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Posted: 7 months ago by chinook:
For those of you who don't know much about this topic, the Athabasca Oil Sands are tar or oil sands located in northern Alberta, Canada, and are roughly the size of Florida. Some people call them an economic godsent, others call them an ecological disaster. I personally think they are both.
It's a hot topic here in Canada, with proponents and opponents voicing their opinions from everywhere.
My question to the Plime community is this:
Do you feel that further development to places such as this is necessary and/or good? Or do you feel that further development is not worth the environmental distruction it will cause?
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This is an important message for Canadian Plimates:
Make sure to check out the documentary "Tar Sands: The Selling of Alberta" tonight on the CBC at 9, eh?
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Score: [-] 221 [+].
Posted: 7 months ago by icepigs:
I think the decision will be made by Shell, Exxon, BP or whomever else happens to grab the rights to the land.....unfortunately.
I strongly believe that we need to search for alternative fuels, but until they truly become affordable (or fossil fuels become outrageously expensive), we will still dig for oil until we run out.
Score: [-] 185 [+].
Posted: 7 months ago by chinook:
« icepigs : I think the decision will be made by Shell, Exxon, BP or whomever else happens to grab the rights to the land.....unfortunately. Unfortunately, you're right. Our government has the power to halt any further development, but they're a cash cow.
I wish most Canadians could actually see them with their own eyes; they're disgusting and incredible and fascinating and smelly, all at the same time.
Score: [-] 114 [+].
Posted: 7 months ago by donteatpoop:
It's disastrous, ecologically. But no one on this continent seems willing to make any serious moves to environmentally safe alternatives, and the land will undoubtedly be used and abused.
Score: [-] 76 [+].
Posted: 7 months ago by xenity7:
I don't think development is a great idea, but it IS inevitable, unfortunately. The best that can be done is to minimize the damage development does.
Score: [-] 76 [+].
Posted: 7 months ago by blurmore:
Unfortunately...it is inevitable...Unless yall ran out of natural gas (the best extaction process is 2/5 thats 2 units of energy used to produce 5 units of useable oil) or the gas becomes SO expensive a commodity itself, OR if vast new crude reserves are found and tapped somebody is going to want that oily sand. The pressure is only on now when it has relatively recently become profitable (the point I believe is like 85$/barrel oil) to boil this crap down and make oil. The interesting thing is...production of this type will not have a major depressive effect on price until the Arabs can't just open the spigot further to get more oil (which they will if they catch companies making money at this). My opinion? Sit on it. Sit on it until the Arabs dry up, then sell it to THEM at 400 dollars per barrel. By then our (US) economy will have imploded and we will all be coming north to clean your toilets, and harvest your syrup.
Score: [-] 155 [+].
Posted: 7 months ago by wildminou:
Indeed there is somme positive economical facts like jobs, tax revenues, investments for the province. On the other hand, I might be wrong, but all compagnies in this region are chinese or american. So Canada does not really benefit from this activity.
But I have heard so much horrible things about explotation of oil sand. Often Oil sand exploitation is near of major river. Imagine the effects on the Athabasca river, a major one in Alberta. Alberta have a wonderful wildlife, is it in danger...will it be. I know that oil sands mining operations withdraw two at three barrels of fresh water from the river for every barrel of oil they produce.
Considering also the fact that producing a barrel of synthetic crude oil from the tar sands releases up to three times more greenhouse gas pollution than conventional oil (I do not know if it's true)....
Personally, I'm scared, even if it far from Montreal.
Thanks Chinook for the documentary
Score: [-] 95 [+].
Posted: 7 months ago by chinook:
« wildminou : Indeed there is somme positive economical facts like jobs, tax revenues, investments for the province. On the other hand, I might be wrong, but all compagnies in this region are chinese or american. So Canada does not really benefit from this activity. Your information here is a bit inaccurate. The major players in the oil sands region; Syncrude, Suncor, and CNRL are all Canadian. Shell Canada's the only major non-Canadian company in the area, I believe.
It is a major pollution source, and the tailings ponds are just awful. I don't think they are good, but they do provide alot of jobs. It's bad for the environment, but unless all Canadians step up and pollute less, I don't think the exploitation will cease.
I get frustrated when the media portrays Alberta as some giant polluter; Alberta has one of the world's largest wind farms, and Alberta still pollutes much less than Ontario, which has more people and many, many polluting factories.
Score: [-] 81 [+].
Posted: 7 months ago by tundramonkey:
Thanks for the heads up on the CBC doc there.
I think further development is necessary, though not necessarily good. It's inevitable, sadly.
I'd like to say that further development isn't worth the damage, but I know that it's not really true. Canada has a s**tload o' oil, and if oil companies can't go after the oil sands, they'll just turn their attention to the Sverdrup basin and elsewhere in the pristine arctic. Ft. Mac. development seems to be the lesser of the evils, IMO.
Score: [-] 37 [+].
Posted: 7 months ago by theclansman:
Ahh thanks for the reminder on that documentry chinook. My brother worked for syncrude and I went up and visited him there, I have to say I think you described them perfectly.
"they're disgusting and incredible and fascinating and smelly, all at the same time."
Score: [-] 22 [+].
Posted: 5 months ago by chinook:
CBC has some neat pictures from the programme on it's website:
Hey Canadians, CBC's got the documentary on again tonight. I find it especially interesting to watch now that I'm living in Sask amid all the talk of tarsands development here.
Score: [-] 21 [+].
Posted: 5 months ago by rambler:
« chinook:CBC has some neat pictures from the programme on it's website:
Hey Canadians, CBC's got the documentary on again tonight. I find it especially interesting to watch now that I'm living in Sask amid all the talk of tarsands development here. Pity I can't watch CBC out here...
Interesting discussion about development vs. conservation in this thread, though. Don't know how I missed it so far, it's one of my hobby horses...
My own belief? We need development, unless we are prepared to live in caves and eat berries again, and let millions of people starve. And of course if we don't have conservation, mankind may end up like that anyway one day, except that there won't be any berries left. So it is clear to me that we need both, and that we need balance, and responsibility.
That balance between the developers and the conservationists needs to be moderated by government - usually that is the weak link. Frequently we see the developing (mining, oil) companies themselves actually taking on some of that responsibility.
Score: [-] 0 [+].
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