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Now you sea it now you don't: watch Arctic ice melt
Video Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio
One of the most striking changes that has taken place in the Arctic since the start of satellite monitoring in 1979 is the rapid decline of the perennial sea ice cover. This ice is the sea ice that survives the summer melt season, and is typically the thickest part of the sea ice cover, sometimes spanning several years. Sea ice extent has declined as the globe has warmed, but the ice cover has thinned as well. Thinner sea ice melts more easily, and as multiyear sea ice is lost, Arctic sea ice has declined more rapidly.
This NASA visualization shows the perennial Arctic sea ice cover from 1980 to 2012. The grey disk at the North Pole indicates the region where no satellite data is collected. A graph overlay shows the area's size measured in million square kilometers for each year. The '1980', '2008,' and '2012' data points are highlighted on the graph.Video Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio One... more-
- JanforGore
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- 1 month ago
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Emissions set to rise by 50% by 2050-OECD
* Fossils seen supplying 85 pct of energy demand in 2050
* Financial, human and biodiversity costs all huge
* CO2 cut, global CO2 mkt delays make 2 degree limit harder
By Nina Chestney
LONDON, March 15 (Reuters) - Global greenhouse gas emissions could rise 50 percent by 2050 without more ambitious climate policies, as fossil fuels continue to dominate the energy mix, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said on Thursday.
"Unless the global energy mix changes, fossil fuels will supply about 85 percent of energy demand in 2050, implying a 50 percent increase in greenhouse gas emissions and worsening urban air pollution," the OECD said in its environment outlook to 2050.
The global economy in 2050 will be four times larger than today and the world will use around 80 percent more energy.
But the global energy mix is not predicted to be very different from that of today, the report said.
Fossil fuels such as oil, coal and gas will make up 85 percent of energy sources. Renewables, including biofuels, are forecast to make up 10 percent and nuclear the rest.
Due to such dependence on fossils, carbon dioxide emissions from energy use are expected to grow by 70 percent, the OECD said, which will help drive up the global average temperature by 3 to 6 degrees Celsius by 2100 - exceeding the internationally agreed warming limit of within 2 degrees.
Global carbon dioxide emissions from energy reached an all-time high of 30.6 gigatonnes in 2010, despite the economic downturn which reduced industrial production.
COST OF INACTION
The financial cost of taking no further climate action could result in up to a 14 percent loss in world per capita consumption by 2050, according to some estimates.
Human costs would also be high as premature deaths from pollution exposure could double to 3.6 million a year, the OECD said.
Demand for water could rise by 55 percent, increasing competition for supplies and resulting in 40 percent of the global population living in water-stressed areas, while plant and animal species could decline by a further 10 percent.
To prevent the worst effects of global warming, international climate action should start in 2013, a global carbon market be set up, the energy sector transformed to low carbon and all low-cost advanced technologies should be explored such as biomass energy and carbon capture.
However, a new international climate deal might not come into force until 2020 and carbon markets not linked until then, making it harder to achieve the 2 degree limit and requiring very rapid rates of emissions cuts after 2020 to catch up.
Current international emissions cut pledges fall short of what is required to limit temperature rises to safe levels so decisive action at the national level is needed, the OECD said.
More at the link* Fossils seen supplying 85 pct of energy demand in 2050 * Financial, human and... more-
- JanforGore
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- 3 months ago
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Drilling in the Arctic-Perspectives from an Alaskan native
On October 3, 2011, the Obama administration said it was moving forward with oil-drilling leases off the coast of Alaska issued by the Bush administration in 2008. The leases had been challenged by environmental groups, opposition that gained momentum after the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon disaster.
Yet the Interior Department said it would uphold nearly 500 leases issued in the Chukchi Sea, a victory for oil companies in the battle over Arctic Ocean drilling.
Those opposing the leases say there is no proven clean-up method for an oil spill in such harsh terrain and ice-choked waters, and that the environmental assessment done by oil companies for the area is inadequate.
There are also Alaska Natives living off the coast of the Chukchi Sea who worry about how the drilling and its impacts will affect their way of life. One of them is Colleen Swan, a resident of Kivalina, Alaska. Kivalina is a largely Inupiat community on a barrier reef island in the northwest of the state. The island already faces erosion from climate change, and its residents are trying to relocate. In the meantime, they are still dependent on the local environment. Colleen shared some of her thoughts on the oil leases:
The oil leases, no matter where in the Arctic, will affect all people who live off the wild life from the ocean, because it will disrupt the migrations of sea mammals. Here are some points I like to make when the timing is appropriate:
In the event of an oil spill, the people in coastal communities are the ones whose lives are impacted directly, yet are the ones who are least prepared for such a disaster. These are communities of people who have no means to respond to oil spills to protect their shores and their villages from the oil slick.
