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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North America's risky race to exploit bitumen, oil shales

North America's risky race to exploit oil sands and shales
* Keith Schneider for Yale Environment 360
* guardian.co.uk,
1 October 2010

Yale Environment 360: Energy companies are rushing to exploit new sources of oil in Canada and the western US - but government officials don't seem concerned about the environmental consequences

The most direct path to America's newest big oil and gas fields is U.S. Highway 12, two lanes of blacktop that unfold from Grays Harbor in Washington State and head east across the top of the country to Detroit.

Tar Sands Player Suncor In Wind Deal

by Pete Danko, October 1st, 2010

Suncor actually made one of its Alberta critics smile. The company, a big player in the province’s controversial tar sands industry, accomplished that feat by announcing a partnership with Teck Resources on an 88-megawatt (MW) wind farm about 80 miles east of Calgary.

Utahns tar the tar sands

Utahns tar the tar sands
Denver Nicks | Oct 01, 2010 03:45 PM
High Country News

Mining of tar sands in Alberta Canada has left a landscape of razed boreal forest dotted with pools of toxic wastewater. It also produced 1.49 million barrels of crude oil last year – every day. Now, the first-ever commercial tar sands mine proposed in the United States is facing its second legal challenge from Western environmentalists.

Tribal Councils in U.S. and Canada Uniting Against Keystone Pipeline

Tribal Councils in U.S. and Canada Uniting Against Oil Sands Pipeline
By Elizabeth McGowan at SolveClimate

Thu Oct 7, 2010

Editor's Note: In late September, SolveClimate News reporter Elizabeth McGowan traveled to Nebraska to find out more about the Keystone XL pipeline that TransCanada plans to build to carry crude oil from the tar sands of Alberta to Gulf Coast refineries in Texas. This is the fifth in a series. Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 here.

"Is a tar sands truce possible?"

The money quote is here:

"Although Suzuki expressed surprise at Coutu's overtures, CAPP vice-president Greg Stringham says such meetings between companies and environmentalists happen all the time."

Great Lakes Region: Refinery emissions could pollute our water

Refinery emissions could pollute our water
Published On Sun Sep 12 2010

David Israelson Special to the Star

As Canadians look with dismay at the aftermath of the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico, it turns out that’s not the only place we need to worry about leaking oil.

What happened in the Gulf has implications for what happens to water in Canada, right here on the Great Lakes. There’s ever-increasing pressure to supply the oil-thirsty U.S. with more product from Alberta’s tar sands.

Syncrude chairman in Vancouver defends tarsands

Chairman says carbon emissions have been reduced

By Damian Inwood,
The Province
September 10, 2010

Syncrude Canada chairman Marcel Coutu stood before a business-friendly Vancouver lunch crowd and fired a salvo in defence of the Alberta tarsands giant's environmental record.

NASA scientist to testify at Total tar sands hearing

NASA scientist to testify at Total oilsands hearing

The Canadian Press

Date: Sunday Sep. 19, 2010 10:15 AM ET

One of NASA's top scientists will appear at hearings into a proposed oilsands project to warn about the climate change consequences of approving Total E&P Canada's $2-billion plan to build the Joslyn North mine.

James Hansen, head of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, is slated to testify at public hearings into the proposal, which begin Tuesday in Fort McMurray, Alta.

Ottawa tightens muzzle on climate change, tar sands

Ottawa tightens muzzle

Documents reveal scientists need approval from minister's office before speaking with major media - a measure one researcher calls 'Orwellian'

By MARGARET MUNRO, Postmedia News
September 13, 2010

The Harper government has tightened the muzzle on federal scientists, going so far as to control when and what they can say about floods at the end of the last ice age.

Enbridge shuts third line in U.S. due to leak

By Shaun Polczer, Calgary Herald
September 14, 2010

Enbridge Inc. on Monday said it had substantially cleaned up an oil spill in Illinois even as a third export line to the U.S. was shut down after a leak near Buffalo, N.Y.

Enbridge Energy Partners, the Houston-based affiliate that operates Enbridge's U.S. pipeline network, reported that 6,100 barrels escaped from its Line 6A into an industrial park near Romeoville, Ill., on Thursday, and that 6,050 barrels had been sucked up by vacuum trucks over the weekend.