's best horses and riders.
Workers Defying "Cease & Desist" Order
Pickets vow they will ignore order to stop
Jamie Hall, The Edmonton Journal
Published: Friday, September 14
EDMONTON - Undaunted by the prospect of arrest and fines, scores of protesters vowed Thursday to continue a crusade that has disrupted work at more than a dozen construction sites and cost oilsands contractors millions of dollars.
Union members who again formed "information lines" early Thursday were served with copies of a cease-and-desist order issued on Wednesday night, which bars picketing at any construction or maintenance site.
CNRL Abandons Newfoundlanders in Northern Alberta
Newfoundlanders claim company has left them stranded in Alberta
JAMIE BAKER
The Telegram
What was supposed to be a tasty piece of the Alberta employment pie quickly turned into a sour serving of severance for a small group of Newfoundland workers who found themselves on their own in the oil-rich western province with no job and no way home.
The group had been working on a 20 days on, eight days off schedule for one of the many contractors at the huge Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (CNRL) Horizon oil sands project near Fort McMurray.
Shifting Tar Sands
Shifting oil sands
Telegraph UK Magazine
15/09/2007
In the hunt for new fuel sources, a vast swath of western Canada is being mined for its precious 'oil sands'. Jack Fairweather visits the centre of the new gold rush. Photographs by Jonas Bendiksen
Donnie Leblanc is surprisingly nonchalant for a man who has just blown $20,000 on a two-day trip to Las Vegas. But then, since he came to northern Canada, he hasn't had to worry too much about money - and there is plenty more where that came from. In a few months' time he will have saved enough to hit the casinos again.
Oil industry 'sleepwalking into crisis'
Oil industry 'sleepwalking into crisis'
Former Shell chairman says that diminishing resources could push price of crude to $150 a barrel
By David Strahan and Andrew Murray-Watson
Published: 16 September 2007 // Independent UK
Lord Oxburgh, the former chairman of Shell, has issued a stark warning that the price of oil could hit $150 per barrel, with oil production peaking within the next 20 years.
Is it too late to stop the ethanol con job?
Is it too late to stop the ethanol con job?
ERIC REGULY
September 14, 2007 at 6:27 AM EDT
ROME — Not so long ago, you could feel complacent - smug even - about your little greenish exertions. You traded your SUV for a smaller set of wheels. You bought compact florescent bulbs and dragged the old push mower out of storage. You approved of ethanol and other biofuels and vowed to buy them whenever possible. Okay, there wasn't a lot of sacrifice involved. But you could feel a tad superior to your fossil-fuel-slurping neighbours.
Pasta, Beer, Easter Eggs too Expensive because of Ethanol
Meat, dairy and other food producers assail ethanol
Congress about to decide whether to require sixfold hike in fuel output
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 09.16.2007
WASHINGTON — Already this year, ethanol has been blamed for more expensive Easter eggs, dying shrimp along the Louisiana coastline and costlier milk in school lunches.
Germans curse biofuels for higher beer costs. In Italy, consumer advocates organized a pasta boycott last week, complaining that pasta prices have soared because farmers grow crops for fuel, not food.
Keystone Pipeline Documents held in Public Libraries in South Dakota
Libraries have assessment of pipeline plans
By Staff Reports
Argus Leader
Published: September 13, 2007
Documents related to the environmental analysis of the planned Keystone pipeline that would traverse South Dakota from the North Dakota border near Aberdeen to Yankton are available in the government documents section at public libraries throughout eastern South Dakota.
TransCanada is seeking federal and state regulatory permission to build a pipeline that would carry more than 500,000 gallons of crude oil daily from Alberta to oil refineries in Missouri, Illinois and Oklahoma.
Peak Pasta in Italy: Biofuel increases price of Wheat
Wheat Prices Send Italian Pasta Costs Up
By COLLEEN BARRY
The Associated Press
Thursday, September 13, 2007; 8:40 PM
MILAN, Italy -- Consumer groups urged Italians to refrain from buying pasta Thursday to protest rising prices for the beloved Italian staple, in a strike that was high on symbolic value but apparently low on real impact.
