A Book on the Tar Sands that Everyone Should Read.

[G Huxley]

The Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent by Andrew Nikoforuk.

The tar sands in Alberta is perhaps the most environmentally destructive extraction technique on the planet. For hundreds of miles covering the areas of small countries the entire ground soil, earth, wetlands, ponds, forests, wildlife is being removed to get at the bituminous sand underneath. It is actually far worse than clear cutting. In clear cutting at least when you remove the trees, you still leave the forest floor and plant new trees in its place. In this technique even the forest floor is removed as well.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1553655559

[Topaz]

I agree with you but I heard the minister say, "there's no tar in the oil". True or false?

[The_Squid]

I agree with you but I heard the minister say, "there's no tar in the oil". True or false?

False. Tar is usually a refined substance, but the same word also refers to bitumen; natural deposits of tar. Also called "pitch".

[Keepitsimple]

For hundreds of miles covering the areas of small countries the entire ground soil, earth, wetlands, ponds, forests, wildlife is being removed to get at the bituminous sand underneath.

Mr. Huxley - you might be interested in a few facts:

1) the Oil Sands lie under an area that is about 142,000 square kilometers (SK).

2) after 45 years of existance, only a little over 700 SK have been disturbed - a pinprick as seen from a sattelite.

3) the oil sands account for 7% of Canada's emissions. Canada accounts for 2% of Global emissions. The Oil Sands therefore account for less than two-tenths of 1% of Global emissions.

Should we continue to make the extraction process cleaner? Certainly. Can we speed up land reclamation? Within the reality of Mother Nature, sure. But it's hardly the armageddon that breathless eco-nuts would have us believe. Put in perspective, the rants are ludicrous.

Edited June 27, 2013 by Keepitsimple

[PIK]

And in al gore's state of tenn, their coal fired plants produce 3 times the CO2 that the oil sands produce, and the forest up their is scrub land. At one time the oil companies just burned that stuff, now they are chipping it instead. The industry is doing what it can to clean it's slef up. The worst thing is the canadians that fall for all this crap and are willing to destroy the economy and destroy people lives, just to keep foriegn interests happy. You are cutting your own throat, while USA, CHINA, INDIA and others get to keep producing the stuff. Shutting down all of canada would not put a dent in the global emmisions. Canadians can be so dumb.

[G Huxley]

I agree with you but I heard the minister say, "there's no tar in the oil". True or false?

The tar sands are made of bitumen. Bitumen in ancient times was called asphalt and is still used interchangeably as asphalt today. If tar doesn't make asphalt what does? Tar sands is the correct term.

[G Huxley]

Keepitsimple your own statements show the falseness of your conclusion.

Only a small pinprick of the tar sands have been exploited yet. (700 sq k.)

When they are fully exploited there's 142,000 square kilometers utterly devastated. To put that into context that's 40,000 square kilometers more than the face of the entire country of Bulgaria and between 4 and between 3 to 4 times the size of the entire country of Denmark.

The only reason it hasn't been exploited much before is because mining the tar sands is so incredibly inefficient only peak oil and high enough oil prices can drive full exploitation, which is what is being banked on.

Edited June 26, 2013 by G Huxley

[G Huxley]

PIK the insane mining techniques for coal in Apallachia is very similar to tar sands mining.

The India China angle doesn't have sway. We are giving away the tar sands to China (see Harper allowing Nexen one of the biggest tar sands companies to be sold off to China). The Northern Gateway project was designed to send tar sands oil to burned off in China with estimates of at least a thousand gallons of gas predicted to be spilled in B.C. waters each year (also why it didn't go through).

Giving away our resources to China is traitorous. If we want to be turned into another Africa its a great way to go by the Quislings that make the Harper government and their backers making away like thieves off the transactions while Canada is sold for scrap. If you aren't embarrassed by that frankly you don't give a damn about the future of Canada.

Edited June 26, 2013 by G Huxley

[Argus]

The Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent by Andrew Nikoforuk.

The tar sands in Alberta is perhaps the most environmentally destructive extraction technique on the planet. For hundreds of miles covering the areas of small countries the entire ground soil, earth, wetlands, ponds, forests, wildlife is being removed to get at the bituminous sand underneath. It is actually far worse than clear cutting. In clear cutting at least when you remove the trees, you still leave the forest floor and plant new trees in its place. In this technique even the forest floor is removed as well.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1553655559

Fifty years from now you won't even know there'd been a mine there.

http://www.syncrude.ca/users/folder.asp?FolderID=5909

[Argus]

PIK the insane mining techniques for coal in Apallachia is very similar to tar sands mining.

