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.
Environmentalists join ranchers in opposing Keystone XL oil pipeline
Andrea J. Cook Journal staff | May 13, 2010
U.S. Department of State
Environmentalists did most of the talking at a public hearing on the Keystone XL Pipeline in Faith Thursday.
Muddy roads and calving season may have kept area landowners from attending, but a couple landowners stood to comment on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for Keystone XL, while others preferred to sit and watch.
TAR SANDS: The dilemma of the ponds
Tar sands tailings ponds remain an environmental quagmire
Lewis Kelly / lewis@vueweekly.com
Last week a lawyer for Syncrude, Robert White, told provincial court Judge Ken Tjosvold that Syncrude can't be legally responsible for the birds that land in its tailings ponds as preventing all birds from touching the contaminated water is impossible. If Syncrude is guilty in the case of the 1600 ducks that died in its tailings pond in April 2008, White argued, so is every other company with a tailings pond.
New report slams oil sands
BP process in Whiting called 'destructive'
May 20, 2010
BY GITTE LAASBY,
When BP Whiting starts processing more Canadian oil sands, residents near the refinery will experience more pollution and health effects from it, according to a new report by a coalition of environmental groups.
Boreal Forest Conflicts Far From Over
Mainstream enviros, timber industry shut First Nations out of "historic" deal
by Dawn Paley
May 18, 2010
Vancouver.Mediacoop.ca
Timber companies and environmental organizations came together Tuesday to announce the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement, which they say could protect a swath of boreal forest twice the size of Germany, and maintain forestry jobs across the country.
"This is an agreement between the two principle combatants over logging," said Steve Kallick, director of the Boreal Conservation campaign of the Pew Environment Group.
Tar sands oil extraction spreading rapidly, report warns
Friends of the Earth reports says extraction threatens environment as well as vulnerable communities
* Terry Macalister
* The Guardian, Monday 17 May 2010
The successful development of Canada's tar sands has triggered a rush by Shell and other oil companies to set up similar operations in Russia, Congo and even Madagascar, a new report reveals.
The Most Destructive Development on Earth: Coming to Trinidad and Tobago?
By Macdonald Stainsby
ZNet
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Alberta group makes case for oil sands
A delegation of business leaders is attempting to dispel falsehoods and
make the case for the oil sands to politicians in Ottawa
Nathan VanderKlippe
Globe and Mail
May. 13, 2010
A group of high-powered Alberta business leaders is in Ottawa this week on
what they are calling a “a trade mission to the capital of our own
country.”
Their goal: promote the oil sands as what John Ferguson, chairman of
Suncor Energy Inc., calls a “great Canadian treasure.” Alberta’s bitumen
The end of offshore oil drilling? Not a chance
Energy companies are faced with the reality that new sources of oil are
just about limited to ever-deeper water
Eric Reguly
Globe and Mail
May. 13, 2010
For three weeks, about 5,000 barrels of oil a day have gushed out of BP’s
Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico. Gobs of black oil, and the weirdly
coloured slick – fuchsia in parts, as if Martha Stewart were hired for
artistic control – move ever closer to the Louisiana shore and the fecund
wetlands behind it. The ruptured pipes could spew oil for another two or
It's Worse Than You Think: Plotting Global Hydrocarbon Collapse
By Matthew Wild
11 May, 2010
Peak Generation
More than 90 per cent of the world’s energy comes from non-renewable sources – and its decline can be projected on a Hubbert bell curve.
North, South American countries to study heavy oil
Fri Apr 16, 2010
CALGARY, Alberta, April 16 (Reuters) - Energy ministers from North and South American countries with large heavy oil reserves have established a working group to develop better extraction and environmental technology, Canada's natural resources minister said on Friday.
