"Stupid To The Last Drop" - New Book Explores Environmental Damage From Tarsands Boom

[hatrack]

The rise of the loonie has been partially explained by the price of oil, which recently hit a record of almost US$84 a barrel. The Canadian economy has the world's attention because Alberta's oilsands contain an estimated 174 billion barrels of oil, the second-largest oil reserve tally after Saudi Arabia. William Marsden's book, Stupid to the Last Drop, paints a darker picture of the oilsands. Not only does Marsden argue that Alberta's oil business poses significant environmental risks, he tries to portray the industry and its supporters as somewhat thick.

The book launches with an exotic and engaging tale. In the 1950s, Manley Natland, a paleontologist from the Richfield Oil Co. of California, came up with a plan to release the oil mixed within Alberta's gritty sand using an underground nuclear blast . The force of the nine-kiloton explosion would blow a giant cavity in the underground rock, and the heat and the pressure from the blast would literally boil the oil out of the sand.

EDIT

Richfield Oil thought the plan was a great idea. It even went so far as to spend $350,000 to buy an atomic bomb from the United States government for what the company came to call "Project Oil Sands." A debate in Canada over nuclear testing in the early 1960s diverted Richfield Oil's attention to Alaska. Project Oil Sands was shelved. From the vantage point of the 21st century, the fact anyone would consider using nuclear weapons to mine oil seems absolutely harebrained, which obviously makes it the ideal launching pad for a book entitled Stupid to the Last Drop. Marsden's book is an engaging and entertaining read. He mingles amusing anecdotes with some hefty science, something that's not always easy to do.

That said, as the title instantly suggests the book is no objective description of life in the Alberta oilpatch. Oil is always big, bad and corporate. Industry opponents are always virtuous Davids facing snarling Goliaths. Alberta's oil-friendly politicians are always portrayed as rude rednecks. This is a one-sided book that will be embraced by the left and lampooned by the right.

EDIT

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=e3f144e2-1c43-41be-841e-5b0a71d4e8c5

[Exultant Democracy]

1. We sell bombs to the oil business?

[happyslug]

4. This is from the early 1950s, when the A-bomb was your Friend.

Various plans to use A-bomb for "Peaceful" purposes were proposed. All died because of the know problem of residual radiation in the area the bomb was used. One example I remember is to use the bombs to make larger canals (or new canals). Did Not go anywhere and used as an excuse to test even bigger A-bombs and H-bombs before the above ground ban of the early 1960s.

[Javaman]

6. Good thing that the idea to use a bomb as a can opener died as well...

:rofl:

[Canuckistanian]

5. Yeah, that popped out at me, too

Was the sale actually completed? And if so, where is this bomb now?

I think a book could be written just on this subject alone.

[Warren Stupidity]

2. The global warming impact of oil sand extraction illustrates

the conundrum we are in. By failing to do anything substantive to replace our dependence on fossil fuels we are now going to pursue ever more damaging extraction methods, hugely energy intensive, extraction strips the forests on top of the sands, consumes enormous amounts of fresh water, and produces 20% more carbon than light crude extraction. Peak Oil negatively enahnces Global Warming. Rather than slowing things down as oil becomes more expensive, instead as nations replace cheap oil with expensive oil or coal, they also increase carbon emissions by extracting fossil energy from dirtier sources using more energy intensive and resource destructive techniques.

[AdHocSolver]

3. There is only ONE sane, safe, effective solution to the energy "problem" - Reduce oil consumption.

All of the suggested solutions are designed to protect oil company profits. They will not conserve oil, reduce pollution, reduce cost, reduce global warming or climate change, or protect the environment.

The one effective action - reduce oil consumption - will save oil, stabilize prices, protect the environment, and reduce the effects of climate change (assuming that it is not too late to have a positive effect).

The technology exists today, off the shelf, to accomplish all these goals. We don't have to wait for "fusion" power, decades away if even feasible. We don't have to wait for hydrogen fuel cell technology, expensive, wasteful, decades away from practicality, and still keeping us in the clutches of the oil companies for its distribution.

And, the biggest fraud of them all is ethanol for your gas tank. The gas mileage is less with ethanol in the fuel so you burn the same amount of oil, and it reduces the availabilty of corn and other grains for food. This is why dairy prices and cereal prices are rising so quickly. The oil companies are buying up the grain for ethanol reducing the supply for food, and thereby causing the prices to rise.

The solution is hybrid electric and all electric vehicles, wind power, solar power, expansion of mass transit, reduced-energy appliances, and some simple conservation measures.

It is not done because of the one downside of these off-the-shelf solutions: reduced oil company power and profits.