Tar Sands Oil blow out in Alberta

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I have to admit I was only really against the Tar Sands and Keystone pipeline in the abstract but recent occurrences of massive spills in Alberta have kinda made me rethink that position.

http://readersupportednews.org/opin...-knows-how-to-stop-these-tar-sands-oil-spills

An underground oil blowout at a big tar-sands operation run by Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. has caused spills at four different sites over the past few months. (This is different from the 100-acre spill in Alberta that we told you about last month, which was caused by a ruptured pipeline.)
Add that to the fact that a pipeline burst in Arkansas back in March which left both ExxonMobil and the stategovernment scratching their heads about how to even start cleaning up the gunk.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/03/...e-as-exxon-mobil-tar-sands-pipeline-ruptures/

Now I'm thinking we should just leave it in the goddamn ground.
 
Now I'm thinking we should just leave it in the goddamn ground.
So you'd rather pay for oil from places that kill political prisoners routinely? Just put a few ounces of blood in each barrel you get from those regions, and it should be about the same. Every time you gas up, smear a bit of blood on yourself for the reminder that you're not supporting "Dirty Oil" but you are supporting Blood Oil. Or just watch the movie "Blood Diamond" and imagine basically the same happening in most oil-producing countries that are NOT Canada, the USA, or Scandinavia.

Not use oil? Good luck with that. Hope you live off-grid, with a wood stove, etc. And your own Iron mine. And copper for the generators in those windmills (good luck lubricating them, though it is possible... barely). And rare earths for the solar panels. And... And... And... If not, you're still using oil, most likely from places that kill people.

Or you can use Canadian oil, of which the scale of the spills is not bad (why do you think that picture is so zoomed-in? Because that's it I'll lay bets. Otherwise they LOVE wide huge shots. Because it isn't there, I means it isn't big), and it DOES get cleaned up, again unlike those other places where it sits and rots the environment until... basically forever.

Or throw your support to something that WILL provide energy, but doesn't have these problems. LFTR (thorium) perhaps, or something else, but don't go criticizing something you don't understand from a place that DOES clean up its mess, unlike most places in the world, when you live daily with the benefits of such.
 
So you'd rather pay for oil from places that kill political prisoners routinely? Just put a few ounces of blood in each barrel you get from those regions, and it should be about the same. Every time you gas up, smear a bit of blood on yourself for the reminder that you're not supporting "Dirty Oil" but you are supporting Blood Oil. Or just watch the movie "Blood Diamond" and imagine basically the same happening in most oil-producing countries that are NOT Canada, the USA, or Scandinavia.

Not use oil? Good luck with that. Hope you live off-grid, with a wood stove, etc. And your own Iron mine. And copper for the generators in those windmills (good luck lubricating them, though it is possible... barely). And rare earths for the solar panels. And... And... And... If not, you're still using oil, most likely from places that kill people.

Or you can use Canadian oil, of which the scale of the spills is not bad (why do you think that picture is so zoomed-in? Because that's it I'll lay bets. Otherwise they LOVE wide huge shots. Because it isn't there, I means it isn't big), and it DOES get cleaned up, again unlike those other places where it sits and rots the environment until... basically forever.

Or throw your support to something that WILL provide energy, but doesn't have these problems. LFTR (thorium) perhaps, or something else, but don't go criticizing something you don't understand from a place that DOES clean up its mess, unlike most places in the world, when you live daily with the benefits of such.
Quite a nice Strawman you set up there. I'm not against the use of oil I wish we didn't use so much of course but I also have the same opinion of HFCS.

As for the clean up there have been 6 spills in 4 months. Five of which the powers that be waited weeks to tell the locals about and probably wouldn't have told them anything except that people spotted the spills and let the media know. Not exactly an overly promising source of energy or the actions of a responsible industry.
 
Read the comments on that article. Pure gold.

Dubamn... find us a viable oil alternative and we would be happy to stop supplying dirty filthy bitumen to the rest of the world. Otherwise, I'll just keep on working for big evil oil.
 
Read the comments on that article. Pure gold.

Dubamn... find us a viable oil alternative and we would be happy to stop supplying dirty filthy bitumen to the rest of the world. Otherwise, I'll just keep on working for big evil oil.
Could you at least try to get the average time between spills to over a month before declaring that I'm the unreasonable one?
 
Weren't hydrothermal liquefaction and thermal depolymerization supposed to take a lot of the heat off the need for new drilling?

--Patrick
 

Dave

Staff member
If they put as much energy into coming up with new sources of energy as they do pushing their agenda, we'd have clean energy already.

I'm with Dubyamn on this one. The whole thing is shoddy and dangerous, but fuck the environment or those whose lands are rendered unusable or those who have to drink the groundwater that gets fouled. Big oil needs to make more billions in profit this QUARTER.
 
Could you at least try to get the average time between spills to over a month before declaring that I'm the unreasonable one?

As a low level grunt I have zero pull in this matter... sadly. I do agree that there have been too many spills as of late though.