The oil companies and the government who issues such permits will continue with business as usual and the oil companies will recover. They have reserves to fall back on. We don’t. Once we lose our livelihood, our subsistence way of life, it’s gone for a long, long time. The ocean will not recover as quickly as the oil companies and neither will the coastal communities.
The oil companies have their oil spill response plans, they have their resources. The government permit issuers don’t live up here; they will not be personally impacted. The coastal communities have no oil spill response plan that would enable us to protect our communities – we have no alternative food source identified aside from the land animals, which are not nearly enough to supply all of our needs throughout the year.
The fact that we are coastal communities, especially in Arctic Alaska, means that we would also lose our main food source, food that sustains us through the long, cold, harsh winters. The food we eat survives in the Arctic and it enables us to survive also in this climate. More than 3/4ths of our diet comes from the ocean.
These things are not thought through by neither the oil companies nor the government. As long as we are lacking in our ability to respond to oil spills, the plans that have been approved are seriously lacking. They have not begun to even comprehend the meaning of an oil spill in our already fragile environment.
Climate change is already wreaking havoc in our environment, especially in the oceans. Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions have caused serious harm to the ocean because of how CO2 reacts in the ocean: it has caused the ocean to become increasingly acidic, especially in the Arctic oceans.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has determined that not enough research has been done in the Arctic waters.
The entire Arctic is seriously lacking in scientific understanding of the current condition due to climate change. Because of how climate change has affected our relocation project and has caused stumbling blocks for our progress, climate change needs to be a consideration to be factored into any permitting or other federal or government-based action or decision. There is no telling how a changing climate, which has affected the ice conditions in the Arctic, will impact oil development activities.
More at the link
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/05/20/us/ALASKA/ALASKA-articleLarge.jpgOn October 3, 2011, the Obama administration said it was moving forward with... more-
- JanforGore
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- 8 months ago
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Obama administration approves Arctic oil drilling
The Obama administration said Monday it was moving forward with oil-drilling leases off the coast of Alaska issued by the Bush administration in 2008, a victory for oil companies in the battle over Arctic Ocean drilling.
The Interior Department said it would uphold nearly 500 leases issued in the Chukchi Sea after several environmental groups challenged the sale of the leases in court.
The department's decision came in response to the lawsuit filed by environmental groups, and those groups still had the option of challenging the department's determination.
Among the companies securing leases in what is known as Lease Sale 193 was Royal Dutch Shell PLC, the energy giant already at the center of another high-profile fight to secure permits to drill in the Arctic.
Shell said it planned to begin exploring the Chukchi Sea area in 2012. Spokeswoman Kelly op de Weegh called the exploration plan "technically and scientifically sound."
Environmental groups oppose the Chukchi Sea leases, contending U.S. regulators don't know enough about the Arctic's marine life and ecosystem to allow drilling in the region. The groups, invoking last year's Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, also raise concerns about the ability of energy companies to respond to spills in the Arctic's icy waters.
The Interior Department's decision is the latest example of the Obama administration siding with energy companies against environmentalists amid a weak economy. Last month, President Barack Obama withdrew proposed ozone-emission rules that businesses said would have killed jobs.
"The Obama administration said it would make decisions in the Arctic based on sound science, but today it flunked the test," said Erik Grafe, a lawyer at Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law firm.
The fate of Lease Sale 193 has been uncertain since 2010, when a federal court told the Interior Department to reconsider certain aspects of the sale. Among the issues the court asked the department to re-examine were the environmental impact of natural-gas development.
Environmental groups and Alaska native organizations had sued the Interior Department in 2008 to challenge the lease sale. In the 2008 lease sale, the Bush administration collected bids worth about $2.7 billion.
The Interior Department said Monday it had addressed issues raised by the environmental groups. It said those drilling in the area would be required to mitigate risks to wildlife and take precautions against spills.
The debate over Lease Sale 193 represents the latest skirmish in a broader battle over Arctic drilling. Last week, environmental groups sued to block Shell's plans to explore in the Beaufort Sea, east of the Chukchi, saying the company hadn't yet developed an adequate oil-response strategy.
