Alberta sands project deadly

[ILovePizza]

Report: Alberta Oil Sands Most Destructive Project on Earth
18 Feb 08

Environmental Defence has released a report calling the Alberta Oil Sands the most destructive project on Earth.

Few Canadians know that Canada is home to one of the world's largest dams and it is built to hold toxic waste from just one Tar Sands operation," Rick Smith, the executive director of Environmental Defence.

And according to the report this is just the beginning. Approvals have already been given that will double the size of existing operations and Canada's leaders have been talking with the US government to grow oil sands operations in a "short time span."

http://www.desmogblog.com/report-alberta-oil-sands-most-destructive-project-on-earth

[lapfog_1]

1. just wait till they build the nuclear reactors there

just so they can superheat the water to wash the oil out of the tar sand.

And the amount of water needed is, well, enormous.

And then, even when that is done, they have to crack the resulting heavy crude, probably in refineries built there, and THAT has a lot of waste products too... far more than refining light sweet crude from the ME.

[FogerRox]

3. Cant call it crude, its bitumen. API gravity of 9 or lower, campared to super light crude 40+

But that the wave of the future, crudes pumped out these days @API 33 and lower.

[lapfog_1]

4. yeah, I knew that... well at least the name not the API numbers

but I didn't want to confuse the average reader.

Crude is getting, well, crude.

[sam sarrha]

5. its for paving roads... not much more

[FogerRox]

6. At an EROEI of 1.3 to 1...... the canadian tar sands is a few & pts from not producing

any more energy that it uses. And the energy required to large scale the operation isnt available, especially the nat gas in the area, so yeah, 5 or 10 nukes would make the project fly. But the energy returned/energy invested would drop to 1.1 to 1.

IMHO its important for more people to know the tar sands does not have oil, it has TAR. Literally..... TAR.

And this tar, has to be boiled out of the soil and rocks,

they are BOILING ROCKS to get this TAR.

[pscot]

8. Does the EROEI

include the energy cost of cleaning up the mess? Is anyone trying to shut this down. What a horror.

[FogerRox]

9. RIght, as the costs go up because of the messyness

EROEI gets worse, I'm guessing from 1.3/1, to 1.2/1, . . . . or worse. IIRC oil is 10 to 1, Used to be 30 to 1, back in the day.

In its simplest form, the concept that the the oil world wants to boil tar out of rocks, to eventually make gasoline from, is a wholly insane thing.

God I hope this Polywell fusion thing works,

>sigh<

[Democrats_win]

2. It's something Americans should consider as they drive across the street instead of walk.

[Ichingcarpenter]

7. Here's a few facts about the Alberta Oil Sands:

Oil sands mining is licensed to use twice the amount of fresh water that the entire city of Calgary uses in a year.

- At least 90% of the fresh water used in the oil sands ends up in ends up in tailing ponds so toxic that propane cannons are used to keep ducks from landing in them.

- Processing the oil sands uses enough natural gas in a day to heat 3 million homes in Canada.

- The toxic tailing ponds are considered one of the largest human-made structures in the world. The ponds span 50 square kilometers and can be seen from space.

- Producing a barrel of oil from the oil sands produces three times more greenhouse gas emissions than a barrel of conventional oil.

- The oil sands operations are the fastest growing source of heat-trapping greenhouse gas in Canada. By 2020 the oil sands will release twice the amount produced currently by all the cars and trucks in Canada.