Climate Change / Emissions

No mention here about the real reason for locating the nukes in Peace River, which is to supply power for Shell in the nearby Grosmont formation for their electric heaters to extract bitumen from limestone.
-Tarpit Pete

Alberta's Peace River area split over bid to build nuclear power plant

1 day ago

PEACE RIVER, Alta. — Dan and Huguette Ropchan stand on the grainy edge of ice-crusted Lac Cardinal in northwest Alberta and worry that in a decade they'll have to raise their wheat and canola in the shadow of monster nuclear cooling towers.

Scenes From the Tar Wars

NEWS: As Canada scrambles to dig up some of the world's dirtiest oil, a bush doctor
tracks mysterious diseases, poisoned rivers, and shattered lives.

By Josh Harkinson

May/June 2008 Issue

At a small airport in the northern Alberta town of Fort McMurray, a rickety,
single-engine Cessna hurtles off the ground with a roar. Dr. John O'Connor ignores
the shuddering fuselage, the tail wiggle, the steep climb above the spruce trees at
the end of the runway. For O'Connor, a bush doctor who has tended to some of

From the article below: "Experts on agro-economics say biofuels production is
largely responsible for the current food shortages and soaring prices. The crisis,
according to them, is not going to end unless the rich countries change their energy
consumption patterns.

If rich nations stopped biofuels production this year, it would lead to a price
decline in corn by about 20 percent and wheat by about 10 percent within the next
two years, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute, a think
tank in Washington."

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Uncomfortable truths about global oil depletion
By David Strahan
Telegraph UK

Polishing the portholes on the Titanic hardly does it justice. This week saw ministers giving an uncanny impersonation of Corporal Jones urging calm over the Grangemouth refinery strike; lorry drivers protesting in Park Lane over a two pence rise in fuel duty; and much righteous indignation over the level of profits reported by Shell and BP. All of which entirely misses the point.

Oilsands suck dollars from cleaner oil and gas
Dave Yager, For The Calgary Herald
Published: Sunday, May 04, 2008

There's a giant sucking noise emanating from northeast Alberta that gets louder as oil prices rise.

Called the Athabasca Tar Sands, its rapid development is draining imagination from the Stelmach government, flexibility from labour markets and diversification from Alberta's economy. It has also sucked Edmonton into a hopeless global environmental confrontation.

From The Times
April 18, 2008
Fund managers attack BP over tar sands plan
Robin Pagnamenta

A group of American and British shareholders in BP joined forces yesterday to protest over the oil company's decision to start extracting oil from Canadian tar sands.

Eleven fund managers, which together manage total assets worth more than $10 billion (£5 billion), said that BP's move into tar sands last year was “deeply disappointing” and represented a “disturbing step backwards” for the company.

May 1st, 2008
Canada caught on its own tar baby. Tar sand investments now a dead duck?

Posted by Harry Fuller @ 3:41 am

As one Canadian newspaper put it. Ducks in Alberta died a crude death. One of the species of ducks that died on a pond filled with crude oil polluted water: Bufflehead.

Bolivian president proposes radical measures to save planet
Canwest News Service
Published: Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Opponents line up against proposed Canada oil pipeline
by Bob Kelleher, Minnesota Public Radio
April 22, 2008

A new oil pipeline proposed in northern Minnesota is getting resistance from an unusual direction. Opponents say the large pipeline would contribute significantly to global warming -- not so much from the oil itself, but for how the oil is extracted in Canada.

April 22, 2008
The Political Economics of Greenwashing
Green as a Blackjack Table
By STAN COX

Hard times are looming. And in their desperation to keep the American economy afloat, government and business will be tossing overboard any proposals for real environmental protection. No time for such romantic foolishness when there are investments to be protected. Get those tax refunds back into retailers' registers, quick!