In the table found when clicking on the title to this entry, Canada is ranked 14th in oil imports, yet, the USA is facilitating an oil pipeline through wilderness and ecosystem that will inevitably be permanently damaged as a result.
Russ Girling, TransCanada's chief executive, in Washington on Friday. The pipeline would run from northern Alberta to Texas.
The State Department is negligent in oversight and the project hasn't even begun. The US State Department has allowed confict of interest to exist in the environmental studies regarding the hideous project.
...The (State) (click title to entry - thank you) department allowed TransCanada, the company seeking permission to build the 1,700-mile pipeline from the oil sands of northern Alberta to the Gulf Coast in Texas, to solicit and screen bids for the environmental study. At TransCanada’s recommendation, the department hired Cardno Entrix, an environmental contractor based in Houston, even though it had previously worked on projects with TransCanada and describes the pipeline company as a “major client” in its marketing materials....
This mess began with Dick Cheney and George W. Bush during their administration. The oil sands PROCESS rapes the land of its biotic content, disturbs wildlife and displaces them and then processes a form of oil that is grossly substandard.
Peak oil of Crude occurred in 2005 and now the US and Canada want to believe that processing oil sands is the best alternative to imports from other countries.
The processing of oil sands to extract oil is expensive and carbon dioxide intensive because the energy needed during the processing of the oil sands adds to the carbon load of the final product. It is one of the most inefficient ways of obtaining oil and has huge environmental costs.
...John D. Echeverria, an expert on environmental law, referred to the process as “outsourcing government responsibility.”...
The oil sands process (click here) begins with use of plenty of fuel to operate large excavation machinery to remove the land from the foundry , then during extraction, the oil sand ore is crushed into small pieces, filtered through screens and then mixed with hot water. The “slurry” is
transported via pipeline (hydro-transport) to the Bitumen Extraction Plant.
In a separation vessel, the slurry goes through a “frothing” process. The sand and water separate and settle at the bottom of the vessel, while tiny air bubbles trapped in the bitumen cause it to form into froth and rise to the surface, where it is skimmed off. A cross section of the tank would show the sand on the bottom, water, and the bitumen froth on top.
The bitumen froth is mixed with a solvent (diluent). The sand and water tailings that separate from the bitumen are deposited in a tailing pond. From there, the sand is returned to the mine site to rebuild the mined-out areas, the water is recycled back to the extraction plant to be used again in the separation process and the diluted bitumen is sent to
the upgrading facilities.
Then the process continues with more and more use of energy to extract and purify the oil.
Primary upgrading
The bitumen/diluent blend must go through additional upgrading before it can be refined for commercial use. It is sent by pipeline to Upgrading for a process that will convert the bitumen into a synthetic crude oil (SCO). The first upgrading process is called Primary Upgrading (PUG). The process begins with the separation of diluent from bitumen in the Diluent Recovery Unit (DRU) in a distillation process. The diluent is reclaimed and send
back to Bitumen Production where it is used again.
The bitumen is then transported to the Delayed Coker Unit where it is heated to extremely high temperatures. The heat breaks up or “cracks” the large
complex bitumen hydrocarbon molecules into smaller hydrocarbon chains. This coking process produces different hydrocarbon cuts: refinery fuel gas, naphtha, diesel, gas oil and coke. Coke is a byproduct of the primary upgrading and it is transported by trucks to
a storage area for future utilization. The fuel gas is used in the upgrader’s furnaces, and the remaining hydrocarbons require further processing in Secondary Upgrading.
And one upgrading isn't enough.
secondary upgrading
Heavy equipment operation, destruction of ecosystems, death of wildlife and displacement of the lands carrying capacity, disruption of forests and their processes regardless of the age of the forest, processes to separate the 'garbage oil' from the sands through extremely high temperatures fueled by energy wasted to the atmosphere as well as emissions of carbon dioxide and now a company wants to ADD to the energy expenditure for this 'garbage oil' by building a pipeline that will further disrupt and destroy ecosystems, diminish the carrying capacity of land, disrupt and destroy forests adding huge potential for damage to the environment. The cost of production is enormous. Beside the incredibly huge environmental footprint it will never produce a cheaper oil product.
When is the Free World going to stop being this stupid! This has got to be the quintessential moronic project for oil ever conceived by Wall Street.
STOP THE OIL SANDS PIPELINE !
Another reason to Occupy Wall Street !
Citizens are no longer in control of their futures, the land or the environment for the next generation. If this type of moronity continues there is no predicting the future past one more generation of children.
To the right is an oil sands open pit mine in Alberta, Canada.
Alberta has the largest known deposit of oil sands in the world. They cover a 140,800 square kilometre area. Currently 1.1 million barrels of oil are extracted each day. By 2015 it is expected that rate will increase to 2.7 million barrels per day.
