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POPSGreenpeace Activists Arrested Protesting Oil Sands in Northern Alberta
“Today we brought our message to the perpetrators of this environmental crime with a clear message to put the brakes on the tar sands,” Hudema said. The tar sands use more water than any other Alberta user. Current projects are licensed to remove more than 450 million cubic meters of water from the Athabasca River each year, about two and a half times the amount of water used by the city of Calgary each year. After use, the water is so contaminated with toxic chemicals that it is stored in toxic tailings ponds so large that they can be seen from space. With today’s demonstration, the Greenpeacers targeted the same sludgy six-square-kilometer tailings pond where 500 ducks drowned in April, despite environmental regulations that require Syncrude to have wildlife deterrents in place. “We take a lot of pride in having systems in place to prevent birds from landing on settling basins and storage ponds,” Syncrude’s Katinas said at the time. “So we’re very saddened and sorry that
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POPSTravel Alberta To See These Unique Attractions! :roll: When you are making your vacation plans, check out what Alberta has to offer: "Alberta offers a rare treat for the seasoned globetrotter who's craving something new. A seemingly endless expanse of bitumen-laden sands — coupled with the powerful scent of oil from refineries wafting through the hazy air — makes Northern Alberta a truly one-of-a-kind destination. " "some of the unique attractions that await travelers to Alberta: Black sand beaches, toxic lakes and clearcut forests. Until now, this kind of vacation destination was merely the stuff of science fiction; but now, it can be experienced first-hand." Watch the video!
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POPSClimate Change? What Climate Change? "Alas, it is not to be; instead, the instructions from the Wall Street Journal are Drill! Drill! Drill! and George Bush, perhaps with an eye towards the fuel riots going on around the world, jumps and proposes the new Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: 1) drilling offshore, 2) drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, 3) adding refineries, and 4) extracting oil from shale, which makes the Alberta Tar Sands look environmentally benign."
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POPSClinton, Obama, McCain, Fail Energy Independence Test
“US risks trade dispute with Canada on fuel." Feb. 15 Financial Times Waxman and Davis apparently expect the military to expend the Herculean effort of tracing the source of the fuel it purchases and then to refuse North American oil from unconventional sources apparently in favor of oil from OPEC sources like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela . How’s that for energy independence and security? It gets worse if you’re one of those who believe that biofuels are the path to energy independence. The plain language of section 526 would also seem to ban the federal government from purchasing biofuels like ethanol, since their lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions are greater than that of conventional petroleum. “Turning native ecosystems into “farms” for biofuel crops causes major carbon emissions that worsen the global warming that biofuels are meant to mitigate,” researchers from the University of Minnesota and the Nature Conservancy reported in Science (Feb. 7).
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POPSEnergy Rules Risk Plunging US Into Trade Dispute With Canada The letter cited estimates that oil from tar sands produces 14 per cent to 40 per cent more greenhouse gas than conventional oil because of the energy consumed in extracting and refining it. The law was drafted in response to US air force plans to build its own "coal-to-liquids" fuel plants, the letter said. But lawyers warn that, though they apply equally to domestic and imported fuels, such policies could be seen as an unfair restraint on trade if they have a disproportionate impact on exporters of oil from tar sands. "The US could end up being accused of de facto discrimination based on where these petroleum deposits are found." The Pentagon said it would comply with federal guidelines but claimed the legislation did not rule out buying fuel from coal-to-liquids or tar sands. It could not say why it disagreed with Congress on this point. The US trade representative's office did not respond to a request for comment.
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POPSPeak oil or nationalism at its peak? Oil at 100$ a barrell is not a function of oil scarcity, but of government greed , which isthreathening to kill the golden goose. It's an old story: governments make mistakes, but markets end up taking the blame
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POPSThe Biggest Global Warming Crime in History The oil rush is also scarring a wilderness landscape: millions of tonnes of plant life and top soil is scooped away in vast open-pit mines and millions of litres of water are diverted from rivers . The industry, which now includes all the major oil multinationals, boasts that it takes two tonnes of the raw sands to produce a single barrel of oil. It takes about 29kg of CO2 to produce a barrel of oil conventionally. That figure can be as much 125kg for tar sands oil. It also has the potential to kill off or damage the vast forest wilderness. Licenses have been issued by the Albertan government to extract 350 million cubic metres of water from the Athabasca River every year. But the water used in the extraction process is so contaminated that it cannot be returned to the eco-system and must instead be stored in vast "tailings ponds" and there is evidence of increased rates of cancer and multiple sclerosis in down-river communities.
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POPS'The biggest environmental crime in history' The headline is not an exaggeration. see also ... http://clipmarks.com/clipper/JICWyllie/search/tar+sands/ and http://clipmarks.com/clipper/JICWyllie/search/tar+sands/ and http://clipmarks.com/clipper/JICWyllie/search/tar+sands/
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POPSBiodiesel hero So much better than wasting one of the world's greatest rivers to steam oil out of the tar sands. Looks like a good investment opportunity.
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