As mentioned, Environmental Defence of Canada is a great resource on this issue. They even launched a campaign to fight the destruction that included an open letter to the 22 Governors of the Western Governors Association in the US (including Governor Palin).
The oil embedded in the Alberta tar sands are under boreal forests covering a land mass the size of Florida. These trees and eco-systems are scraped away. Then massive amounts of energy, chemicals and fresh water are required to extract the oil. Left behind is a toxic moonscape and a destroyed eco-system. For the indigenous peoples in and near the Alberta tar sands, the project leads to the destruction of their land, lifestyles and culture. It also leads to increased cancer rates and death. This is why Celina Harpe, an Elder of the Cree Nation in Alberta said: Â
"As long as they get their money, they don't care how many of us they kill off"
And it is not only the destruction near the tar sands that impacts native peoples, there is also the process of stealing land and rights to run proposed pipelines through the lands of indigenous peoples without their approval""this is why the oil companies needed Sarah Palin to push through her pipeline and give away $500 million dollars to help evade laws protecting native peoples and the environment, but more on that in a moment.
The big lie that McCain/Palin tells about her pipeline and "energy experience" is that the pipeline will deliver "clean" energy to the Lower 48. It will not.
According to estimates, over 170 billion barrels of heavy dirty oil are embedded in Alberta's tar sands. At $125 per barrel that is $17.3 TRILLIAN dollars worth of oil and currently it costs about $28 a barrel to extract the oil from sands. With growing oil prices, Alberta's tar sands are a modern gold rush. All the damage done to date represents only a tiny fraction of the tar sands reserves being exploited. Plans for rapid growth and profits are on the drawing boards and that requires massive wastes of energy, water and resources. It also will accelerate the climate crisis beyond any possible solution.
Using current production standards, it will require over 850.25 TRILLIAN cubic feet of natural gas to heat the over 680 Billion barrels of fresh water required to extract the oil from the tar sands. Canada's natural gas reserves are almost exhausted by the production done to date. They need more gas. And if every single cubic feet of gas from Alaska's proven estimated reserves of 32.3 Trillion cubic feet went directly to feed the tar sands it would only make a small dent in extracting the estimated oil in the tar sands. You would need 26 times the proven gas reserves of Alaska to get it all out.
Now, to believe the McCain/Palin Campaign's big lie you would have to be gullible enough to believe that energy companies would bypass the record setting profits to be made from converting low cost natural gas into high profit dirty oil from the tar sands just so they could deliver "clean" energy to heat your home. If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you in Alaska.
A blog, The Alaska Gas Pipeline, Â by an Alaskan energy engineer, breaks down the profits to be made by energy companies in this post, Alaska Gas & Canadian Tar Sands - Do the Math:
Production of Canadian Tar Sands requires 1,200 SCF (standard cubic feet) of natural gas per barrel. Â The 4.5 BCFD of Alaskan gas can be used to support 3.75 MMBPD of tar sand oil production. Â If oil is selling for $125/BBL when the gas starts flowing the Alaskan Gas will support gross revenues of $169 Billion annually. Obviously there are lots of other cost associated with tar sand production, but this analysis show just how important Alaskan Gas is to North American oil production. Here's how the projected Tar Sand projects stack up: ConocoPhillips is partnered with Encana, BP with Husky and ExxonMobil with Imperial - Collectively the North Slope producers can use 1,080 MMSCFD of their own gas captively to produce tar sand oil in Canada. Â The remaining 3,420 MMSCFD can be sold at a profit to other tar sands producers. Even at this rate of North Slope Gas production the new projects will demand 1,000 MMSCFD more. Â This volume of gas could come from the Mackenzie Pipeline Project (1,200 MMSCFD).
When completed, Palin's pipeline would have the capacity to deliver five billion cubic feet of gas per day. Current planned expansion of production in the Alberta tar sands will require almost three billion cubic feet of gas per day by 2015. Deduct some gas to stay in Alaska or to be shipped to China as Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) and it is easy to see how almost none of the gas will get to the Lower 48 even if somebody puts up the money to build natural gas pipelines to actually connect Palin's Pipeline to existing pipelines flowing gas to the rest of America.
In a nutshell: Palin's Pipeline and her political career is all about the oil and the profits to be made.
Among the many myths about Sarah Palin being hyped these daysis the tall tale about how she became Governor in 2006. To hear the McCain/Palin Campaign tell the story, it was because she took on the corruption in her Party and took the fight to a very corrupt Frank Murkowski. The trouble with this myth is that it wasn't true.
Of all of Alaska's long-serving Congressional delegation, Murkowski was the least corrupt. He was the only Republican to take on Jack Abramoff when Jack was at the height of his power in DC. Murkowski was and is a hero in the fight to bring justice to the workers of the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI). While other Republicans praised the abuse as a "petri dish of capitalism" or a "laboratory of liberty", Murkowski saw the sweatshops, labor abuse, human trafficking and sexual slavery for what it was. He tried to stop it. He fought DeLay, Young and Abramoff and he lost. In 2002 he decided to leave Washington and he became Governor of Alaska.
As Governor, he was arrogant and he made many enemies. He appointed his own daughter to his Senate seat. By the summer of 2006 it was clear that he would lose a fall election to Democrat Tony Knowles. The GOP decided to throw him overboard and support one of the lesser Republicans running against him. The Party decided to go with Sarah Palin.
In her race for Governor she had the support of super corruptionists like Ted Stevens and Don Young. She had the support of the power structure in Alaska. She won.
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