Oil Sands Truth: Shut Down the Tar Sands

Alberta (& Saskatchewan) Tar Sands

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.

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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.

OPTI sticks to plan to raise cash

Opti's parent corporation is Ormat, the Israeli corporation that developed "orcrude"-- otherwise known in Alberta as "co-generation"-- burning the waste gunk from the bottom of a barrel of tar sands bitumen to provide energy. This would eventually be used in much of historical Palestine to develop oil shale and has been using the Long Lake plant as a laboratory to make this production happen. Long Lake officially went commercial in October of last year.

--M

OPTI sticks to plan to raise cash

DAVID EBNER // VANCOUVER
Globe and Mail
Jun. 27, 2009

Strong response to racist backlash against Six Nations in Ontario offers important lessons for Albertans

Issues: Learning from the present
Strong response to racist backlash against Six Nations in Ontario offers important lessons for Albertans

Macdonald Stainsby / oilsandstruth.org
Vue Weekly, Week of June 25, 2009

Canada's 'toxic secret' soon to be made public

Last Updated: Thursday, June 18, 2009 |
CBC News

Environmental groups have long called the tailings lakes in the Alberta oilsands Canada's toxic secret, but companies operating there will soon be required to disclose exactly what pollutants are there.

In April, a federal court ordered Ottawa to make the mining industry release a complete inventory of what material they release into the environment. Now companies in the oilsands will also have to comply, CBC News has learned.

Sonic, Shell team for tar sands patent

Sonic, Shell team for oilsands patent

Details of 'innovation' not disclosed

By Shaun Polczer, Calgary Herald
June 24, 2009

CALGARY - A small startup has teamed up with one of the world's largest oil majors to develop a patent for processing heavy oil and oilsands.

Vancouver-based Sonic Technology Solutions on Tuesday said it has partnered with Shell Canada to jointly file a patent application for the recovery of bitumen from oilsands.

Which Matters Most? The Size of the Tap or the Tank?

Which Matters Most? The Size of the Tap or the Tank?
Scitizen // Kurt Cobb
22 Jun, 2009

Energy optimists are fond of citing very large numbers for worldwide fossil fuel resources such as oil and natural gas. But they conveniently leave out the critical variable. How fast can we actually produce these resources?

Enbridge to Develop Pipeline System for Kearl Project

Enbridge to Develop Pipeline System for Kearl Project
By Joe Carroll

June 22 (Bloomberg) -- Enbridge Inc., the biggest transporter of oil from Canada’s tar sands, plans to build a pipeline to haul crude from Exxon Mobil Corp.’s C$8 billion ($7 billion) Kearl project in northern Alberta to Edmonton.

The first phase will connect the Kearl oil-sands site north of Fort McMurray, Alberta, to Enbridge’s Cheecham terminal near Nexen Inc.’s Long Lake development, Paula Leslie, an Enbridge spokeswoman, said today in a telephone interview.

Alberta's tar sands show signs of life

Alberta's oil sands show signs of life
Katherine O'Neill, and Dawn Walton
Globe and Mail, Monday, Jun. 22, 2009

Unlimited overtime pay was just one of the many perks John Halbauer enjoyed as a welder during Alberta's super-sized energy boom.

That's disappeared, along with 11 of the 25-year-old's 13 co-workers who got laid-off in January. “I was worried. I didn't know if I was going to have to move back home or what,” the Kimberley, B.C., native said.

UTS eyes Fort Hills options as Suncor joins group

UTS eyes Fort Hills options as Suncor joins group
Tue Jun 16, 2009
By Jeffrey Jones

CALGARY, Alberta, June 16 (Reuters) - UTS Energy Corp (UTS.TO) has begun to plot out new ways to develop the delayed Fort Hills oil sands project but decisions must wait until Suncor Energy Inc (SU.TO) closes its takeover of the operator, Petro-Canada (PCA.TO), UTS's chief executive said on Tuesday.

UTS, which has a 20 percent interest in the Alberta oil sands development, sees cost advantages in shifting some of the processing to Suncor's massive northern Alberta operations, CEO Will Roach said.

Exxon boosts pipeline to tar sands by 50% (more access for Texas, Louisiana Refineries)

Exxon boosts pipeline to oil sands by 50%
Joe Carroll, Bloomberg
Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's biggest oil refiner, boosted its capacity to transport crude from Canada's oil sands to refineries in Texas and Louisiana.

Exxon Mobil increased the capacity of its 1,381-kilometre Pegasus Pipeline by 50% to about 96,000 barrels a day, the Irving, Tex.-based company said Wednesday in a statement.

Defenders of the Land, Private Property Abolitionists

Defenders of the Land, Private Property Abolitionists-- By Shiri Pasternak

Indigenous peoples in Canada have marked the geographical limits of
capitalist expansion through more than five centuries of permanent
resistance. Due to the geography of residual Aboriginal lands, they form a
final frontier of capitalist penetration for natural resource extraction,
agribusiness, and urban/suburban development. While much of the focus of
the economic crisis has centred on foreclosures and job losses in the
manufacturing and service sectors, a renewed push for resources – e.g. tar