More at the linkThe Obama administration said Monday it was moving forward with oil-drilling leases... more-
- JanforGore
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- 8 months ago
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- 209 comments
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Keystone XL-NO!- Days 12&13: 706 arrests, and Obama's press secretary says he hasn't talked to him about this
We just got some important evidence that this protest is working and that we’re breaking through to the mainstream media and the White House.
This morning, President Obama’s press secretary, Jake Carney, was questioned by reporters on Air Force One about our protest happening outside the White House. We’ve been trying to break through to the White House press corps for the last few days. Now, we know that we’ve struck a nerve.
Here’s the transcript from Air Force One:
Q: Also, anything on these protests outside the White House on this pipeline? Has the President decided against TransCanada’s permit for the pipeline? It’s the tar sands pipeline. There have been a lot of arrests outside the White House about it.
MR. CARNEY: I don’t have anything new on that. I believe the State Department has — that’s under the purview of the State Department presently, but I don’t have anything new on that.
Q: Is the President aware of the protests?
MR. CARNEY: I haven’t talked to him about it.
Now, here’s the thing: while it’s great to see the press corps pushing the Administration to recognize our demonstration, the fact that Carney hasn’t yet briefed the President on the protest and the pipeline is a worrying sign about how out of touch this administration is on this issue.
“Just in the last two days everyone from the president’s chief climate scientist to an 84-year-old grandmother was arrested on his front doorstep,” said environmental author Bill McKibben, who is spearheading the White House protest. “This is the largest civil disobedience action in the environmental movement in a generation, and if they really aren’t even discussing it with the president, that signals a deep disrespect for their supporters, especially young people who have demonstrated that the environment is a top priority.”
We’re going to be pushing Carney and the Administration to make sure President Obama is hearing directly from people across the country who are here in DC risking arrest, and the many hundreds of thousands more that support this cause.
more at the link
______________
That means either one of two things. He really hasn't told him because they already know what they are going to do and could really care less about this. Or this was just a deflection because he couldn't reveal anything more. Either way though, at least he didn't ask, what protest? He knew what was implied and that means they do know. Everyday more and more people are finding out about this and the toxic legacy it is bringing to our planet. And more and more people are standing up to say NO to this toxic carbon timebomb.
And that is because this is getting out through social media, the Internet and primarily because of the bravery and conviction of those who sit and stand in front of the White House. All of them. Some who I am sure thought long and hard of the residual effects this could have on their lives. And I thank them, because they also managed to do something I have wanted to see for a long time. They managed to bring the entire environmental movement together. I have always thought that we have not been as successful in getting this message out as we could be because we were too fragmented. Each organization with their own goals competing against each other rather then joining together for a common cause.
This now is the cause. Standing up at last for health, clean air and water, sustainability, climate balance, climate justice and the beginning of a time when our children will be able to look at us and say thank you for caring about the world they inherit from us.
This is what it is all about and President Obama, you know it too and you know what you need to do.
Keystone XL- NO!We just got some important evidence that this protest is working and that we’re... more-
- JanforGore
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- 9 months ago
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A watershed moment for Obama on climate change
Ain’t eBay grand? For $10 you can buy a sack of 50 assorted Obama ’08 buttons, and that’s what I’ve been doing. If you look closely, you might see them this weekend on the lapels of some of the global warming protesters holding a sit-in outside the White House.
Already, more than a thousand people have signed up to be arrested over two weeks beginning Aug. 20 — the biggest display of civil disobedience in the environmental movement in decades and one of the largest nonviolent direct actions since the World Trade Organization demonstrations in Seattle back before Sept. 11. (Among the first 500 to sign up, the biggest cohort was born in the Truman administration, followed closely by FDR babies and Eisenhower kids. These seniors contradict the stereotype of greedy geezers who care only about their own future.)
The issue is simple: We want the president to block construction of Keystone XL, a pipeline that would carry oil from the tar sands of northern Alberta down to the Gulf of Mexico. We have, not surprisingly, concerns about potential spills and environmental degradation from construction of the pipeline. But those tar sands are also the second-largest pool of carbon in the atmosphere, behind only the oil fields of Saudi Arabia. If we tap into them in a big way, NASA climatologist James Hansen explained in a paper issued this summer, the emissions would mean it’s “essentially game over” for the climate. That’s why the executive directors of many environmental groups and 20 of the country’s leading climate scientists wrote letters asking people to head to Washington for the demonstrations. In scientific terms, it’s as close to a no-brainer as you can get.
