Oil Sands Truth: Shut Down the Tar Sands

Energy

Energy and how it is captured and consumed is barely viable in tar sands production. While the amount of oil in places such as the tar sands in Alberta or the Orinoco Belt in Venezuela may have deposits of similar size to the reserves of countries such as Saudi Arabia or Iraq, the return of new energy after expending energy in production is not even close. In Iraq, the process of using one barrel of oil generates 100 new barrels. In the tar sands, estimates of 3 to 1 and even as low as 1.5 to 1 have been made. Offsetting the net energy loss would require minimally 25-30 tar sands facilities for one Saudi plant operating at the same capacity.

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Groups Dare Investors to Drink Community Water

Alberta First Nations and Allies Deliver Message To Investment Symposium in Calgary:
Dirty Tar Sands Oil Is A Risky Investment
Groups Dare Investors to Drink Community Water

CALGARY - July 16 - Members of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation and the Mikisew Cree First Nation and environmental and social justice advocates traveled to Calgary today to the Oil and Gas Investment Symposium hosted by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers with a message for the hundreds of investors from the United States and around the world that Canada’s Tar Sands are a risky investment.

The Pentagon's Toxic Legacy

The Pentagon's Toxic Legacy
July, 01 2008 By Jeffrey St.Clair and Joshua Frank

Suncor Pipeline Springs Leak

Suncor says oil sands pipeline shut after leak
Thu Jul 17, 2008

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - A pipeline carrying diesel fuel from Suncor Energy Inc's northern Alberta oil sands operations sprung a leak on Tuesday, but production at the facilities has not yet been affected, the company said.

Suncor, the No. 2 oil sands producer, said a leak on its pipeline running from Fort McMurray, Alberta, to Edmonton was detected at 11:30 a.m. local time on July 15 and the pipeline was shut down.

2010 Organizing and the Tar Sands: Inspiring the SPP and Helping the Olympics

2010 Organizing and the Tar Sands: Inspiring the SPP and Helping the Olympics
By Macdonald Stainsby; July 14, 2008 - Znet
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/18182

For much of the last year, many of the anti-capitalist and anti-authoritarian forces across Canada have started to work towards converging many of the bigger issues to take place in 2010 into a larger whole.

Enbridge delays Gulf Coast pipeline

Enbridge delays Gulf Coast pipeline
Company blames lagging output in oil sands as it pushes back project to 2014
NORVAL SCOTT AND SHAWN MCCARTHY
July 10, 2008

CALGARY, OTTAWA -- Enbridge Inc. is pushing back plans to build a $2.6-billion pipeline that would connect the oil sands to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast, blaming the delay on the slow pace of development in Alberta.

Stupid Tar Sands Schemes

Stupid oilsands schemes
Oilpatch welfare smacks of Don Getty years
By NEIL WAUGH, EDMONTON SUN
Tue, July 15, 2008

Premier Ed Stelmach was spreading the good news last week in hopes of deflecting any bad news he might get later this week when he meets his provincial counterparts in Quebec City.

"We need to spread the word," the premier told oil industry execs a day after unleashing $2 billion in oilpatch welfare, which had haunting echoes of the pump-priming Don Getty years.

"Our province is a reliable supplier of abundant energy produced in a responsible manner."

Africa Faces Another Rising Expense: Fuel

Africa Faces Another Rising Expense: Fuel
By LYDIA POLGREEN
July 12, 2008

DAKAR, Senegal — In the United States, where the median household
income is about $48,000, $4-a-gallon gas is painful.

In Nigeria, most of whose 140 million citizens live on less than $2 a
day despite their country's status as the world's eighth largest oil
exporter, $5.50-a-gallon diesel is excruciating.

Daniel Idoko runs a small business center in Abuja, Nigeria's capital,
and because the country's electricity supply is so balky, he relies on

The Origins of the Western Greens

Forging a Politics Worthy of the Landscape
The Origins of the Western Greens

By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
July 12 / 13, 2008

This essay is excerpted from Red State Rebels: Tales of Grassroots Resistance From the Heartland edited by Joshua Frank and Jeffrey St. Clair (AK Press, 2008).

For thirty-five years the Democratic Party has enjoyed a nearly unquestioned hegemony over environmental politics, even though the greatest gains for the Earth were made during the Nixon administration.

"B.C. oil could ease crisis"

B.C. oil could ease crisis
Offshore exploration should be considered, agency says

Peter O'Neil with files from Kelly Sinoski
Canwest News Service

Monday, July 14, 2008

PARIS -- Canada could play a crucial role in helping alleviate the international energy crisis if it continues to expand Alberta oilsands production and considers allowing exploration off B.C.'s pristine coastline, says a senior official with the International Energy Agency.

Bush lifts presidential ban on offshore drilling

Bush lifts presidential ban on offshore drilling
By Richard Simon, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
12:57 PM PDT, July 14, 2008

WASHINGTON -- President Bush today lifted a long-standing presidential
ban on new oil and gas drilling off the nation's coastlines and urged
Congress to remove its own restrictions on offshore energy
exploration, stoking the battle over how Washington should respond to
high gasoline prices.

But the wall of opposition on Capitol Hill to relaxing the drilling
ban, though softening, appeared to be holding. A congressional