Comments on: In Alberta, Pigs Do Fly

By: Russell Seitz

Russell Seitz — Mon, 11 May 2015 00:25:25 +0000

Greg has one month to persuade Bill Koch to buy out his less intelligent older brothers’s Heartland contract, and take over this year’s Heartland Special Climate Olympics.

Let the games begin !

By: Omega Centauri

Omega Centauri — Wed, 06 May 2015 22:29:09 +0000

As much as I hope this really is indicative of a general leftward shift, much of it might simply be a voter reaction to the bad local economy, and the governments attempts to raise taxes and cut programs to reduce the provincial deficit. Sort of reminds me of when Bush senior’s non-new-taxes pledge bit him in 92. The economy (and government revenues) are down because of the oil price drop.

By: GregH

GregH — Wed, 06 May 2015 21:40:38 +0000

I've lived in Alberta for 58 years, and we always called them the Tar Sands. I'm pretty sure "Oil Sands" is the product of an oil industry focus group. Here's a short article about the Koch brothers' presence in Alberta. Very interesting stuff!

By: John Irving

John Irving — Wed, 06 May 2015 20:33:21 +0000

David (#16):

“On a lifetime basis, a gallon of gasoline made from tar sands produces about 15% more carbon dioxide emissions than one made from conventional oil.”

http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_vehicles/why-clean-cars/oil-use/what-are-tar-sands.html

—–

I will continue to refer to the tar sands using the original term, the one the industry tried to disappear for PR reasons to make them sound cleaner, and encourage others to do likewise:

“Engineers, geologists, and rig workers have always used “tar sands” and “oil sands” interchangeably in the past. Karl Clark, the chemist who discovered how to turn bitumen into synthetic oil, didn’t mind calling them the “tar sands.” Neither did Howard Pew, the Sun Oil boss whose quirky curiosity led to their commercialization. The people of Alberta know and revere these names; they aren’t really as afraid of the T-word as they let on.”

Don’t call them ‘tar sands’

The industry-approved lingo for Alberta’s hydrocarbon gunk is ‘oil sands’

http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/oil-by-any-other-name/

By: Donal

Donal — Wed, 06 May 2015 19:59:15 +0000

Bitumen is cooked with copious amounts of natural gas, and becomes a viscous synthetic petroleum. For transport it is diluted with condensates and called diluted bitumen, or dilbit, which is hotter and more difficult to transport by either method than ordinary crude. After making it to US processing plants, roughly 15% of dilbit ends up as a petroleum coke byproduct. ‘Pet coke’ is like a charcoal containing heavy metals, sulphur and other impurities removed from dilbit during the coking part of the refining process. As an alternative fuel in coal-fired powerplants, pet coke produces 5 – 10% more greenhouse gases than coal.

Pet Coke should be called Pet Koch, because the largest US sellers are Koch Carbon, owned by Charles and David Koch, and Oxbow Corporation, owned by William I Koch. Pet coke is often sold to Asian and South American firms for energy production.

By: Chakat Firepaw

Chakat Firepaw — Wed, 06 May 2015 19:47:10 +0000

Sorry David, but those deposits have long been called tar sands. Calling them oil sands is an oil industry PR effort.

By: Aaron Luchko

Aaron Luchko — Wed, 06 May 2015 19:28:45 +0000

David (#16),

My understanding is that yes, per unit of oil a pipeline is by far the most efficient way to transport it, but creating a pipeline means that far more of the oil gets extracted and shipped, thus raising the total environmental impact.

I’m skeptical that the oil sands only 4% dirtier as my understanding has been that the process is much more energy intensive than conventional oil.

Doug, the refinery idea has always struck me as a logical one, which raises the question of why it hasn’t been done already.

By: Doug Alder

Doug Alder — Wed, 06 May 2015 19:23:21 +0000

David (#16) Unless of course you build a refinery in AB in which case problem solved for transporting dilbit by pipeline (well except for inside the province) – The provincial government should build the refinery and take a cut of the profits – they do not come anywhere near extracting enough value for the province out of that resource.

By: David Clark

David Clark — Wed, 06 May 2015 18:29:48 +0000

There are no “tar sands” in Alberta, just oil sands, or to be more exact, bitumen sands (not tar). Oil Sands oil is only about 4% “dirtier” than other oil. US coal burning has a GHG impact that is FAR greater. And if oil doesn’t ship by pipelines, then it goes by rail, which is much more dangerous, costly, bigger carbon footprint, etc.

By: Andy Skuce

Andy Skuce — Wed, 06 May 2015 18:29:21 +0000

I don’t think Notley is against KXL or Northern Gateway, she simply decided to focus government lobbying on the two big projects the Alberta government has influence over and that stand a chance of being approved: TransMountain and Energy East.

A Premier of Alberta simply cannot be anti-oilsands. In fact, her more moderate advocacy and openness on talking about emissions reduction may even reduce polarization and help the pipeline projects along.