Economics

Grandma vs. the Oil-Sands Mine
By Kevin Graham
E/The Environmental Magazine
September/October, 2007

Eighty-five-year-old grandmothers aren’t typically subject to
censorship, but Liz Moore is no ordinary grandma. After touring an
oil-sands operation in Canada, Moore returned to her home in Colorado
and began researching the mining process. Eventually, she spent
$3,600 on a website that chronicles the destructive environmental
impacts of oil-sands mining.
“I was appalled at what I saw—the devastation of the land,” she says

"The rise in value of the Canadian dollar "is an energy story," said Busch. With crude oil futures trading at more than $83 U.S., investment capital is pouring north to help extract oil from so-called tar sands, also known as oil sands, in the province of Alberta.

"The average cost to produce a barrel from tar sands is $40 to $45," Busch said. The current world oil price "puts oil development from tar sands on steroids."

Go crazy: Dollar sinks below loonie
Bill Barnhart | Market report
September 21, 2007

Canada: Losing Water Through NAFTA
by Stephen Leahy
Global Research, September 23, 2007

Under the North American Free Trade Agreement, Canada lost control over its energy resources. Now, with “NAFTA-plus”, it could also lose control over its freshwater resources, say experts.

Canada’s water is on the trade negotiating table despite widespread public opposition and assurances by Canadian political leaders, said Adèle Hurley, director of the University of Toronto’s Programme on Water Issues at the Munk Centre for International Studies.

It appears here the one being less than honest below is this Robert Jones-- shipping bitumen that has been "blended" with a Kerosene like by product called diluent that is needed to make the bitumen flow in a pipe is not refining. The refining process, and this is exactly the purpose of the Keystone-- will take place "downstream"(as the industry likes to call it) in Illinois. In other words, this press release on his part is Jones, working for TransCanada, trying to count on ignorance among people who would be aghast if they understood the facts. Disinformation is not a military policy only.

We have to wait and see what the CEP and the AFL do to tackle this horrible (yet predictable) news... their campaigns against the pipeline has been in the forefront, and had it prevented the pipeline was also preventing the delivery of up to another half million barrels a day-- approximately the production of either the Suncor or Syncrude plants. Fight on all fronts!

--M

Keystone Pipeline gets Canadian approval

Sep 24, 2007 - 11:24:21 CDT
By the Associated Press

U.S. market pundit flees 'socialist' North

JOHN PARTRIDGE

Globe and Mail Update

September 19, 2007 at 3:28 PM EDT

The sky must be falling: Denis Gartman is beating a white-knuckle retreat from the Great White North.

The U.S. market commentator is abandoning his lengthy love affair with Canada and he's blaming Alberta's oil and gas Royalty Review Panel and the province's suddenly – wait for it –“socialist” government for his hasty exit.

Closing Edmonton's Tent City

EDMONTON — It’s a difficult feat to be homeless but still have a space that feels like a home, but that’s exactly what life in Edmonton’s tent city has felt like for Claude Parisee over the past month.

Surrounded by the books he reads to pass the time, and secure in the knowledge that guards watched his belongings and kept unwanted troublemakers from causing a stir, the former resident of Hull, Que., said life has largely been good in the makeshift community, which was set up in May and at times swelled to 80 tents and up to 200 people.

Booming Alberta crippled by wildcat strikes by frustrated tradesmen
September 16, 2007

EDMONTON (CP) — Alberta's booming construction landscape is being disrupted with pickets and protests as a complicated labour law that hobbles building trade unions from striking is being attacked by hundreds of workers.

The giant Petro-Canada upgrader project in Edmonton was crippled for several days last week after unionized workers refused to cross picket lines set up by carpenters and other tradesman seeking higher wages but unable to stage a legal strike.

Energy Alberta boss says nuclear energy will protect province from carbon tax
September 18, 2007

CALGARY (CP) — A businessman who wants to build Western Canada's first nuclear power plant says nuclear energy would help protect Alberta from a carbon tax.

Wayne Henuset, president of Energy Alberta, told a Calgary business audience that with Ontario and Quebec relying heavily on nuclear and hydro electricity, there will be a move to apply the tax and come after Alberta's oil and gas resources.

Peak Oil and Gender

Jon Lebkowsky
September 17, 2007 8:27 AM

Kurt Cobb at Energy Bulletin wonders whether peak oil is a gender issue or, as he says, a "guy thing." (Thanks to Paul Robbins for the pointer.)