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- Railer, on 02/19/2008, -60/+190The oils sands actually REMOVE oil from the soil, thats the point the arctic in the oil sands area had always been impossible to live in because the land is A Frozen solid and B Toxic. The oil sands actually remove the oil from the land and clean the sand and then reclaim the land. It's like the Exxon Valdez only on a massive clean up scale.
# Oil sands mining is licensed to use twice the amount of fresh water that the entire city of Calgary uses in a year. - yes and it's recycled,
# 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. - yes, what the tailing pond are bi products from the soil, salts, minerals, that you don't want ducks landing on or drinking, it's like salty mud, but it's not unnatural they recycle the water from the ponds it drys up and they bury in where they found it.
http://www.nrcan-rncan.gc.ca/com/elements/issues/2 ...
Processing the oil sands uses enough natural gas in a day to heat 3 million homes in Canada. - Yes this is true, but we don't need the gas and we do need the oil, nuclear is also an option.
http://www.energyab.com/nuclear_energy/index.html
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. - so? Most dam created lakes can be seen from space, this is no different, they dam it, recycle the water, what would you like them to do?
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. - Yes but actually we are working on that, and I mean we as an Albertan, I have nothing to actually do with the oil sands.
But this one is really cool, the Canadian and Alberta Governments are running projects right now that force CO2 deep into the earth where it pushes the oil from the oil sands up locking the CO2 into the earth, so in the end the oil sand could be not the problem but the solution the CO2. Plus they continue to reduce their "footprint" using carbon sequestration.
http://www.oilweek.com/news.asp?ID=13902
Don't let these people scare you, come to Alberta if you don't believe me we are probably the most naturally beautiful area in North America, and we intend to keep it that way. - inactive, on 02/19/2008, -12/+67but BP said it was fine.......
- khail250, on 02/19/2008, -5/+45propane cannon?? wtf
- rmeyers, on 02/19/2008, -8/+35Canada has some of the toughest environmental laws, so before they are even allowed to start digging, they have to have a plan to show how it will be cleaned up. Reclamation has become one of the largest sectors of oil companies.
- Railer, on 02/19/2008, -27/+54Did you even read what i wrote? Yes it's strip mining with FULL return to the original environment after it's done MINUS the oil in the ground, Could you supply me with a list of plants and animals that prefer the taste of oil in the ground?
- tastypaste, on 02/19/2008, -3/+29And their logo redesign is so naturey-looking. They've got to be pro-environment with a logo like that, right?
- Gromdul, on 02/19/2008, -5/+31This article is neither independent or neutral.
- LtCarter47, on 02/19/2008, -1/+26And the page has to be that wide because....?
- chemdiva, on 02/19/2008, -9/+33you do realize that even though the industries have been promising reclamation since they started not a single hectare has been certified as reclaimed. The only land (a very very small percentage) that has been reclaimed had non-native trees planted with the intent that they be cut down for the wood. Also, you are very mistaken about returning to the "original environment" - no one is even suggesting this anymore, the plans are to reclaim it to be habitable, but most plans now include a giant man-made lake or things like that.
- dasbush, on 02/19/2008, -5/+29Can't wait for Saskatchewan to get in the mix, they have just about as much oil as Alberta! Canadian economy == win;
- Trister0, on 02/19/2008, -12/+36Great! There you go ruining our histeria with those fact things. We can't be outraged if you keep ruining it.
this is digg so... /sarcasm - JP42, on 02/19/2008, -4/+23I live in Alberta and yes parts of it might fit your description of "the most naturally beautiful area in North America". Other parts such as those near strip mining operations used to have beautiful forests, plains and animals, and are now giant open pits where we extract the oil sands. Or they're parts that have an oil pump on them with a few holding ponds with dead birds all around.
