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
Industry PR as Utah Tar Sands Get Ever Closer...
Cobra Oil & Gas Provides Technology Update for Utah Oil Sands Prospect
July 23, 2009 09:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time
Suncor boosts heavy oil sales to U.S.
This is a HUGE deal; as a result of the largest single tar sands operator expanding the amount of procesing done in the US, the number-- according to the FTA and NAFTA-- can NEVER GO BACK DOWN in terms of percentage, or "proportion".
This is where the "proportionality clause" kicks in; the amount of an energy source sent south in one day must stay at that proportion permanently.
Therefore this is the announcement that the state of Canada is now further beholden to the US state, never mind what happens to the indigenous nations as a direct result.
--M
Chevron to appeal ruling on Richmond refinery (Bay Area, California)
Chevron to appeal ruling on Richmond refinery
Tom Abate, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, July 9, 2009
(07-08) 18:40 PDT -- Chevron Corp. will appeal a judge's order that it halt an upgrade to its Richmond refinery and revise its environmental review, a ruling that the company blames for causing more than a thousand layoffs.
"We think the judge was wrong," refinery manager Mike Coyle said Tuesday, as he showed off two huge furnaces at the center of the dispute.
The 2010 Plan to Crush Our Freedoms
The 2010 Plan to Crush Our Freedoms
Olympics security overkill: Why so afraid of protest?
By Rafe Mair
20 Jul 2009,
TheTyee.ca
Less than two weeks ago, Bud Mercer, head of the Vancouver 2010 Integrated
Security Unit looking after security for the 2010 Olympics, raised with
Vancouver City Council the specter of the violent clashes that rocked World
Trade Organization meetings in Seattle and Quebec City.
To combat these forecasted dangers, the taxpayer is spending one billion
dollars, at last count, and using 16,000 police and armed forces personnel!
Commissioners Approve Keystone Pipeline Right-Of-Way (Cushing, OK)
Commissioners Approve Pipeline Right-Of-Way
Pretty significant pipeline, says Mayor
Molly Payne
1600kush.com
07/20/2009
Highway for Mining from NWT to Nunavut?
Road to coast preferable to highway
Guy Quenneville
Northern News Services
Published Monday, July 20, 2009
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - In Lou Covello's mind, the NWT and Nunavut chamber's most controversial suggestion is not the development of mining towns but the construction of a road through the Slave Geological Province - host to a considerable concentration of mineral deposits - from Yellowknife to the Coronation Gulf.
The proposed road would be more economically rewarding than the Mackenzie Valley Highway, said Covello, the president of the NWT Nunavut Chamber of Mines.
Alberta seeks input on bitumen royalties
Alberta seeks input on bitumen royalties
By Jason Fekete, Calgary Herald
July 21, 2009
CALGARY - The Stelmach government is expected to ask energy producers today for their interest in a new provincial bitumen royalty-in-kind policy, as the premier faces mounting criticism for failing to keep his promise to stem the flow of oilsands to the United States.
RCMP seek input on providing culturally sensitive security during 2010 Games
RCMP seek input on providing culturally sensitive security during 2010 Games
By Charlie Smith - Publish Date: July 19, 2009
Olympic security officials have approached a local multicultural organization for help in providing culturally sensitive security during the 2010 Games.
On behalf of Sukhvinder Vinning, vice president of the Multifaith Action Society, former Vancouver city councillor Nancy Chiavario has sent an e-mail announcing an opportunity for people to discuss issues pertinent to their faiths with an RCMP officer.
The pieces are in place
The pieces are in place
By Chris Dunker
Daily Sun staff writer
Tuesday, Jul 14, 2009
On its way from Alberta, Canada to Pavoka, Ill., the Keystone Pipeline, being constructed and operated by the TransCanada Corporation, will soon be passing through the region near Steele City.
Keystone Pipeline is a $5.2 billion project that will ultimately flow oil from Alberta to refineries in Illinois. Despite a tropical June, contractors are pushing to finish the job through Nebraska in 2009.
Opti's future hinges on tar sands performance
It MUST be noted that Opti-- whose parent corporation is Ormat, an Israeli energy company-- needs to make this commercial venture work for several reasons, the most important being that this "project" would help provide the technology to make Israel "energy self-sufficient". Destroying the Negev is high on the priority list for Israel; this project is nothing but a laboratory for future exploitation of the vast (yet crappy quality) oil shale in historical Palestine.
