The oil extracted from tar sands is described even by the proponents of the project as "heavy." It is also extremely "dirty" oil, meaning that the refinery might well not be able to produce gasoline from it. The whole argument for the Alberta tar sands/Keystone XL project is full of holes.

It is increasingly clear that fracking poses risks that had been anticipated by few. Contamination of groundwater supplies was already a serious worry, but greasing the way for old faults to slip is another substantial worry.

In both cases, the fossil fuel industry is doing its best, without regard to environmental costs from the point of origin to the point of use, to persuade us that fossil fuels have a bright and necessary future for the U.S. We are inundated by their advertising, usually with good spokespersons (who may be actors despite the badges they wear). We have known for decades that the time will come when we have no choice but to free ourselves of our carbon-fueled economy. Yet even the Obama Administration is less than vigorous in pursuing that goal. (I know that there was an apparently misguided investment in solar cell technology.) To all appearances, we are still running on the energy policy that Dick Cheney hammered out in secret with industry executives. We have a Dept. of the Interior headed by a Secretary who has a vested interest in the economies of petroleum-rich states, although he pushed petroleum industry reforms while an official in Colorado. We have a President who once correctly proclaimed that there is no such thing as clean coal energy but then reversed himself when he thought he would need the electoral votes of West Virginia. Maybe something can happen in a second term.

Bill McKibben had some interesting things to say about the pipeline in conversation at the WaPoo today. He's one of the leaders of the fight against it.

http://live.washingtonpost.com/keystone ... 20119.html

McKibben says that BC is against the pipeline coming through that province. That should tell us something about the wisdom of permitting it here. The Province of Alberta runs on production of fossil fuels, and it may be isolated in its willingness to tolerate environmental abominations.

That's why it's tar. very low level of volatiles.

Which part of the story told by the industry and the Government of Alberta is true (if any)?

This video is from the Government of Alberta and strives to make the case that tar sands will "fill in" the gap left by declining petroleum reserves -- and we are getting a lot better at extracting the tar!!! Listen to the nice man.



A long version, also from the Government of Alberta, is http://www.youtube.com./watch?v=UGx5_2IYZ4Y

I am inclined to believe this video:

You guys do know that the billions upon billions of barrels lying beneath the tar sands and the rockies is not crude oil, it's shale oil. Crude and shale are two different types of oil. Shale is as different from crude in uses in automobiles as crude is to coal or corn oil. Shale oil is actually called kerogen. So the fact that the righwing are so insistent we start drilling shale oil in the rockies and tar sands is a demonstration of admission that crude oil has reached it's peak in North America, they are indirectly admitting to the fact that there is a need for an alternative.

It takes a considerable amount of energy to dig for shale oil and to then eventually convert it to an appropriate fuel. If shale oil was so readily available to be converted into an alternative fuel, one would have assumed the oil companies would be in mass drilling in the rockies and tar sands. BP and Shell have carried out tests and drills, they've done decades of research in the rockies testing shale oil. Shell is still there to this day, doing research on finding ways to more easily convert Shale... they've been there since 79' since the previous oil crises.... by the looks of it, they haven't made all that much progress.

The drill baby drill crowd insists that oil companies are being restricted by the federal government hence our lack of energy independence... they point to the billions of barrels of oil still left hidden beneath the U.S.... ya know, we don't call it oil reserves for nothing.

The Government of Alberta is thoroughly complicit in this obfuscation. Their videos are about "oil sands," not about "tar sands." The Province claims to be the most prosperous of all Canada's provinces, entirely because of some form or another of fossil fuel. Listen to Alberta's Minister of the Environment discuss how he plans to protect investments while ensuring a sustainable future. It does not enter his mind that the two are incompatible. In the meantime, the rate of growth of CO₂ emissions from Canada exceeds that of any other G-8 nation.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6ya9p_alberta-s-tar-sands-czar-canada-s-s_news

BBC News US & Canada Keystone XL: TransCanada submits new route for review

Dependence on fossil fuels can go on a while longer.