The India China angle doesn't have sway. We are giving away the tar sands to China (see Harper allowing Nexen one of the biggest tar sands companies to be sold off to China). The Northern Gateway project was designed to send tar sands oil to burned off in China with estimates of at least a thousand gallons of gas predicted to be spilled in B.C. waters each year (also why it didn't go through).

Giving away our resources to China is traitorous.

Given they had to BUY Nexen, and that they'd have to BUY any oil we shipped, that really doesn't mesh well with your 'give away' theme.

[Keepitsimple]

Keepitsimple your own statements show the falseness of your conclusion.

Only a small pinprick of the tar sands have been exploited yet. (700 sq k.)

When they are fully exploited there's 142,000 square kilometers utterly devastated. To put that into context that's 40,000 square kilometers more than the face of the entire country of Bulgaria and between 4 and between 3 to 4 times the size of the entire country of Denmark.

The only reason it hasn't been exploited much before is because mining the tar sands is so incredibly inefficient only peak oil and high enough oil prices can drive full exploitation, which is what is being banked on.

Huxley - it's statements like that that show the foolish naivite or willful blindness of eco-extremists. Only a very, very small percentage of the Athabaska Oil Sands contains economically recoverable oil. We could double the amount we produce today and it still wouldn't register on the Global emissions scale. By the time we find a way to do that - we'll be using fusion power, for heaven's sake. Canada has a very short window of perhaps another 40 years to take advantage of our oil reserves to help fund our generous and caring society.

[waldo]

Fifty years from now you won't even know there'd been a mine there.

http://www.syncrude.ca/users/folder.asp?FolderID=5909

there are a few companies that seem to be taking reclamation serious... Syncrude, Suncor come to mind. However, as of Jan 2013, only 0.15% of the tarsands area disturbed by mining has been certified as reclaimed by the Alberta government. Reclamation will not bring the area back to its natural boreal forest state... there will be no semblance of the previous natural prominence of wetlands and peatlands. The most controversial "solution" being proposed as a part of the full reclamation concerns dealing with the ginormous tailings ponds and their toxic best... a proposal, unproven, presumes to pump the tailings toxic waste into old abandoned mine pits and cap them with fresh water. Who doesn't like a new lake!

[waldo]

2) after 45 years of existance, only a little over 700 SK have been disturbed - a pinprick as seen from a sattelite.

you keep tripping yourself up on this. You keep speaking to surface mining area and ignoring in-situ extraction. 80% of the full tarsands is available to in-situ methods... should the companies pursue it 'to the max'.

3) the oil sands account for 7% of Canada's emissions. Canada accounts for 2% of Global emissions. The Oil Sands therefore account for less than two-tenths of 1% of Global emissions.

you keep ignoring the 2-fer: with an emphasis on new markets/exports, the emissions you speak of (Canada's hit) are the emissions associated with extraction processing... or upgraders if taken that far. This has nothing to do with the use/burning of the 'crud' by export countries and the emissions they generate. More pointedly, the massive tarsands expansions deter, to varying degrees, other export countries from emphasizing/shifting away from fossil-fuels towards alternatives.

[Newfoundlander]

The Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent by Andrew Nikoforuk.

The tar sands in Alberta is perhaps the most environmentally destructive extraction technique on the planet. For hundreds of miles covering the areas of small countries the entire ground soil, earth, wetlands, ponds, forests, wildlife is being removed to get at the bituminous sand underneath. It is actually far worse than clear cutting. In clear cutting at least when you remove the trees, you still leave the forest floor and plant new trees in its place. In this technique even the forest floor is removed as well.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1553655559

Maybe you can ask Nikoforuk for a tinfoil hat if you don't have your own yet.

[waldo]

Maybe you can ask Nikoforuk for a tinfoil hat if you don't have your own yet.

insightful! Can you elaborate?

[G Huxley]

Probably not.

[G Huxley]

Given they had to BUY Nexen, and that they'd have to BUY any oil we shipped, that really doesn't mesh well with your 'give away' theme.

So they bought Nexen which controlled a large portion of CANADA's resources. Now they have the rights to it. So they aren't buying it from us anymore they already own a huge portion of the tar sands. Now its simply being sent off to China, and those profitting are the Chinese, not even Canadians. The only people who won out of this deal in Canada were a few rich traders. The rest of Canada loses. The Chinese did the same thing to Africa in the 20th century. They bought up all the local resources so that the local corrupt elites benefitting from the trades, now China owns much of the resources and the Africans get little in return for it. In fact the Chinese treat Africa somewhat as a colony.

Selling Canada for scrap to totalitarian one party China is a crime no matter how badly you want to whitewash it. It is what it is the treason is done.