But in political terms it may turn out to be a defining moment of the Obama years.
That’s because, for once, the president will get to make an important call all by himself. He has to sign a certificate of national interest before the border-crossing pipeline can be built. Under the relevant statutes, Congress is not involved, so he doesn’t need to stand up to the global-warming deniers calling the shots in the House.
But the president does need to stand up to the fossil fuel industry, which has done its best to influence the decision. Since the State Department plays a role in recommending a decision, the main pipeline company helpfully hired the former national deputy director of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign as its lead lobbyist. WikiLeaks documents emerged recently showing U.S. envoys conspiring with the oil industry to win favorable media coverage for tar sands oil. If you were a cynic, you’d say the fix was in.
Still, the final call rests with Barack Obama, who said the night that he clinched the Democratic nomination in June 2008 that his ascension would mark “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” Now he gets a chance to prove that he meant it. In basketball terms, he’s alone at the top of the key — will he take the 20-foot jumper or pass the ball? It’s a rare, character-defining moment. Obama can’t escape it simply by saying that someone else will burn the oil if we don’t. Alberta is remote, and its only other possible pipeline route — to the Pacific and hence Asia — is tangled in litigation. That’s why the province’s energy minister told Canada’s Globe and Mail last month that without the Keystone pipeline Alberta would be “landlocked in bitumen,” the technical name for the heavy, gooey tar that is its chief export. Critics may argue otherwise, but Obama’s call is key; without it, that oil will stay in the ground for at least a while longer. Long enough, perhaps, that the planet will come fully to its senses about climate change.
It’s hard to predict what will happen. Earlier this summer Al Gore tossed up his hands in despair: “President Obama has never presented to the American people the magnitude of the climate crisis,” Gore said. “He has not defended the science against the ongoing withering and dishonest attacks.” Yet it’s hard to give up on the image of the skinny senator from Illinois and the young people who were his most fervent supporters — young people who, according to pollsters, wanted a climate bill by a 5-to-1 margin. That didn’t happen, of course; for now, the Keystone pipeline is the best proxy we have for real presidential commitment to the global warming fight.
More at the linkAin’t eBay grand? For $10 you can buy a sack of 50 assorted Obama ’08... more-
- JanforGore
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- 10 months ago
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Congressional panel approves bill to fast track Keystone XL pipeline
Congress took a first step on Wednesday to fast-track a controversial Alberta tar sands pipeline, ordering Barack Obama to reach a decision on the project by 1 November.
The bill, voted through a panel of the house energy and power subcommittee, would compel Obama to over-rule demands for a further review of the project from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and disregard local opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline from landowners along its 1,700-mile route.
Republicans in Congress are planning further action to push ahead on the pipeline next week, environmentalists said.
Senator James Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who is the main force among climate change sceptic in Congress, is working on a bill that would repeal a 2007 provision restricing the federal government's use of high-carbon fuels, such as those from the Alberta tar sands.
Between them, the actions are aimed at cutting off growing opposition to the pipeline – before it sinks the project.
The pipeline is intended to pass through Montana, South Dakota, and Nebraska before reaching the refineries on the Gulf coast of Texas.
But a series of pipeline accidents - including the shutdown of the Keystone itself for several days this month because of a leak - have amplified fears about transporting highly corrosive thick crude across the American heartland to the refineries of Texas.
Democrats said the accidents were a powerful reason not to rush to approval. "I don't think it makes any sense to set some kind of arbitrary deadline," said Henry Waxman, the ranking Democrat.
But Republicans said the pipeline was already three years in the planning, and that its construction would end America's reliance on Middle Eastern oil. "It makes perfect sense," said Steve Scalise of Louisiana.
More than 100,000 people wrote to the State Department this month to express their views on the project. Nebraska state legislaters and members of Congress have also written letters of concern.
Meanwhile the EPA issued a letter last week criticising the State Department for failing to fully take into account the risks of a pipeline accident, or of the increase in greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the import of more fossil fuels.
Supporters of the project have been active as well, pushed in part by a new report suggesting the pipeline was running out of time.
cont.Congress took a first step on Wednesday to fast-track a controversial Alberta tar... more-
- JanforGore
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- 12 months ago
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Countries lay claim to Arctic in battle for oil and gas reserves
Shrinking polar ice has opened up new opportunities, with five nations – Russia, Canada, Denmark, Norway and the US – claiming jurisdiction over parts of the polar region which could contain as much of one quarter of the world's undiscovered reserves of oil and gas.