The Sandhills of Nebraska is an "environmentally sensitive land"? Well, wonders never cease. I was born and raised in the Sandhills. If you are looking for a very quiet place to live where the only sound is the wind blowing, then you have found the perfect spot. Nothing but cows, sand and wind!

When I read T.S. Eliot's, "The Wasteland", my first thought was that he had once visited the Sandhills.

It's what is under the Sand Hills -- out of sight and out of mind -- that matters. The Ogallala aquifer has its deepest points in the Sand Hills. For most of the eight states in which it is found, it is rather shallow (less than 100 feet deep).

The Ogallala aquifer matters because:

Draw down of the aquifer's resources began in the 1950s with the irrigation of fields throughout the Great Plains. Levels have generally been dropping ever since.

Yes, I do know about Nebraska's greatest asset, that being the Ogallala or High Plains Aquifer. My graduate degree is in hydrogeology and I have studied "my aquifer" for over 25 years. The Sandhills is the largest contiguous sand body in North America (on average 180 x 60 miles). The aquifer truly is Nebraska's natural resource gem. Not sure where their new proposed alignment will go, but they should have fun digging in the loess deposits east of the Sandhills.

This is supposed to be the proposal for the new route -- just a short eastward jog to avoid the Sand Hills. Is this the area of the loess deposits? Note that the new route continues to traverse part of the area of the aquifer.

The eastern 1/3 of Nebraska is covered by loess. Loess is a very fine grained particle (silt-sized). The Nebraska loess deposits are aeolian (like the Sandhills). The loess was created by the continental glaciers, which ground the rock into flour. After the glaciers retreated, that fine grained material was deposited in eastern Nebraska by the wind. The main difference between the deposition of the Sandhills and the loess deposits is the intensity of the wind.

Is there any scientific reason for thinking that traversing the loess deposits is safer for the aquifer than traversing the Sand Hills?

Doesn't the proposed route still traverse parts of the former Great Sioux Reservation and the Badlands National Park?

The White House will not go forward with Keystone pipeline plan. With the clearance to build the southern part of the pipeline, it looks to me as if the Obama Administration is proceeding full steam ahead with the plan to vastly increase the extraction of tar from the Athabaskan tar sands of Alberta and to pump that tar across the width of the United States to coastal facilities that will enable the companies involved to ship this "oil" out of the country.



There are First Peoples who live(d) there.

Sorry for not replying sooner. A hard drive crash has made the last few days interesting!!

The Sandhills are unique. As I mentioned before, they are the largest contiguous sand body in North America. That large "pile" of aeolean sand is extremely permeable, which is why there is a very large mound of water under the dunes. The recharge to the Ogallala Aquifer is almost exclusively from the percolation of rain water down through the dunes. Many years ago when I was in grad school, my research project for Fluvial Geomorphology was to compute a water budget for the Snake River that runs through the Sandhills. Although the annual rainfall in the Sandhills is only 15 to 18 inches, over 8" of that precipitation recharges the Ogallala Aquifer. For the Snake River, direct surface runoff only contributes 4% to its flow. The remaining 96% comes from the discharge of seeps and springs along the river.

The Sandhills have been labeled an "environmentally sensitive" area because of the possibility of large-scale contamination of the aquifer when the pipeline fails. The loess deposits to the east have a thickness of only a few feet. Also, the silt-sized loess particles are much less transmissive than sand. The inevitable spill would likely not have the same broad impact to the underlying aquifer as it would in the Sandhills. I am not saying that the latest proposed route for the pipeline is better because it misses the Sandhills.

A TED Talk by conservation photographer Garth Lenz from more than a year ago, recently posted by Little Green Footballs.

http://www.ted.com/talks/garth_lenz_images_of_beauty_and_devastation.html


It is hard to exaggerate how very bad for the planet and its inhabitants this project is. However, Alberta is BOOMING.