Tar sands // Current

"The Tar Sands Blow"

Dear Canadian Leaders: I will not allow Canada to exploit the world's dirtiest oil... more

adaminaction
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Greenpeace protests Canada's tar sands

Activists on Wednesday occupied two conveyor belts used to transfer bitumen from an... more

JanforGore
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Greenpeace blocks 2nd Canada oil sands operation

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - Environmental activists said on Wednesday they canoed... more

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YouTube - Greenwash of the Week: BP tars itself

RAN's Brihannala Morgan takes BP to task for the Alberta tar sands.

julesrs007
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2 months ago
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We Don't Want Canada's Dirty Tar Sands Oil!

YouTube Video of banner being deployed at Niagara Falls AWESOME ECO-ACTIVISIM!

julesrs007
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Syncrude pleads not guilty over 2008 tar sands duck deaths

Syncrude Canada Ltd pleaded not guilty on Monday to charges in the deaths of more than... more

JanforGore
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2 months ago
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Breaking: Activists Unfurl Banner over Niagara Falls to Protest Tar Sands Oil

Canadian Tar Sands Oil Undermines North America’s Clean Energy Future That’s... more

derekmarkham
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2 months ago
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Activists drop 70' "No Tar Sands Oil" banner off of Niagra Falls

Before dawn this morning, a small team of climate and Native Rights activists... more

joshuakahnrussell
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2 months ago
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Tell Royal Bank of Canada to "cease and desist" financing Alberta tar sands

RBC's lawyers apparently don't like that we've been using their corporate logo to... more

JanforGore
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3 months ago
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US State Dept. OKs pipeline from Canada's tarsands to U.S.

So much for any Co2 emissions caps in any climate bill or this government having any... more

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3 months ago
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Canadian First Nations to join London Climate Camp to protest tar sands

Native Americans are to join the Climate Camp protests in the City of London this week in an attempt to draw attention to corporate Britain's "criminal" involvement in the tar sands of Canada.

The oil sands extraction process requires top soil to be removed, is highly energy-intensive and releases huge amounts of carbon dioxide. Five representatives from the Cree First Nations are coming to co-ordinate their campaign against key players in the carbon-heavy energy sector with British environmentalists.

Eriel Tchekwie Deranger, from Fort Chipewyan, a centre of Alberta's tar sands schemes, said: "British companies such as BP and Royal Bank of Scotland in partnership with dozens of other companies are driving this project, which is having such devastating effects on our environment and communities.

"It is destroying the ancient boreal forest, spreading open-pit mining across our territories, contaminating our food and water with toxins, disrupting local wildlife and threatening our way of life," she said.

It showed British companies were complicit in "the biggest environmental crime on the planet" and yet very few people in Britain even knew it was happening, said Deranger. She was speaking ahead of an annual Climate Camp that will be held for one week somewhere in Greater London from this Thursday.

The exact site of the camp has not been revealed as green organisers are worried that the police might move to thwart their plans if they are notified in advance.

BP and Shell are two of the major oil companies extracting oil from the tar sands. The thick and sticky oil can only be removed from the sands by using a lot of water and power as well as producing far heavier CO2 emissions.

RBS, now partly owned by the British government after its financial rescue, is also a target of environmentalists and aboriginals because it is seen as a major funder of such schemes.

The Climate Camp concept started with a protest outside the Drax coal-fired power station in North Yorkshire and was followed up by similar protests at Heathrow - against the proposed third runway - and Kingsnorth in Kent, where E.ON wants to construct a new coal-fired power station.

There was also a Climate Camp in April at Bishopsgate inside the City of London, which became linked with bad policing after a bystander died following a clash with a constable.

The tar sands are seen by many as a particularly dangerous project providing enough carbon to be released in total to tip the world into unstoppable climate change. Shell was the first major European oil company to invest in the Canadian-based operations but BP followed under its chief executive, Tony Hayward.

end of excerptNative Americans are to join the Climate Camp protests in the City of London this week... more

JanforGore
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3 months ago
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Tar sands pipeline test of Obama administration's green credentials

The Obama administration faces a test of its environmental credentials in deciding whether to approve a pipeline carrying greenhouse gas-intensive oil sands fuel from Canada into the US.

Hillary Clinton, secretary of state, is expected to decide as early as this month whether to approve the Alberta Clipper, a 1,000-mile pipeline designed to carry up to 800,000 barrels a day of fuel from Canada's vast oil sands.

Environmentalists say doing so would be at odds with the green economy pledged by the administration.

"Approving new mega-projects like the Alberta Clipper pipeline would lock North America into the old, high-carbon energy economy," said Keith Stewart, director of climate change at WWF-Canada. "We need to invest in the green economy of the future, not pour billions into the Betamax of the energy world."

But Enbridge Energy, the Canadian pipeline builder, said the project would improve US energy security. The pipeline and associated facilities "will serve the national interest ... enhancing the ability to deliver a secure and growing supply of Canadian crude oil, thereby supplementing the diminishing supplies of domestically produced crude oil," the company said in its May application.

It is hard for the US to resist the 175 billion barrels of oil sand reserves, given rising concerns over energy security. But the extraction of a barrel of crude from oil sands is estimated to generate as much as five times more greenhouse gas emissions as from a barrel of conventional crude.

Environmentalists have seized on a delay in granting the permit, which could have come in early July, as a sign it might be rejected. But the state department told the Financial Times it had not finished the review process.

Enbridge is confident it will obtain the permit this month, enabling it to build.

"We're going to start construction at the end of this month," the company said. "We believe we will have a successful outcome and look forward to completion by mid-2010. We're not worried at all."

Canadian environmentalists sent the state department a letter last week urging it to delay a decision until after a climate treaty emerges from the Copenhagen summit. "This decision carries significant implications regarding greenhouse gas pollution and global warming that cannot be duly considered in the absence of clear US climate change policy and an understanding of an international climate treaty," it read.

The Dirty Oil Sands Network said: "Climate security and energy security must go hand in hand. The best way to achieve this is for the Obama administration to keep building a clean energy economy."

end of excerptThe Obama administration faces a test of its environmental credentials in deciding... more