The propaganda also is that over time the forests will be replaced through restoration when open pit mining is finished. That would be a lie, so these forests are permanently lost. Entire carbon sinks are gone. The open pit mining is ONLY one of the methods used to remove the tar sands oil. The methods damage the land so severely there is no restoring it because the oil at the surface will not provide for restoration and the water within these forests are polluted. If there is ever to be return of these carbon sinks it would require centuries if not millennium. Certainly these carbon sink forest with their sequestration won't be returned in my generation or the next. Will never happen.
I ask myself how desperate is the petroleum industry? Are they the least bit conservationists in any form? The answer is no. There are innumerable examples over the history of this industry to PROVE the inhumanity through employee deaths and the complete disregard of the natural world. The damage this industry causes on a global basis is nearly inconceivable. If this industry continues habitable areas for human beings, yet alone wildlife, will disappear. We are already seeing that in hydraulic fracturing. This extraction has the same reality. So the more the industry continues in this manner in Canada the more land that will be lost to an uninhabitable status.
Should I believe the absolute worse about the activities of this industry? Absolutely.
The method of extraction of the Canadian Oil Sands is called "in situ". The "in site" method of extracting oil sands should be illegal.
The open pit mining of these oil sands is the SUPERFICIAL method of extraction. There are bitumen deposits that are SOLID below the superficial open pit mine. This so called mining is far worse than any form of coal mining. "In situ" mining means 'within the site.' It is actually a medical term. How sick is that? But, the process is to use WATER, very precious water supplies and heat it. Thousands and thousands of gallons, ultimately millions and millions of gallons of hot water injected into the ground as steam to boil the solid bitumen below these superficial open pit mining sites.
The solid bitumen boils with the injected steam and then is pumped out of the ground. There was a unexpected side effect of this method and this is getting slightly off topic in regard to measuring the carbon dioxide produced except this side effect destroys more of the land and forest.
The injection sites leak. They leak the oil that has been dissolved. Not all the liquified bitumen comes to the surface in pumps. The process of injection of steam liquifies the land. There is no controlling it and the leaks can travel in any direction and to any depth or to the surface. The land integrity disappears.
When clean up of the discovered leaks took place, the loss of vegetation (plants and forests) was 7.5 kilgrams to 1 barrel of oil.
This extraction method as reported in this assessment by the State Department doesn't even begin to measure the loss of carbon sinks and/or the tremendous amount of energy used to heat water which is done with fossil fuels. The estimate in this State Department report is grossly wrong, not just a slight bit wrong.
The PROPER role of the US State Department with Canada in regard to this method of extracting fossil fuels is to condemn it and insist on high tariffs for any amount coming into the borders of the USA.
How much carbon sequestration occurs with a forest. This answer comes from a highly regarded university, Tufts University.
Sequestration: How much CO2 does a tree take up? (click here)
The issue of sequestration is very complicated. Sequestration rates vary greatly according to the age, composition, and location of the forests and the type of soil.
The information TCI used for its computer brochure was taken from: Forests and Global Change, Vol. 2, Forest Management Opportunities for Mitigation of Carbon Emissions. Neil Sampson and Dwight Hair, Washington, 1996.
Northeast, maple-beech-birch forests
25 year old forest: 12,000 lbs of carbon / 25 = 480 lbs of C per acre per year x 44/12 =1,760 lbs of CO2 per acre per year
120 year old forest: 128,000 lbs of carbon / 120 = 1,066 lbs of C per year per acre x 44/12 =3,909 lbs of CO2 per acre per year
Tree density varies, and we used an average of 700 trees per acre (this number was taken from DOE’s "Sector-Specific Issues and Reporting Methodologies Supporting the General Guidelines for the Voluntary Reporting of Greenhouse Gases under Sections 1605(b) of the Energy Policy Act of 1992")...
In order to determine the loss of carbon sequestration with these oil sands a survey of the forests and the ages of the trees estimated to understand the NEGATIVE number of CARBON EMISSIONS affiliated with these processes would have to take place. The resultant number would be astronomical. It is only one of the reasons scientists in the USA stand in opposition of this horrid industrial use of this land and the cooperation of the USA in allowing it to occur and/or allowing use of our pipelines for its transport.
The lands currently EXPLOITED by Trans-Canada needs to be claimed as Wildlands and the processes ended. There is no limit on the damage to the land by this process and/or the fisheries polluted by any runoff through overland flow of rain and the devastating effects of the leaks.
The pipeline is a given NO. If there is any acknowledgement of these fossil fuels as a neutral fuel the same as crude oil, they are lying and there needs to be action taken against them and Trans Canada.
To sum this up for now. There are huge issues affiliated with this assessment including an attack on sovereignty in setting a precedent by the US State Department's willingness to conduct eminent domain over land in Nebraska to give as a gift to a commercial enterprise outside the borders of the USA. This pipeline is not only offensive from a fossil fuel assessment, it is offensive to the sovereign nature of the USA and it's people.
