Posted on 06/15/2007 11:09:09 PM PDT by goldstategop
Canada's tar sands, which have become a major and secure supplier of oil to the United States, have also been singled out as a major target for American and Canadian environmentalists. Issuing press releases against them, however, is one thing. Going without the increasing flood of oil they are pouring into the American market would be quite another.
Two American environmental groups have declared war on the tar sands. One is the Freedom from Oil Coalition whose San Francisco-based director is formerly of Alberta, the province where almost all the tar sands are located. He was in Alberta last week organizing a training camp for protesters bent on civil disobedience against the tar sands projects.
Last week a small circle of protesters at Rimbey in central Alberta, several under the age of 12, all with their mouths symbolically taped to protect them from "emissions," demonstrated against a new pipeline project. It was a symbolic gesture and a seemingly pointless exercise, but it was a start. Rimbey, however, is more than 300 miles away from the tar sands.
The other environmental group is the much more powerful Natural Resources Defense Council. On Monday it issued a report warning the American and Canadian governments against oil produced from the tar-sogged lands around Fort McMurray, Alberta, about 200 miles north of Edmonton. These lands contain (it is said) more oil than exists in Saudi Arabia. However, it is mined, not pumped, and the extraction costs are much higher.
So are the costs of the process by which the sand is turned into heavy oil by heating it with natural gas, a product in which Alberta abounds.
The oil sands are "one of the worst possible ways" to relieve the oil shortage, said Deron Lovaas, an analyst with the council. He meant that the process intensifies greenhouse gas emissions and consumes natural gas, a much cleaner source of fuel.
The oil sands already had two high-profile enemies – Al Gore, who says it takes four tons of earth to produce one barrel of oil from the sands (the industry says the average is closer to two tons), and California Gov.r Arnold Schwarzenegger, who visited Canada last month, championing low-carbon sources for American oil.
Two writers for the National Post newspaper came to the industry's defense. Oil patch columnist Claudia Cattaneo offered a few salient facts. For one, the Canadian oil sands industry is making major efforts to cut back emissions. For another, it is the American motorist who is creating the demand for tar sands oil, and American money that is financing much of the development. Finally, Americans, as the biggest consumers of energy in the world, do not make convincing environmental critics.
Moreover, wrote fellow columnist Kevin Libin, if Alberta quit sending the oil sands product to the U.S. – it's now running at about 1,000,000 barrels a day – the Americans would have to buy more from Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, whose human rights record is at least as bad as the Canadian emissions record, and neither can be considered a secure supplier.
Finally, if the American market didn't want Alberta oil, the Asian market would be only too happy to take it, in which case the Americans would still suffer the emissions and not get the oil. Against these facts, press releases could hardly contend.
Just how effective civil disobedience might be at Fort McMurray was also worth pondering. The place in one sense is almost uninhabitable – uninhabitable, that is, by more human beings than already inhabit it.
It and the area around it are one vast construction site, roaring night and day with trucks and earth-moving vehicles, some of them the height of a four-story building. Housing is in the main unobtainable; many men live in tents summer and winter. Hundreds of construction workers come and go every day. Restaurants and bars are packed. There are far more trucks on the streets than cars. Many skilled workers can make well over $100,000 a year, but can't find a place to live. The town teems with prostitutes. And the announcements of more billion-dollar projects are being made month after month.
Where in all this boiling mass of mud, men and machinery will the protesters find a place to protest? Where will they pitch their tents? All the best spots for miles around are already taken. Somehow Fort McMurray doesn't seem to lend itself to civil disobedience. How do you disrupt the civil order when there is so little evidence of there being one?
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
There may be better ways to supply oil, but the environmentalists have blocked them.
Why doesn’t GWB just admit this is all about Oil and ANNEX ALBERTA. We already film all of our gay cowboy movies there anyway.
The left wants only enough for the ruiling leftist elites to live in comfort while the rest of us are relegated to live like peasants. All that excess oil might mean that the masses might get uppity if their standard of living and education gets high enough to see through their scam.
It’s not mining; it’s a toxic waste dump clean up.
That’s a good point! Can anything be built on the tar sands in its natural state?
I have been to Ft. McMurry several times. The by-product is pure white sand which is put back in the pit.
They are predicting a shortage of workers in the range of 15,000 in the near term. Truck drivers are being paid 100K/yr.
Only if they were interested in seeing the USA and Canada prosper. We both know when it comes to the Leftists that isn't the case. What they are really fighting for is the abject failure of capitalism entirely. We also know that Leftists aren't the least bit concerned about pollution when they can't see it, like in Saudi Arabia or Iran......out of sight, out of mind (assuming they have a mind).....
Save the earth...beat the snot out of an environ-mentalist today! I really hate the green movement.
Don’t lose sight of the investment potential here...there
are many Oilsand opportunities springing up as we speak.
One I know of, OilSands Quest (BQI/AMEX) is about to go
crazy this Fall. Do some research and prosper. Look at past performance of SU (Suncor/NYSE) to see what can happen. These are life changing events!
LOL. Rimbey is "ranch country," not "oil country."
It's worth noting that the tar sands region has other serious limitations beyond job shortages, lack of adequate housing, etc. At some point it's going to be very difficult to supply adequate power to all those operations up there.
Start filing lawsuits against the environmentalists. Bankrupt them.
Then they will go away.
The only way to beat a Communist is to bankrupt them. Reagan knew this. That’s what made him great.
There’s no love lost between Western Canada and Toronto.
Bump
It's not about that, it's about relationships behind the scenes and behind the curtains (remember footage Bush all kissy kissy w/towelhead oil buddies?).
Hell, for that matter, if it mattered we'd be suckin' more from the gulf of Mexico, but no00000000!!!!, we're gonna let Cuber suck it out from under us and "give" to china so they can get some new cars.
Something has sure made us stupid, maybe it really is that aspen.
See mmanager’s post number 7.
Wonderful to clean up all that tar and leave nice sand behind!
You do a lot of touchy feely stuff yourself, so why criticize the President for actions before he started to be the worst enemy of autocratic governments in the Middle East?
And it isn’t like he didn’t have a terrific energy bill that Cheney crafted during his first year in office. If those measures had been enacted, we’d be well on the road to energy independence from the Saudis.
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