Alberta Tar Sands is a category limited to the location and production of tar sand bitumen, an area the size of the state of Florida in northern Alberta province. The giant processing plants near Fort McMurray where the land itself is strip mined as well as the primarily "in situ" in-ground steam separation/production and extraction plants in the Peace and Cold Lake Regions, all in Alberta, are the "Ground Zero" of the single largest industrial gigaproject ever proposed in human history.
The process of removing the tar from the sand involves incredible amounts of energy from clean-burning natural gas (with nuclear proposed along side), tremendous capital costs during build up, incredibly high petroleum prices to protect investments, and the largest single industrial contribution to climate change in North America. Production also involves the waste of fresh water from nearby lakes, rivers and aquifers that have already created toxic tailing ponds visible from outer space. None of the land strip mined has yet to be certified as reclaimed. It takes 4 tonnes of soil to produce one barrel of oil. The tar sands are producing over 1.2 million barrels of oil a day on average. The oil companies, Canada and the United States governments are proposing to escalate production to 5 million barrels, almost all destined for American markets-- and lower environmental standards while doing so. They also would need to violate the national and human rights of many indigenous nations who are rightly concerned about many dire social, environmental and economic repercussions on their communities.
To get the needed energy supplies, diluent for the bitumen and diverted freshwater to produce and then to transport the flowing heavy bitumen for refining would require massive new infrastructure and pipeline building from three different time zones in the Arctic, across British Columbia and through Alberta in a criss-cross pattern, into pipelines to such destinations as California, China, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Ontario, Illinois, Wisconsin and Texas. This entire project is now estimated at over $170 billion dollars. And after the whole process described so far, only then will all this dirty petroleum get burned and expel greenhouse gasses into the air causing further climate change.
Leading the eco-revolution
Activist Clayton Thomas-Muller is building an 'inclusive movement for climate justice' in Canada.
http://www.rabble.ca/news_full_story.shtml?x=61919
by Nina Winham
September 4, 2007
It was a lake without stories that first signaled something wrong to Clayton Thomas-Muller and fed the future activist's passion for justice. A lake with no stories and no life, spread thin across his peoples' traditional territory.
Kings of the coal habit
The fate of our warming planet hinges on six nations, and five of them meet in Sydney this week
Jeremy Leggett
Wednesday September 5, 2007
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2162457,00.html
Through his long years of greenhouse denial, George Bush must have been particularly grateful to John Howard. The Australian prime minister was quick to join Bush in refusing to ratify the Kyoto protocol, and has batted for his country's coal interests as trenchantly as Bush has batted for US coal and oil interests.
Finding the right balance is tough...
http://www.thenorthernview.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=142&cat=48&id...
By - Brooke Ward
Sep 05 2007
Many of us here in the Northwest seem to know what we want: economic development and sustainability. And we also know what we don’t want: destruction of natural resources. Unfortunately, the Provincial Government seems convinced that we can’t have one without the other.
Canada's Top 40
http://www.canadianminingjournal.com/issues/ISarticle.asp?id=189929&stor...
By: Marilyn Scales
Oil sands miner Suncor leads pack
Any company with annual revenues of over $7.4 billion is a contender for the top spot on many lists. In the case of the largest 40 Canadian mining companies, the honour goes to Suncor Energy thanks to its oil sands income alone. The rising price of oil continues to bolster Suncor's bottom line. Last year the company ranked eighth on our list with almost $4.0 billion in revenue from its oil sands operations.
Nuclear power moves west
http://www.peacearchnews.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=44&cat=23&id=10...
By Tom Fletcher // Black Press // Aug 30 2007
Backers of Western Canada’s first nuclear reactor have chosen a site west of Peace River, Alta., about 100 km from the B.C. border.
“This is an historic moment for Canada, for Alberta and for the nuclear power industry,” said Wayne Henuset, president of Energy Alberta Corporation.
Blaming labor for peak oil problems
http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2007/08/15/oil_sands_labor/index.html
A labor shortage is "wracking" the province of Alberta, Macleans tell us, brought on by the mad rush to exploit the vast reserves of petroleum locked in the fabled oil sands of Canada's Wild West. The jobless rate in Alberta is a "historically low" 3.4 percent even with net inward migration in 2006 hitting 62,000.
Tar sand mining growing at huge environmental cost
http://www.peopleandplanet.net/doc.php?id=3079
Posted: 23 Aug 2007
Canadian tar sands deposits hold an estimated 1.7 trillion barrels of crude oil, second in the world only to Saudi Arabia, but the devastating environmental impact of mining them far exceeds that of conventional oil, says new research to be published next month (September 2007).
Whistleblower MD returns to Fort Chipewyan
Last Updated: Thursday, August 16, 2007 | 5:06 PM CT
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2007/08/16/fortchip-oconnor.html
The doctor who blew the whistle on what he says are high cancer rates in Fort Chipewyan, Alberta, visited the oilsands hamlet this week with a promise he would continue to fight for a health study in the community.
Seismic testing irks lakes' neighbours
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070830.ROSUM30/TPStor...
NORVAL SCOTT
August 30, 2007
CALGARY -- Calgary-based OSUM Oil Sands Corp. looks set to face more opposition to its controversial proposals to test for crude oil under two Alberta lakes, as a coalition of residents is planning to take its protests straight to Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach's door.
Earlier this month, Alberta regulators gave approval to privately held OSUM to conduct seismic testing at Marie Lake, 300 kilometres northeast of Edmonton.
Updating the book on global warming
by George Monbiot
Here is a portion of George Monbiot's speech at the Camp for Climate
Change in London August 18 2007 {1}. He has been studying and writing
about global warming for over twenty years and is the Author of Heat
(South End Press, 2007) which is about climate change and what needs to
be done about it. He explains that because of recent scientific
discoveries the book needs an extreme update.
Indymedia.org.uk (August 31 2007)
I'm going to start with some bad news, and the bad news is this. Two