Russia's Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, will attend the Arctic Forum in Moscow today as the stakes in the battle for control of the Arctic become ever higher. Russia, Canada and Denmark have all said they will file claims to the UN over an undersea mountain range called the Lomonosov Ridge, an area which some Russian scientists say could hold 75 billion barrels of oil. They all say the ridge is an underwater extension of their continental shelves.
Russia first submitted a claim in 2001, which was rejected. But now the Russians say they have gathered more evidence to support their Arctic claim, including a set of samples taken from the seabed, collected by an expedition that journeyed to the Arctic this year.
Alexander Bedritsky, the Russian president's adviser on climate change, said Russia would file its claim to the UN within the next two or three years. He said he believed the Russians had a "strong chance" of their bid being approved. Canada and Denmark are also readying claims.
As the ice continues to melt, Russia is also interested in exploiting the Northern Sea Route, which could slash journey times and costs from Europe to Asia. Currently ships travelling on the route across the top of Russia have to be accompanied by nuclear-powered ice breakers. Mr Bedritsky told reporters yesterday: "We will protect our interests in the Arctic with all civilised instruments envisaged by international agreements."
Tensions over the Arctic peaked three years ago when a Russian expedition to the North Pole led by the celebrated explorer Artur Chilingarov travelled over two miles down to the seabed in titanium capsules and planted a Russian flag there, a clear sign of Russia's intent to make the Arctic its own. The mission drew an angry response from Canada.
The mood at the conference yesterday was conciliatory, with world leaders urging negotiations rather than conflict.
"The Cold War times, when the Arctic was a region of tension, have passed," said Iceland's President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson in Moscow yesterday.
The conference follows a historic accord signed by Russia and Norway last week that solves a decades-old dispute over the Barents Sea. The two countries agreed to split the difference between their two claims, and divided the disputed area in half. If any natural resources are found straddling the newly delineated boundary, the two states will co-manage them.Shrinking polar ice has opened up new opportunities, with five nations – Russia,... more-
- JanforGore
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- 1 year ago
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Infographic: A closer look at the oilsands
Like drug addicts looking for a fix. Shame on us.-
- JanforGore
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- 1 year ago
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BREAKING NEWS: Offshore Oil Rig in the Gulf of Mexico Explodes
NEW ORLEANS — An offshore oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday morning, injuring one worker, the United States Coast Guard said.
The rig was located just west of where another rig leased by BP blew up and sank this spring, killing 11 people and touching off an environmental calamity.
All 13 members of the work crew on board on Thursday were accounted for, the Coast Guard said.
News reports said there was smoke rising from the platform, but it was unclear whether the rig was actively burning or in danger of foundering, or whether the explosion had set off any underground oil leaks.
Several helicopters, airplanes and boats were speeding to the scene of the explosion, south of Vermillion Bay in Louisiana.
Citing the Department of Homeland Security, the Associated Press reported that the rig was owned by the Texas-based Mariner Energy, and was not actively producing oil and gas.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/03/us/03rig.html
The Environmental Impact of Oil Spills
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/07/17/science/earth/20100718-ENVIRO.html?ref=gulf_of_mexico_2010
Related Article: After Oil Spills, Hidden Damage Can Last for Years
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/science/earth/18enviro.htmlNEW ORLEANS — An offshore oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday... more-
- julesrs007
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- 1 year ago
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EPA and State Department Square Off on Tar Sands Pipeline
Water use and greenhouse gas emissions are major concerns with developing “unconventional” hydrocarbon reserves
The Syncrude Canada Ltd. oil sands mining operation in Alberta, Canada is the largest in the world. For every barrel of oil produced from tar sands mining operations, four to six barrels of fresh water are withdrawn from the Athabasca River, according to experts.
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By Keith Schneider
Circle of Blue
Before July 16, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued its 18-page letter directing the State Department to more carefully assess the considerable risks of the $7 billion Keystone XL oil pipeline from Alberta, Canada to the Gulf Coast, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was expected to issue a presidential permit approving construction in the fall.
EPA’s penetrating critique of the State Department’s permit review of the 1,702-mile pipeline, which the environmental agency called “inadequate,” puts that fall schedule on indefinite hold. The question for the oil industry, the governments of Canada and the activists in both countries desperate to tame oil sands development, is what other effects the EPA’s action could have.
