[A-List] Tar Sands vs Clean Water

[Bill Totten <shimogamo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Eating the Earth for Cars

by Mark Robinowitz

Global Research (December 11 2007)

http://www.oilempire.us/


The tar sands production center in northern Alberta in Canada is one of
the clearest signs that the easy-to-get oil is on the wane. Tar sands
are a low grade hydrocarbon deposit that requires enormous energy input
to process and convert it into something resembling petroleum.

They are not technically petroleum, but a sludge that can be turned into
oil if washed and cooked with steam (which is not an abundant natural
resource in the boreal forest of northern Alberta, especially during the
Canadian winter). Turning tar sands into oil requires almost as much
energy input as they contain at the end of the processing - so they are
barely a "source" of energy. To date, vast quantities of natural gas
have been used to make the steam to process the tar sands to create
something resembling petroleum, but natural gas has its own supply
problems that make dedicating gas to tar production difficult to
maintain. There are serious proposals to build nuclear reactors next to
the tar sands, which is a sign of lunacy, to be polite about it.

Tar sands extraction causes enormous ecological destruction. The process
begins with clearcutting the boreal forest, destroying habitat and soil.
The trees are either milled into lumber, which releases some of the
carbon into the atmosphere, or the trees are burned as slash, which
releases nearly all of the carbon into the atmosphere. The carbon
reserves locked up in the forest soils are also released into the
atmosphere.

After the land is cleared, the "overburden" subsoils and rock are strip
mined using enormous dump trucks the size of a house. Eventually, the
mine reaches the layer where the tar sands congealed eons ago, and then
the tar sands are mined. It is possible that the tar sands are the
single largest strip mine anywhere on Earth.

The waste "tailings" left over when the mining is finished are a toxic
slurry that is poisonous to life. In addition to huge amounts of energy,
vast quantities of water are also needed in the tar sands industry.
While Canada has more water than any other country - it is the Saudi
Arabia of water - polluting the planet's largest supply of fresh water
for a short term burst of energy production is one of the most insane
behaviors imaginable. After the era of fossil fuels winds down, and the
era of climate change starts up, access to clean drinking water will be
unbelievably important. Tar sands production threatens to turn much of
central Canada's water reserves into oily wastes unfit for consumption.

Perhaps the saddest aspect of the rise of the tar sands industry is that
all of this destruction is only expected to supply a small amount of the
demand for oil. In 2007, about one million barrels per day of tar sands
is produced in Alberta - about one percent of the global consumption of
about 85 million barrels per day. It is predicted that with considerable
investment, Canadian tar sands production might reach a couple million
barrels per day within a decade. This means that an area the size of
Florida will be totally deforested, strip mined, drained of clean water,
and doused with toxic effluent to meet a small percentage of global oil
demand for a couple of decades (at best).

A reader of this website [oilempire.us] suggests that the rush to mine
tar sands resembles an indigent cigarette addict looking through
ashtrays to find a couple of butts that can be relit to get a couple
final (nasty tasting) drags of tobacco smoke.

For additional reading:

http://www.oilsandstruth.org  Good activist website about tar sands

http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/553568.html  "Grabbing for oil: US
thirst powers push for Canada fuel" by Tom Knudson (December 09 2007)

http://www.macleans.ca/article.jsp?content=20071008_110103_11010
3&source=srch "Doomsday: Alberta stands accused: A huge fight between
East and West - over the oil sands - is just starting", MacLean's
Magazine (October 08 2007)


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Copyright (c) Mark Robinowitz, oilempire.us, 2007

Copyright 2005-2007 (c) GlobalResearch.ca

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