Will an American Surge Win the War for Oil?
by Macdonald Stainsby
March 25, 2007
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=102&ItemID=12415
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.
Will an American Surge Win the War for Oil?
by Macdonald Stainsby
March 25, 2007
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=102&ItemID=12415
FAKE PEE BIG ITEM IN OILSANDS CAMPS
For the first few weeks, the products only dribbled out the door. But as word filtered through town and out to the work camps, success of the phony pee business suddenly became surreal. From a land where the rush is on for synthetic oil comes a push for a processed product of a different kind: synthetic urine. Just three months after selling his first bag of fake pee from Herbal Essentials, store owner Kelly Hermansen is moving between 35 and 50 units a week, along with other drugmasking products.
The only thing that is not understood for public consumption is that Enbridge and Trans Canada are not really in competition. These pipe plans, when taken into account along side the recent US nudge to the Federal Government of Canada to heighten production by five times, are not competing but rather complementary with the other pipelines being proposed to move heavy bitumen. This is an indicator of the sheer size of these plans, the scope of the tarsands and what we must do to really effect stopping them.
March 9 / 11, 2007
The Bi-Partisan Politics of Oil
Crude Alliance
By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
Counterpunch
Soon after John Kerry had sewed up the delegates needed to seize the Democratic nomination for president in the spring of 2004, he huddled for two hours with James Hoffa, Jr., the noxious boss of the Teamsters union. The topic was oil. The Teamsters wanted more of it at cheaper prices. They had suspicions about Kerry. After all, the senator had already won the backing of the Sierra Club, who touted him as the most environmentally enlightened member of the US senate.
Ottawa to phase out tax break for tarsands producers
SHAWN MCCARTHY
Globe and Mail Update
OTTAWA — Finance Minister Jim Flaherty moved Monday to end a much-criticized tax break for oil sands producers, but softened the blow to the industry by providing a long lead time for the changes.
In his budget speech, the Finance Minister announced the government will phase out the accelerated capital cost allowance which allows oil sands producers to quickly write off the cost of their investment for income tax purposes.
A few quick points.
With the recent holes in all of the so-called "action plans" on climate
change so big you could drive one of the tarsand trucks carrying 400
tonnes of earth through it, the updating of projected costs here is a
giant challenge-- a gauntlet drop, if you will-- at the feet of the
Federal government.
The MGP is now well known to be, despite being the largest industrial
project in settler Canada's history at the time it was first conceived,
just a mere inflow into the vast energy needs of the tarsands. As
This is the crux of the matter: water.
Now that the government has officially decided that the needs of feeding climate change are more important that even emergencies such as drought relief, the time to allow these people to make decisions regarding the tarsands has gone beyond past due.
These plans are happening in the wake of the document-- only leaked, not for the public-- calling on the Federal government of Canada to quintuple tarsands development. Allowing the continuation of the tarsands process means allowing this infrastructure construction, as well. After all, if the water and the land is destroyed to feed a market, the oil must get to that market. Stopping these pipelines is part of stopping the tarsands.
A moratorium is not enough.
Enbridge Plans Expansion of Pipelines
http://www.dogwoodinitiative.org/newsstories/enbridgeplansexpansion
Feb 06, 2007
N.W.T. natural gas destined for Alberta's oilsands, groups charge
Last Updated: Tuesday, February 27, 2007 | 11:01 AM CT
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2007/02/27/jrp-edmonton.html
CBC News
A coalition of national environmental groups is concerned that natural gas from the Northwest Territories will be used to fuel oilsands extraction in northern Alberta.
The strategy of the major oil and energy producers in being able to maintain what they call "non interference" (via regulation, shut downs, etc) is simple. Keep all of the projects that are combining to cause: Climate change, theft of resources from people and nations, deforestation and mining of the landscape alongside increases in violence against women, children and elders in their wake-- disconnected from one another.