Peak Oil is starting to be understood across a broad spectrum, but the direct connection between peak oil, climate change and the American market-led attempt to squeeze all energy out of Alberta cannot be overstated. The smaller the global supply of oil gets, the more CO2 has been emitted and the more climate change will have advanced. This leads to more interest in the tar sands—because the profit margin goes ever higher the fewer alternatives there are for petroleum. Without Peak Oil bearing down on humanity, no economical reason would exist to produce this energy intensive, low-output petrol.
Whose energy independence?
Tar sands are key to energy security plans in the US election, but federal parties ignore Canada’s dependence on foreign oil
RICARDO ACUÑA / ualberta.ca/parkland
One of the ways in which the current US presidential election differs from the current Canadian federal election is that oil prices, energy independence and energy security are all critical campaign issues for the US.
Alberta oil, gas land sales double
Dan Healing, Calgary Herald
Published: Thursday, September 04, 2008
Fifteen successful bids of more than $1 million each powered the first Alberta oil and gas properties land sale of September to a total of $58.6 million.
That's more than double the corresponding sale of a year earlier, which brought in just $21.7 million, according to numbers posted Wednesday on the Alberta Energy website.
Explosions in Metro Vancouver 'rare'
Kelly Sinoski, Vancouver Sun // Wednesday, August 13, 2008
METRO VANCOUVER - Propane tanks, underground gas pipes, and trains and transport trucks rolling through Metro Vancouver all pose the risk of an explosion similar to the one that rocked Toronto last weekend.
Metro officials say although there is always a risk, it's low because the industry here is so strictly regulated.
As well, the fallout would likely not be as widespread because most oil and gas facilities are located in industrial areas away from residential neighbourhoods.
The energy industry's Mediterranean love affair
Eni's purchase of First Calgary Petroleums is another sign of the sector's plans for Algeria and Libya. And the competition is heating up
ERIC REGULY // Globe and Mail
September 9, 2008
ROME — Algeria and Libya have gone from no-go countries to the hottest of the oil and gas hot spots in only a few years.
What $300-a-Barrel Oil Will Mean for You
Charles Maxwell, Senior Energy Analyst, Weeden & Co.
By LAWRENCE C. STRAUSS
AN INTERVIEW WITH CHARLES MAXWELL: He correctly predicted the recent price spike -- and he sees an eventual move to around $300 a barrel.
An urban legend to comfort America: crash programs will solve Peak Oil
Fabius Maximus
This is the second post in a series examining “urban legends” about energy that comfort Americans. Here we discuss the first of four comforting myths about unconventional and alternative energy sources. These are excuses for not doing the hard work of gathering information, analysis, planning, and executing programs necessary to prepare for the multi-decade transition through peak oil to the next era (whatever that will be). These four myths are:
High costs squeeze oil sands
Break-even price jumps 31%
Claudia Cattaneo, Financial Post // September 05, 2008
CALGARY -- As oil backpedalled again yesterday to a five-month low, oil sands projects are getting increasingly squeezed as soaring costs boost the break-even price.
A new report found the break-even oil price required by new mining projects in the oil sands has jumped to $85 a barrel, an increase of $20 or 31% in barely more than a year.
Warning: The author of this article is a well-known climate change denier, and advocate of wars of aggression around the planet. Nonetheless, it is interesting to read pro-war arguments for the West to use the tar sands as a weapon in their escalation of a new Cold War against Russia, which they actually claim is about "territorial integrity" and "Russian aggression". To hear advocates of the Empire (who just destroyed the "territorial integrity" of Yugoslavia and then Serbia itself? Who continues to wage war on the people of Iraq without provocation?
by John Michael Greer
The Archdruid Report (September 03 2008)
Druid perspectives on nature, culture, and the future of industrial society
The mismatch between the narratives of sudden apocalypse that shape so
much of today's debate about the future, on the one hand, and the
sluggish pace at which the predicament of industrial society unfolds in
the real world, on the other, found a poster child of sorts last
weekend. During the days of uncertainty before Hurricane Gustav's
arrival on the Louisiana coast, some enthusiastic soul posted claims to