The Province of Alberta benefits greatly from this resource. In 2004 the government collected $718 million (CDN) in royalty payments from oil sands production. The entire resource is owned by the province. Freehold mineral owners in the remote northeaster area of the province are essentially non-existent.
The State Department is negligent in oversight and the project hasn't even begun. The US State Department has allowed confict of interest to exist in the environmental studies regarding the hideous project.
...The (State) (click title to entry - thank you) department allowed TransCanada, the company seeking permission to build the 1,700-mile pipeline from the oil sands of northern Alberta to the Gulf Coast in Texas, to solicit and screen bids for the environmental study. At TransCanada’s recommendation, the department hired Cardno Entrix, an environmental contractor based in Houston, even though it had previously worked on projects with TransCanada and describes the pipeline company as a “major client” in its marketing materials....
This mess began with Dick Cheney and George W. Bush during their administration. The oil sands PROCESS rapes the land of its biotic content, disturbs wildlife and displaces them and then processes a form of oil that is grossly substandard.
Peak oil of Crude occurred in 2005 and now the US and Canada want to believe that processing oil sands is the best alternative to imports from other countries.
The processing of oil sands to extract oil is expensive and carbon dioxide intensive because the energy needed during the processing of the oil sands adds to the carbon load of the final product. It is one of the most inefficient ways of obtaining oil and has huge environmental costs.
...John D. Echeverria, an expert on environmental law, referred to the process as “outsourcing government responsibility.”...
The oil sands process (click here) begins with use of plenty of fuel to operate large excavation machinery to remove the land from the foundry , then during extraction, the oil sand ore is crushed into small pieces, filtered through screens and then mixed with hot water. The “slurry” is
transported via pipeline (hydro-transport) to the Bitumen Extraction Plant.
In a separation vessel, the slurry goes through a “frothing” process. The sand and water separate and settle at the bottom of the vessel, while tiny air bubbles trapped in the bitumen cause it to form into froth and rise to the surface, where it is skimmed off. A cross section of the tank would show the sand on the bottom, water, and the bitumen froth on top.
The bitumen froth is mixed with a solvent (diluent). The sand and water tailings that separate from the bitumen are deposited in a tailing pond. From there, the sand is returned to the mine site to rebuild the mined-out areas, the water is recycled back to the extraction plant to be used again in the separation process and the diluted bitumen is sent to
the upgrading facilities.
Then the process continues with more and more use of energy to extract and purify the oil.
Primary upgrading
The bitumen/diluent blend must go through additional upgrading before it can be refined for commercial use. It is sent by pipeline to Upgrading for a process that will convert the bitumen into a synthetic crude oil (SCO). The first upgrading process is called Primary Upgrading (PUG). The process begins with the separation of diluent from bitumen in the Diluent Recovery Unit (DRU) in a distillation process. The diluent is reclaimed and send
back to Bitumen Production where it is used again.
The bitumen is then transported to the Delayed Coker Unit where it is heated to extremely high temperatures. The heat breaks up or “cracks” the large
complex bitumen hydrocarbon molecules into smaller hydrocarbon chains. This coking process produces different hydrocarbon cuts: refinery fuel gas, naphtha, diesel, gas oil and coke. Coke is a byproduct of the primary upgrading and it is transported by trucks to
a storage area for future utilization. The fuel gas is used in the upgrader’s furnaces, and the remaining hydrocarbons require further processing in Secondary Upgrading.
And one upgrading isn't enough.
secondary upgrading
In the Secondary Upgrading process (SUG), hydrogen is added to stabilize the hydrocarbon molecules. Impurities like sulphur and nitrogen are removed. The remaining different hydrocarbons: naptha, diesel and gas oil, are then blended to make a mixture called Synthetic Crude Oil (SCO). The SCO is the product that is transported via pipelines to refineries across North America.
When is the Free World going to stop being this stupid! This has got to be the quintessential moronic project for oil ever conceived by Wall Street.
STOP THE OIL SANDS PIPELINE !
Another reason to Occupy Wall Street !
Citizens are no longer in control of their futures, the land or the environment for the next generation. If this type of moronity continues there is no predicting the future past one more generation of children.
To the right is an oil sands open pit mine in Alberta, Canada.
Alberta has the largest known deposit of oil sands in the world. They cover a 140,800 square kilometre area. Currently 1.1 million barrels of oil are extracted each day. By 2015 it is expected that rate will increase to 2.7 million barrels per day.
The Province of Alberta benefits greatly from this resource. In 2004 the government collected $718 million (CDN) in royalty payments from oil sands production. The entire resource is owned by the province. Freehold mineral owners in the remote northeaster area of the province are essentially non-existent.