Your notion that we're extracting the toxins from the ground and cleaning the earth and putting it back is just ridiculous. The oil was in the ground not on top of it. Things were living in and on the perfectly good top soil that was on top of the oil sand. We're now stripping all the top soil off, extracting the oil from the buried sand, taking out SOME of the oil, and concentrating the rest in huge holding ponds where it becomes runoff or concentrated seepage which goes into rivers and lakes. It then kills the animals that used to live on the land that were previously able to drink the water.
Then you say we put it back and replace everything like it was. Here's a quote from wikipedia:
"The open-pit mining of the Athabasca oils sands destroys the boreal forest and muskeg, as well as changing the natural landscape. The Alberta government does not require companies to restore the land to "original condition" but only to "equivalent land capability". This means that the ability of the land to support various land uses after reclamation is similar to what existed, but that the individual land uses will not necessarily be identical.[25] Since the government considers agricultural land to be equivalent to forest land, oil sands companies have reclaimed mined land to use as pasture for buffalo, rather than restoring it to the original boreal forest and muskeg.[citation needed]" - luxxu, on 02/19/2008, -7/+25silly fanatics. i work for a big bad oil company in calgary.
do you know that for 3 years before a site has even started construction, MASSIVE environmental studies are undertaken? did you know the multibillion dollar well sites have been suspended because it would involve uprooting ONE little family of protected wildlife?
environmental regulation here is NUTS. reclamation is BY FAR the biggest department. - DeFex, on 02/19/2008, -2/+19Hank Hill sells them.
- BigW, on 02/19/2008, -0/+16Prairies, in my opinion are very beautiful places too. Natural beauty comes in many different flavors.
- Chahrlie5, on 02/19/2008, -22/+37People complain about oil prices yet they don't want us to find more oil, instead they just bitch.
Grow a ***** pair already. - boxlight, on 02/19/2008, -27/+42Typical reactionary crap from environmental fanatics.
- zigspective, on 02/19/2008, -19/+34Railer is a perfect example of an Albertan denier. They like the improvements to the economy (and hey who wouldn't, there's basically no such thing as a minimum wage job there anymore) so they come up with lots of excuses on why it's a good thing to rip the oil out as fast as possible with little concern for the future. That said most of the people I encounter on the subject are at least mildly concerned about the effects, I would say the overall feeling is uneasy, but right now both the Alberta provincial government and the federal government is run by people who would put making profit over the environment and peoples' welfare any day.
- m3mn0n, on 02/19/2008, -3/+17We're like Texas with snow.
And personally, I'm going to call on others in my city to double their water usage so our cash cow doesn't look so bad. - sporg, on 02/19/2008, -3/+16Railer I don't see how you can defend huge ponds of toxic waste open to the air and your claims that the process helps the environment are suspect. You give references to websites which are heavily influenced if not directly controlled by the oil industry. Please show me some information from an independant source that backs up your claims.
- galanz, on 02/19/2008, -0/+13BP's not in the oil sands.
They sold off their heavy oil projects to CNRL back in 99. - illycoffee, on 02/19/2008, -9/+22"Producing a barrel of oil from the oil sands produces three times more greenhouse gas emissions than a barrel of conventional oil."
Very deceiving line -- 3 x Very Little = Very Little - kelly, on 02/19/2008, -22/+35Waiting for a digg user to find a way to blame America or Christians for this as well.
- Railer, on 02/19/2008, -0/+12I've been here 40 years, I suggest you drive out to those prairies, in the fall, find a small hill, or if you go to the badlands stop there and watch the sun set for hours and you will actually see every color in the universe. After that look up and look at the billions of stars in the galaxy and the thin white strip called the milky way galaxy. If you're not a little impressed by the greatness of it all, well you're dead inside.
- pedo, on 02/19/2008, -4/+15buried because i had to scroll horizontally (and my screen res is 1280x1024)
- nickrct, on 02/19/2008, -4/+15Before you listen to Railer. Look closely at his profile. Over 60 stories submitted...most following these themes. Global Warming is Fake, Science is Bogus, Left wing nuts try to restrict corporate activities. 'Railer' = anagram for 'Re: Liar'
- northrock007, on 02/19/2008, -6/+17I was born here (in Calgary) and this province is not going to allow anything to get in the way of industry. Growth at at any cost. The guys downtown with Porsche, BMWs etc and huge houses don't care about what the issues are. Greed full ahead! I am ashamed of what is happening. It is ugly, irreversible and growing fast.