The federal environmental agency has good reason to be vigilant. It has been busy since July 26 cleaning up a million-barrel tar sands oil spill from a ruptured pipeline in southern Michigan’s Kalamazoo River.
The proposed Keystone XL pipeline, to be built by TransCanada Corp., is the latest of three big oil pipeline construction projects that are at the vanguard of a new era in hydrocarbon development. Instead of drilling deep underground for pools of oil that are getting harder to find and more dangerous to punch open, energy developers are becoming miners, tapping what the energy industry calls “unconventional” reserves contained in oil-saturated sands and oil shales.
Near the northern end of the Keystone XL pipeline lies Alberta’s bitumen-saturated tar sands, a forested region as large as North Carolina that conservatively contains 175 billion barrels of recoverable oil: enough to satisfy U.S. demand at current rates of consumption until 2035. American, Canadian, Chinese, Korean and European oil companies are spending $15 billion a year to manage and expand immense open pit mines, processing plants, as well as toxic tailing ponds in order to boost production from 1.3 million barrels a day to more than three million barrels per day by 2025.
The investment in Alberta is the sharp tip of a long spear of unconventional oil development that reaches into the United States, the primary market. Energy and pipeline companies are spending $31 billion to ship oil in new pipelines from Alberta to U.S. refiners in the heartland, the Great Lakes and the Gulf coast. Refiners are spending more than $20 billion to expand refineries to produce fuels from tar sands oil. In all, the energy industry has said it wants to invest nearly $400 billion on tar sands oil production over the next 15 years.
Contrast that with annual investment in wind and solar energy, which reached $30 billion last year, according to the Department of Energy. Exxon Mobil Corp. paid more than that earlier this year—$41 billion—to purchase XTO Energy, which has big reserves in unconventional tar sands, oil shales, and deep shale natural gas reserves in the United States.
The bottom line is that the race between clean energy alternatives and much dirtier unconventional reserves is an economic mismatch. Last year total investment globally in clean energy was $140 billion, according to solar and wind producers. The fossil fuel industry is spending an estimated three times that amount on developing unconventional oil reserves, according to the International Energy Agency.
cont.Water use and greenhouse gas emissions are major concerns with developing... more-
- JanforGore
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- 1 year ago
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Oil blankets Pensacola Beach
PHOTO: Kevin Reed’s dad taught him to swim at Pensacola Beach. It’s here that he taught his own son. “This will never be the same,” he says.
PENSACOLA BEACH, FLORIDA
The tide came in Tuesday night, under a moon almost full, and when the sun came up and the water retreated there it was: a broken band of oil about 5 feet wide and 8 miles long.
It looked like tobacco spit and smelled foreign, and it pooled in yesterday's footprints as far as you could see. State officials called it the worst show of crude on shore from the gusher 120 miles away.
As word spread, the people of Pensacola Beach walked to the black band to take a look, to take photographs, to be sure this wasn't some apocalyptic dream. They poured over the dunes all day, on pilgrimages to bear witness.
Here came Courtney Laczko, 16, who has been coming to the beach almost every morning since school let out because she knew the days were numbered
"It's actually really here," she kept saying.
She thought about the dolphins and how she used to pretend they were a happy little family. She thought about the time her mom wasn't working and she took the kids to the beach every day.
"It was always the prettiest beach around here. You can't say that anymore."
Here came Kathy Allen, 15, a native. She thought about that night in November, after the homecoming dance, when a boy named Dakota leaned in and kissed her lips, her first ever, and how the stars seemed so bright and sparkly.
Here came Stef Ackerman, 22, who learned to fish here and surf here. He walked to the oil and squatted and ran his finger up under his sunglasses. He thought about all those journeys to the beach with his dad to watch the Blue Angels zing down the shoreline and about that fishing trip when his older brother came home from war. How they talked and fished all day.
This? He doesn't know how to process it.
"I don't know what to do," he said. "I don't know if anybody knows what to do."
Four buses of cleanup men showed up. Bulldozers rolled onto the white sand. Men with shovels scooped black onto plastic sheets and fed them to the dozers.
Gov. Charlie Crist came, too, with his people, to the same beach where a week ago he walked and talked with President Barack Obama. He was expecting scattered tar balls, not this.
"It's pretty ugly," he said.
"It's worse than I expected," said Mike Sole, secretary of Florida's Department of Environmental Protection.
"What do we do now?" asked Morgan White, 15, who has a scar on her hip from skimboarding on this water. "This is what we do. We wake up and we come here."
