Economics drive tar sands operations. Record highs in oil prices, though still fluctuating, will make tar sand oil ‘economical’ (read: profitable) well into the future. Government subsidies to this environmentally disastrous process remain in place from a time when the federal government was sponsoring research into the possibility of recovering this oil. Stock prices of tar sands developers grow the more conventional oil is scarce.
Breaking Environmental News
The Canadian Press - ONLINE EDITION
Sentencing of Syncrude Canada in oilsands-dead ducks trial put over to Oct. 22.
By: The Canadian Press
Posted: 20/08/2010
ST. ALBERT, Alta. - Syncrude Canada will have to wait longer to hear what sentence it will face after being found guilty earlier this summer in the oilsands-dead ducks trial.
The Crown and defence asked Friday to have sentencing put over until Oct. 22.
Peak oil is the villain governments need
Using the threat of a high oil prices is a sell the public will buy into – unlike intangible arguments over climate change
o Graham Wayne
o guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 11 August 2010
Groups Oppose Pipelines
Friday, 20 August 2010
Written by Press Room
Environmental groups and landowners are urging the government to deny a proposal for an oil pipeline that would go from the Montana-Canada border to refineries along the Texas Gulf Coast. TransCanada’s proposed 1,661-mile Keystone XL pipeline would connect with its existing 2,151-mile Keystone pipeline. State regulators have granted condemnation powers to the proposed Keystone oil pipeline across eastern Montana.
Oilsands proposal draws protest
Joslyn North mine. Total E&P makes green promises
By MIKE DE SOUZA, Postmedia News August 24, 2010
A battle is brewing over a proposed oilsands project by a French-based company that has drawn more than two dozen opponents from Canada, the U.S. and France at today's deadline for submissions to a joint federal-provincial environmental review panel.
12 arrested in Camp for Climate Action protests in Edinburgh
By Gemma Fox.
Digital Journal
August 23, 2010
Edinburgh - Protesting against one particular bank and their investments in the oil, coal and gas industries, Camp for Climate Action arrived in Edinburgh on August 19 to begin training and protesting against the actions of RBS, the Royal Bank of Scotland.
How the Tar Sands Threaten Canada's Economic Fate
A short course in Dutch Disease, deindustrialization and the Bitumen Curse.
By Andrew Nikiforuk, 13 Aug 2010, TheTyee.ca
Every week Canada's least favorite Emir, Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach, earnestly lectures Canadians that the mighty tar sands are a boon to the national economy because "Alberta's engine drives Canada."
Protesters march against Quebec pipeline project
Aug. 15 2010
The Canadian Press
MONTREAL — A group of environmentalists protesting a planned oil pipeline project that would crisscross Quebec's bucolic countryside has set up camp to voice its opposition.
On Sunday, about 100 protesters attended a rally in the province's Eastern Townships to decry a project by Calgary-based oil giant Enbridge that would carry 200,000 barrels of Canadian crude per day from Alberta's oil patch to Portland, Maine.
Hunger strikers seek money for women’s shelter in Fort McMurray
Victims of domestic violence in the oil-sands boomtown have few places to go, forcing many to return home to their abusers
Josh Wingrove Edmonton— From Monday's Globe and Mail
Sunday, Aug. 15, 2010
When Fort McMurray’s only women’s shelter was built nearly 30 years ago, the city had a population of about 30,000 and oil sands production was in its infancy.
Unfortunately for all of us and not just the venerable Ms Yaffe, this is not in fact, true. The plans of Kinder Morgan, et al to pump more and more tar sands bitumen via a pipeline through the Rocky Mountains and down into Vancouver (Burnaby) to both bolster a Chevron and perhaps a Shell refinery there, while loading up tankers in the Vancouver Burrard Inlet to ship out to places both near (California) and far (Asia) has been touted as "making Gateway redundant". Tar Sands bitumen shipments from the Burrard Inlet is not a victory.
Michigan Oil Spill: The Tar Sands Name Game (and Why It Matters)
* by Kari Lydersen August 13, 2010
Michigan oil spill on Kalamazoo River
After up to a million gallons of oil spilled into Michigan's Kalamazoo River from an underground pipeline late last month, investigators and local residents focused on concerns about where and when the spill started and what should have been done to prevent it.