Unlike other prairie provinces Alberta is situated right against the Rockies and really is one of the more interesting and beautiful places to visit (in the summertime). But up North it's looking like a lunar landscape.... - EarlOfLade, on 02/19/2008, -2/+13It saves ... ummm trees?
- levitron, on 02/19/2008, -0/+11Uses propane to make a big bang at set intervals. Obviously you've never been to a farm...
- DeadlyAlpaca, on 02/19/2008, -7/+18I'm heading up to work in the oil sands in May for 8 months. Don't worry guys, I'll let them know you aren't happy with the current state of things.
- jgzman, on 02/19/2008, -2/+13Dugg for being pedantic.
- Gromdul, on 02/19/2008, -3/+14Worst website design ever. OK maybe "ever" is a bit extreme. Running Firefox on this iMac, the website was hard coded to be so wide that I could not view the entire width of it in a maximized window.
- MacEnvy, on 02/19/2008, -6/+16Ever been to Alberta? It's like Alabama with snow. They didn't need any prodding from us in the states.
- idconvict, on 02/19/2008, -4/+14saying something stupid and unfunny then putting //s does not make it funny
- evil-doer, on 02/19/2008, -4/+14Their
- gkwillie, on 02/19/2008, -2/+11You are right. No part of B.C. could be considered ugly, especially not the slum areas of North Vancouver
None of these provencial parks could be considered beautiful either
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Alberta_provi ...
and Banff National park is definitely a *****, the UNESCO world heritage site ***** hole.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Rocky_Mounta ...
Nobody considers Montana beautiful either. - JasonCox, on 02/19/2008, -1/+10Dugg because I just saw propane cannons on Dirty Jobs.
- kgrandia, on 02/19/2008, -1/+10The issues in the oil sands are not as cut and dry as some would like them to be:
"The oil sands actually remove the oil from the land and clean the sand and then reclaim the land."
The oil sands underlie approximately 149,000 square kilometres of Alberta’s northeastern boreal forest – roughly 23% of the province. This forest is thriving with wildlife and vegetation and is not toxic. Canada’s boreal forest contains 35% of the world’s wetlands and has the largest coverage of peatlands in the world. It provides habitat for many important wildlife species and has the highest diversity of breeding bird species in North America.
"what the tailing pond are bi products from the soil, salts, minerals, that you don't want ducks landing on or drinking, it's like salty mud, but it's not unnatural they recycle the water from the ponds it drys up and they bury in where they found it."
In these ponds, the sand, silt and fine clays slowly settle to the bottom. Then as much water as possible is pumped back to the extraction plant and reused in the extraction process. Because of the bitumen that remains in the tailings, the ponds pose a number of environmental risks including the migration of pollutants into the groundwater system and leakage into the surrounding soil and surface water. One such group of pollutants are the naphthenic acids that are a naturally occurring family of compounds found in bitumen. During the bitumen extraction process, these acids become concentrated and end up in the tailings ponds. The concentration of naturally occurring naphthenic acids in rivers in the region is generally below 1 milligram per litre (mg/ L) but may be as high as 110 mg/L in tailings ponds.
The ultimate objective is to wait for the fine clay particles to settle in the tailings and become what is known as fluid fine tailings. This can take anywhere from a few decades to 150 years depending on the technology employed.
"Processing the oil sands uses enough natural gas in a day to heat 3 million homes in Canada. - Yes this is true, but we don't need the gas and we do need the oil, nuclear is also an option."
September 2004. Energy Pulse in depth article on supply, demand and pricing
Summary: "Natural gas is somewhere between a limit to growth and a disaster waiting to happen right now, and no one is doing anything about it. Only a few months of inclement weather will cause severe shortages and rocketing price spikes. There is a high risk of major availability declines with unimaginable economic impact, and there is no supply side solution."
