Social Impacts

Analyst: market dims hope for Alaska gas pipeline
(Published January 24, 2009)

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Energy market analysts addressed an Anchorage audience hoping for a multibillion dollar Alaska natural gas pipeline and the news was not good.

The global economic crisis has slashed demand for natural gas and dimmed chances for an Alaska pipeline, they said. The line also faces expanded competition.

"It's certainly going to be taken off the urgent list," said Ed Kelly, a Houston-based vice president with the global energy consulting firm Wood Mackenzie.

Pipeline developer seeks waiver for transport to Gulf

Associated Press - January 26, 2009 5:25 PM ET

HELENA, Mont. (AP) - Developers of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline to move Canadian crude oil to Gulf Coast refineries want an increase in the limit on pressure within the line.

The developers say the higher limit would optimize the flow of oil.

TransCanada Keystone Pipeline of Calgary, Alberta, wants to draw on up to 80% of the pipeline wall's strength -- rather than the maximum 72% specified in federal regulations.

2009 January 25 - The Integrity of Creation and the Athabasca Oil Sands

A Pastoral Letter on The Integrity of Creation and the Athabasca Oil Sands to The Faithful of the diocese of St. Paul on The Occasion of the Jubilee Year in Honour of St. Paul by
†Luc Bouchard Bishop of St. Paul in Alberta, Canada
January 25th, 2009

The Integrity of Creation and the Athabasca Oil Sands

“Faced with the widespread destruction of the environment people
everywhere are coming to understand that we cannot continue to
use the goods of the earth as we have in the past. . . a new ecological

Environmental Group Wants Enquiry into Enbridge Gateway Proposal
Sun, 2009-01-18

The Friends of the Wild Salmon Coalition is calling for a full public inquiry into Enbridge's proposed Northern Gateway Project. The project, if approved would consist of two pipelines - one to transport tar-sands oil from Edmonton to Kitimat, and the other would transport condensate from Kitimat, back to Alberta. Friends of the Wild Salmon Coordinator Pat Moss says they are concerned about the location of the pipelines.

Greenwashing the Games: The Olympics will leave a gigantic footprint on
the city

By John Nevim

Photo by Janis Brass

More than two-and-a-half years have passed since the “Battle of the
Bluffs”, when 23 protesters were arrested by West Vancouver police for
blockading the expansion of the Sea-to-Sky highway through the Eagleridge
Bluffs.

The protest was especially notable for the jailing of two elderly
protesters, Betty Krawczyk and Harriet Nahanee, who refused to apologize
because they believed it was senseless environmental degradation for the

Canada delusional about oil
Jan 26, 2009 04:30 AM
David Crane

There is this Canadian delusion that the Alberta oil sands will give
us special influence with the new Obama administration, that energy is
our trump card in the Canada-U.S. relationship because, it's argued,
the United States desperately needs our oil. It fosters the false
belief that we can get concessions from the U.S. in other areas by
producing more oil.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has talked of Canada as an "energy
superpower"; Environment Minister Jim Prentice talks of Canada's

This past summer, myself and friends were able to "tour" many of the projects in the Athabasca mining region and south of Fort McMurray (one of many places) where SagD/In Situ operations rule the day. These are albums belatedly created from that trip. This does not comprise anything remotely coming towards an exhaustive set of the multiple projects.

(you do not need to have a Facebook identity to see these albums).

Photos are from the land and the air.

Opti-Nexen's Long Lake (North) Project & CP's Surmont Project.

Campbell's Global Warming Game
Talking 'climate for change' at the Vancouver Board of Trade.
While eagerly enabling tar sands and freeways, he's cooled out green foes.
By David Beers
January 26, 2009
TheTyee.ca

"Let's be honest," Michael Ignatieff told young followers last week in Vancouver. "We got killed at the doorstep with the Green Shift."

The new federal Liberal leader is clear that campaigning on a carbon tax was suicide.

But in British Columbia, Premier Gordon Campbell is sticking with his own carbon tax as he leads his BC Liberals into a May election.

Canada oil boom shifts on sands of time

Canada's five-year-long energy boom has ended, but how deep and how painful the resulting bust will be remains to be seen.

By The Economist
January 22, 2009

Look west from the office towers of the energy companies that dominate Calgary, and the view is spectacular: Rolling prairies rise to tree-clad foothills, with the jagged, snow-capped peaks of the Rockies on the horizon.

The scale and scope of the political shift in Canada as a result of Ignatieff taking power is not really yet understood.

From ten years ago, where only the Reform Party and then after that, The Alliance, would openly support the US military adventures around the world we now have both the top party and the opposition who are:

Completely pro tar sands, completely pro-Iraq War, unquestioning of Israel and advocates of torture on prisoners.