Climate Climate & Energy

The dirty truth about Canada’s famed oil sands.

[W]hen Canada announced in 2004 that it has more recoverable oil from tar sands than there is oil in Saudi Arabia, the world yawned. There is estimated to be about as much oil recoverable from the shale rocks in Colorado and other western states as in all the oil fields of OPEC nations. Yes, the cost of getting that oil is still prohibitively expensive, but the combination of today's high fuel prices and improved extraction techniques means that the break-even point for exploiting it is getting ever closer.
--From "The Oil Bubble," Wall Street Journal editorial, Oct. 8, 2005

Actually, with oil prices nestled comfortably above $60 per barrel, the oil giants are tapping Canada's famed tar sands, as this interesting NYT piece by Clifford Krauss shows.

"Deep craters wider than football fields are being dug out of the pine and spruce forests and muskeg swamps by many of the largest multinational oil companies," Krauss reports. "Huge refineries that burn natural gas to refine the excavated gooey sands into synthetic oil are spreading where wolves and coyotes once roamed."

Note well: They're burning natural gas to get at this stuff.

Krauss adds:

About 82,000 acres of forest and wetlands have been cleared or otherwise disturbed since development of oil sands began in earnest here in the late 1960's, and that is just the start. It is estimated that the current daily production of just over one million barrels of oil--the equivalent of Texas' daily production, and 5 percent of the United States' daily consumption - will triple by 2015 and sextuple by 2030. The pockets of oil sands in northern Alberta--which all together equal the size of Florida - are only beginning to be developed.

Be sure and click on the article's multi-media link comparing the environmental depredations of producing a barrel of artificial oil from sands with those of conventional crude production.

The only way this process can make economic sense for the oil giants is if they succeed in externalizing these costs -- i.e., shuffling them off of their balance sheets.  

Big front-page report says scientists agree: earth warming

Kudos to The Seattle Times and reporter Sandi Doughton for an extensive report on climate change that cuts through the bullshit. Dominating the front page of the Sunday paper, this headline and subhead:

The truth about global warming
Scientists overwhelmingly agree: The Earth is getting warmer at an alarming pace, and humans are the cause -- no matter what the skeptics say.

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So I'm wondering what y'all think of the Grist interview with Richard Cizik. Regardless of your views on religion, Richard can reach out to over 30 million people -- and he wants them to fight global warming.

And if if that isn't enough scripture for you, the Seattle Channel is streaming "Whose Planet Is It, Anyway?," the Foolproof event moderated by Grist's own Chip Giller where Richard and others discuss the future of the environmental movement. (You might want to make some popcorn for this one.)

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