Up the road, a sign flashed: OIL ON BEACH. The bulldozers beeped. News crews gathered.
If the beach is church, Wednesday felt like a funeral.
Kevin Reed, 36, who learned to swim here and taught his own son, right here, how to swim, walked to the oil and cried.
"I can't help it," he said. "This just kills me. It feels like somebody just ripped my heart out. I knew it was going to be bad. I didn't know it was going to be like this."
He looked back at the band. He noticed there were no birds.
"It's damn near biblical."
http://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/article1104604.ecePHOTO: Kevin Reed’s dad taught him to swim at Pensacola Beach. It’s here... more-
- julesrs007
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- 1 year ago
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DC Reacts: What do You Think of the Gulf Oil Spill? (Webisode 125)
In light of President Obama's Oval Office address about the oil spill in the Gulf and the spills' 60 day anniversary, Planet Forward asks people around DC how they are feeling about, and reacting to, the environmental crisis.In light of President Obama's Oval Office address about the oil spill in the Gulf... more-
- Planet_Forward
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- 1 year ago
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Oiled birds arriving at rescue center at an increasing rate
In less than a week, the rescue center at Fort Jackson has received more than five times as many oiled birds as it received in the previous six weeks since the Gulf of Mexico oil spill began.
A report Wednesday from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows that the Louisiana center has reported 415 birds since the BP PLC well blew wild in April. Sixty-six of those had been reported by last Thursday. The number since then is 349, with 61 of them added since Tuesday.
In addition, 14 birds have been brought to the Alabama center, 12 in Florida and one in Mississippi.
Since the start of the spill, bird rescue crews have found 633 dead birds -- about one in six VISIBLY oiled.
A total of 32 sea turtles have been rescued, 28 of them in the Gulf of Mexico. http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/06/oiled_birds_arriving_at_rescue.html
NOTE: Thses numbers do not include the number of sea turtles (dolphins, seahorses or other wildlife) found dead due to the oil spill or toxic dispersant.In less than a week, the rescue center at Fort Jackson has received more than five... more-
- julesrs007
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- 1 year ago
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- 2 comments
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America's New Year's Resolution- Break our addiction to Oil
Very soon we will begin to hear of how well Christmas shopping season was for the retail stores. These numbers will be utilized in accounting mechanism to determine whether or not some retail chains will remain in business this year. As the commercial real estate market in America becomes swamped with upcoming bond renewals causing banks to worry, a new tidal wave of home foreclosures looms in the distance as well.
Alt-A mortgages and Option ARM loans will begin resetting from 2010 all the way through 2012, causing millions of homes to go into foreclosure. We are at a paradigm shift in America. A new relationship will have to emerge as America loses its middle class and possibly its automobile lifestyle.
Let me connect the dots a bit more for you. With this credit crisis it is becoming more difficult to acquire capital to begin construction of new drilling operations for oil, as well as acquire credit to maintain a business such as trucking .
Go here to read the rest:
http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/dailyloaf/2009/12/30/americas-new-years-resolution-break-our-oil-addiction/Very soon we will begin to hear of how well Christmas shopping season was for the... more-
- CodeGreenCommunity
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- 2 years 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 credibility. They have now sold the American people out to the oil companies and now promised us more pollution and loss of land to build this pipeline. I don't even have anymore words to descibe the frustration I feel. I would let my feelings be known to the State Dept., but I know it won't do any good.
We don't live in a democracy or republic, we live in a plutocracy where oil companies run this country over the environment and the best interests of the people. Just look at the BS reason this certificate was isssued. "The best interests of the U.S." my A^^. Hillary Clinton, you are a sellout. This country has now lost ALL credibility in Copenhagen.
There is now no way we can bring the emissions targets currently included in this bill after doing this and look anywhere near serious about tackling climate change. And that isn't even to mention the Boreal Forest and the ecosystems and biodiversity of this area these tarsands are destroying.
Mr. Gore, I know you must read this site sometime, so here is my question. What happened to your voice? You spoke out so eloquently and so vocally against these tar sands and our oil addiction previously. Why are you so silent now when people need to hear about this?So much for any Co2 emissions caps in any climate bill or this government having any... more-
- JanforGore
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- 2 years ago
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- 3 comments
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Exxon Mobil launches 7.1 billion dollar tar sands project
STOP THE INSANITY!
"Imperial Oil, the Canadian subsidiary of US oil giant ExxonMobil, said Monday it is going ahead with a 7.1-billion-US-dollar first phase of its Alberta oil sands mining project.