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. - Yes but actually we are working on that, and I mean we as an Albertan, I have nothing to actually do with the oil sands.
Greenhouse-gas emissions from Alberta's oil sands would be allowed to rise dramatically under a draft version of the government's long-anticipated climate-change plan obtained by The Globe and Mail.
Second story: Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach, whose recently-announced climate change plan has been criticized for falling short of what other provinces are doing, is leaving early. The province announced last week that it plans reductions in carbon dioxide emissions of 14 per cent below 2005 levels by 2050.
Here's a great report put out last year by the Pembina Institute on the environmental impacts of the oil sands. http://www.oilsandswatch.org/pub/203 - LilBoyLuver, on 02/19/2008, -8/+17@iamnos, Railer is not saying that people have not been able to live near there but plants and animals. I think that most of you completely ignored the excellent argument that Railer gave in defense of this article.
@amonthei, What the hell was that about? Railer presented factual arguments to all of the articles major points and backed it up with sources. Did you want a PowerPoint with fancy slide transitions? - dinostabOMG, on 02/19/2008, -15/+24That all sounds pretty good... but none of your sources is neutral and independent. Can you show us anything like that? It's hard to believe such vested interests.
- ta10n, on 02/19/2008, -1/+9Citing something from wikipedia and ending with [citation needed] makes for a very weak looking argument.
- Railer, on 02/19/2008, -1/+9We have thousands of great fishing lakes actually.
- paulsuckow, on 02/19/2008, -3/+11i don't see anyone else mentioning the main reason not to mine shales and oil sands, and that is its massive contribution to anthropogenic global warming.
- apetrie, on 02/19/2008, -2/+10No, you're not. If you believe that American Christians are anything but the ones doing the majority of the repressing then you need to wake up. Learn the difference between persecution and backlash. If you feel there is a lot of negativity directed towards your group, perhaps you should research the reasons for it instead of feeling sorry for yourself and telling yourself you're innocent. That being said, this discussion has nothing to do with this article and you should be ashamed of yourself for hijacking it to feed your misguided martyr complex. Get over yourself, not everything is about you.
- sporg, on 02/19/2008, -3/+11 Basically the comapnies are mining the oil sands non stop 24 hours and they have "promised" to return the land to original condition at some point in the future but absolutely ZERO cleanup or recycling of water has happened thus far. It took me all of five minutes to find that out.
It is doubtful that they will ever undertake cleanup measures in any significant way. Much easier to make millions while they can then dump the project when it becomes less profitable and leave the cleanup for the government and citzens to pay for.
The massive ponds of accumulated toxic stew have already been leaking into the ground water. I would like to see a detailed list of exactly what chemicals and in what concentrations make up those tailing pools. I dont see that data published on the Canada Energy website. - ssmith2k3, on 02/19/2008, -0/+8i didnt know either so i looked it up. i think it's some kind of device that blasts noise periodically to frighten birds.
- vortexgenerator, on 02/19/2008, -1/+8(adj) : like a pedant, overly concerned with formal rules and trivial points of learning; being showy of one’s knowledge, often in a boring manner
- roodammy44, on 02/19/2008, -5/+12It's still retarded.
Humankind should be *reducing* carbon output, not increasing the amount to take it out of the ground and then burning more.
Solar and wind should be the technologies to invest in. Why not coat the deserts of nevada with solar arrays?
Burying massive amounts of CO2 worries me. What happens if there's an earthquake and it leaks 10 years after it's buried? Instant global warming? - GoneSouth, on 02/19/2008, -5/+12Report fails to mention that the afflicted area is millions of square miles of permafrost and swampland that's 40 below most of the winter and infested with mosquitos during the 2 months of summer. Nobody would live there if it weren't for the oil.
- thall, on 02/19/2008, -4/+11The article gives us one side of the story, those links give us the other side, making things more neutral!
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