Edited June 27, 2013 by G Huxley

[Bryan]

I agree with you but I heard the minister say, "there's no tar in the oil". True or false?

True. Tar is a man-made substance. It's not semantics that the proper term is Oilsands. Bitumen is just that: heavy grade crude oil. As soon as someone insists on using the term "Tarsands". You immediately know this is a left-wing activist, not someone actually trying to impart factual information.

[waldo]

True. Tar is a man-made substance. It's not semantics that the proper term is Oilsands. Bitumen is just that: heavy grade crude oil. As soon as someone insists on using the term "Tarsands". You immediately know this is a left-wing activist, not someone actually trying to impart factual information.

tarsands was the original name. Apparently, industry didn't care for the connotation - go figure... hence the marketing driven charge to change the name. When someone objects to the use of the original term "tarsands", as you say, "you immediately know this is a right-wing apologist, not someone actually trying to impart factual information". See how that works?

[G Huxley]

Bitumen is a term used for natural deposits of oil "tar" – such as at the La Brea Tar Pits.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Brea_Tar_Pits
he La Brea Tar Pits (or Rancho La Brea Tar Pits) are a group of tar pits around which Hancock Park was formed, in urban Los Angeles. Asphaltum or tar (brea in Spanish) has seeped up from the ground in this area for tens of thousands of years. The tar is often covered with dust, leaves, or water.

Asphaltum is bitumin and has been called such since Ancient times.

[gunrutz]

The tar sands are made of bitumen. Bitumen in ancient times was called asphalt and is still used interchangeably as asphalt today. If tar doesn't make asphalt what does? Tar sands is the correct term.

Lol have you reached that straw yet? No, tar doesn't make ashphalt, people do.

[gunrutz]

Btw, do you think oil comes out of the ground everywhere else free of contaminants like say sand? You do realize that the "tar sands" are just petroleum mixed with sand right? it isnt some form of alien substance, it is a completely natural part of the planet, and petroleum comes in many different grades out of the ground and requires different levels of refining depending upon where it comes from. This whole effort to paint this particualr oil as somehow more evil that the others is utterly ridiculous, it takes more effort to refine, thats all, it is still just oil (petroleum). Just as there are different grades of coal.

[waldo]

This whole effort to paint this particualr oil as somehow more evil that the others is utterly ridiculous, it takes more effort to refine, thats all, it is still just oil (petroleum). Just as there are different grades of coal.

evil? Try dirtier - as in a significantly higher carbon emissions intensity.

well-to-wheel emissions:

conventional crude => @88 gCO₂/MJ

tarsands: e.g.; surface mining => @107 gCO₂/MJ // in-situ => @116 gCO₂/MJ // Dilbit => 110 gCO₂/MJ

much to the consternation of Harper Conservatives, the EU (during its recent fuel-directive pursuit) did the relative comparison of the tarsands to its imported conventional sources... per the related following graph, the tarsands 'most likely average' reflects upon the surface mining emissions intensity @107 gCO₂/MJ. Apparently, there's something about this adding to the difficulty Harper Conservatives are having in securing that EU Free Trade agreement - go figure!

(source: Pembina Institute)

[Bryan]

Bitumen is a term used for natural deposits of oil "tar" – such as at the La Brea Tar Pits.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Brea_Tar_Pits

he La Brea Tar Pits (or Rancho La Brea Tar Pits) are a group of tar pits around which Hancock Park was formed, in urban Los Angeles. Asphaltum or tar (brea in Spanish) has seeped up from the ground in this area for tens of thousands of years. The tar is often covered with dust, leaves, or water.

Asphaltum is bitumin and has been called such since Ancient times.

Quoting Wikipedia isn't really helping your case. Even still, if you actually read the articles you provided, and followed the links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar

Tar refers to the substance obtained from a variety of organic materials through destructive distillation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destructive_distillation

Destructive distillation is the chemical process involving the decomposition of feedstock by heating to a high temperature; the term generally applies to processing of organic material in the absence of air or in the presence of limited amounts of oxygen or other reagents, catalysts, or solvents, such as steam or phenols. It is an application of pyrolysis. The process breaks up or 'cracks' large molecules. Coke, coal gas, gas carbon, coal tar, ammonia liquor, and "coal oil" historically, are examples of commercial products of the destructive distillation of coal.

Tar is a man made substance. The bitumen being extracted in Alberta is not tar. People being honest and treating the subject seriously call the location "Oilsands". Jackasses with a political agenda call them "Tarsands". They specifically choose the word "Tar" because it sounds dirty.

[Scotty]

The Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent by Andrew Nikoforuk.

Are there whips and chains in it? If there's whips and chains I might be interested.