The company's Kearl oil sands project -- a surface mining operation northeast of Fort McMurray, Alberta -- is to be developed in three phases and could ultimately produce more than 300,000 barrels of bitumen per day.
The first phase of the project would produce an average of 110,000 barrels per day starting in late 2012, Imperial Oil said in a statement.
It was initially due to come online in 2010 or 2011, but the company delayed its launch, citing a sudden drop in crude oil prices.
Canadian authorities had also revoked and then reinstated permits to Imperial Oil to develop the project, criticized by environmentalists a massive potential source of greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming.
The Kearl mine is estimated to hold 4.6 billion barrels of bitumen."
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end of excerpt, and the boreal forest.
So much for emissions caps. They are already in the red.STOP THE INSANITY! "Imperial Oil, the Canadian subsidiary of US oil giant... more-
- JanforGore
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- 3 years ago
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- 20 comments
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Darfur, Sudan, Oil, America and China
Make no mistake as to why Bush refuses to boycott the Bejing olympics. OIL is the key factor in this decision as it is in every decision by these oil and blood soaked criminals. The genocide in Darfur began as an environmental disaster (that continues) that has now evolved into a fight for its oil. Just like in Iraq and other places around the world, Darfur will now be a central point in a power struggle for the oil that lies below Sudan and Chad, coincidentally (?) where the genocide has taken place. Lots of land were cleared off in the burning of the towns and everything was lost by the inhabitiants there to clear the land for Chinese oil companies to come in and drill. Women have been raped, villagers terrorized and murdered, children starving, all for the sake of Chinese and American oil speculation.
If there was ever a reason to have a global climate treaty that gets this world OFF OIL it is this. To think of the inhumanities spawned by the greed of these people and that Bush will now use these Bejing olympics to make business deals rather than stand up for the human rights of millions around the world who have suffered and are suffering atrocities due to the insatiable greed for oil is unconscienable.
I am BOYCOTTING the Bejing olympics. I will not watch it, and I will no longer purchase any products from any sponsors of it if I do now. The human species will drown itself in its greed for oil as our planet balances itself precariously on the climate edge. How any world leaders can sit in Bejing and smile knowing what has transpired by the government of China and their own even against their own people shows they are no better. I as an American who believes in Human Rights and freedom denounce the Bejing olympics for what it really is to those in the Chinese government: propaganda to cover the tracks of monsters. Make no mistake as to why Bush refuses to boycott the Bejing olympics. OIL is the key... more-
- JanforGore
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- 3 years ago
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- 52 comments
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Oilsands Development: Killing Canada
"We appreciate the fact that Canada's tar sands are now becoming economical and we are glad to be able to get the access toward two million barrels a day."-George W. Bush, March 23, 2003.
Powers in this world are now salivating to be able to tear apart the boreal forest to satisfy their lust for greed. And make no mistake about it, it has nothing to do with caring about the people or other species because if it did alternate sources of energy that are safer for the environment and cleaner and more economical to use would be the order of the day, not the "new world order" of the Bushes of this world that seek only to destroy it for their own benefit. But then, getting his fix seems to be something Bush is accustomed to in his life.
Making crude oil from tar sands is a dirty wasteful business. It takes two tons of oil sands ore to yield ONE barrel of oil. Put that into perpsective of these people wanting two MILLION barrels a day, and then it is not hard to see the environmental degradation this process is causing. The oil sand is composed of silt, sand, clay, water, and bitumen. On average, bitumen contains 83.2% carbon. At two million or more barrels a day burning, you figure out the environmental impact of that. And there are two methods by which this noxious smelling concoction is brought to the surface.
It is either through strip mining it or situ recovery methods which are used to access deeper deposits. It is an arduous process that uses much water, which then results in groundwater being polluted and river water being diverted as large amounts of freshwater are required to flush bitumen from the sand to make crude oil. It also is increasing greenhouse gas emission in Alberta, which are spilling over. It is also such a complex process that I went searching for a source that could explain it all from beginning to end, and I found one. This to me is the most thorough and comprehensive source out there now to describe this process and the environmental and climate change effects it is having on our world. I HIGHLY recommend you read through this:
More at the link. Compare the picture here to the picture on the blog entry to see what they have done to the beautiful Boreal Forest with this wasteful practice.
"We appreciate the fact that Canada's tar sands are now becoming economical... more-
- JanforGore
- added this
- 3 years ago
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- 13 comments
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