I'm with Dubyamn on this one. The whole thing is shoddy and dangerous, but fuck the environment or those whose lands are rendered unusable or those who have to drink the groundwater that gets fouled. Big oil needs to make more billions in profit this QUARTER.
Canadian companies are not rolling in billions of profits like you are insinuating. We are forced to sell our oil to you (the USA) at a massively discounted rate because we have no other significant outlets. Yay.
 
Why can't you sell oil to other countries?

No delivery system and a lack of our own refining capacity. Crude oil produced in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba is landlocked and has nowhere to go. Our refining capacity is a joke compared to the raw materials we produce.

We are looking into a pipeline through British Columbia to ship to China but that is looking like it will never happen. Also the XL pipeline project into the USA to cut down on transportation costs (which also seems like it won't ever get approved).

So, billions of barrels of recoverable crude with no refining capacity and no transit except to the USA.
 
Why can't you sell oil to other countries?
It's complicated. Chiefly, it's easier to sell to you at a discount and still profit over shipping it further and charging a higher rate.

There's talk of building a pipe through to BC to the Pacific and selling oil to China but that's not popular because: a) BC's premier is like 'You're not building a goddamn pipe through my pristinely beautiful province, plus the company you want to do it has a Leak Prevention department with a track record so bad it borders on hilariously incompetent.' and b) It's kind of unpopular to sell stuff to the Chinese, as there's a strong narrative they will use our oil to industrialise beyond need for us and the economically crush us. China has had a hard time making economic deals with Canada, especially over the last year, and its in part due to this. A deal that was legitimate and (in my opinion) good, should have gone through earlier this year but was kiboshed at the last minute by the government who really shouldn't have had a say, but they do, because, Canada.

Anyway.

Plus we like Americans. We want to share our oil and maintain favourable relationships.
 
Could you at least try to get the average time between spills to over a month before declaring that I'm the unreasonable one?
http://www.epa.gov/osweroe1/docs/oil/fss/fss04/etkin_04.pdf

Spills happen every single day. They are, by law, supposed to be reported to the EPA. Greater media coverage of bigger spills has created the perception that spills are happening more frequently, or in greater quantities.

The US - not any other country, just the US - pumped 7 million barrels of crude per day recently. That's 294 million gallons a day. 3,403 gallons per second. Here, have another 3,403 gallons. And another. And another. By this time tomorrow we'll have pumped another 1/4 billion gallons of oil and put it into the US economy. Just the US. Saudi Arabia has higher production, but we are accelerating our production at a faster pace, so we are set to surpass Saudi Arabia by 2020.

Now, let's go back to the EPA for a moment. How may spills were reported over the last 20 years? 42,000. How much oil was spilled over the last 20 years? 304,000,000.

Sounds like a lot.

Except that yesterday we've pumped as much oil out of the ground a we've spilled in the last 20 years. It might have taken us one hour to pump as much oil out of the ground as we spilled last year. That means we're spilling less than one one-hundredth of one percent of all the oil we pump out of our own ground. Of course, we import most of our oil, so we actually consume twice the amount of oil, which means that of all the oil we run around inside the US we spill less than 0.07% of it.

A drop of water in a 5 gallon bucket consists of 0.5% of that total bucket's volume. If you imagine the US oil consumption as filling a bucket, you would have to spill 7 times the amount of oil we spill today to even get a drop of water out of that bucket.

I'm not defending those who make serious mistakes and cause spills that could be otherwise avoided. I'm not "siding" with big oil. I just want the discussion here to be informed with the scope and scale of the problem.

We are carrying millions of gallons of oil and oil products for hundreds and thousands of miles each day using pipes, boats, trucks, etc, and we are spilling the bucket-equivalent of one drop of it each day.

In most other businesses 99.99% reliability would be unreasonable.

And yet we are attaining that with oil inside the US.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
It's an odd feeling not being the only one on a side of an argument. In fact, not even feeling an obligation to step up into it because others are already so very eloquently making the points you would want to make. I feel lost.
 
http://www.epa.gov/osweroe1/docs/oil/fss/fss04/etkin_04.pdf

Spills happen every single day. They are, by law, supposed to be reported to the EPA. Greater media coverage of bigger spills has created the perception that spills are happening more frequently, or in greater quantities.

The US - not any other country, just the US - pumped 7 million barrels of crude per day recently. That's 294 million gallons a day. 3,403 gallons per second. Here, have another 3,403 gallons. And another. And another. By this time tomorrow we'll have pumped another 1/4 billion gallons of oil and put it into the US economy. Just the US. Saudi Arabia has higher production, but we are accelerating our production at a faster pace, so we are set to surpass Saudi Arabia by 2020.

Now, let's go back to the EPA for a moment. How may spills were reported over the last 20 years? 42,000. How much oil was spilled over the last 20 years? 304,000,000.

Sounds like a lot.

Except that yesterday we've pumped as much oil out of the ground a we've spilled in the last 20 years. It might have taken us one hour to pump as much oil out of the ground as we spilled last year. That means we're spilling less than one one-hundredth of one percent of all the oil we pump out of our own ground. Of course, we import most of our oil, so we actually consume twice the amount of oil, which means that of all the oil we run around inside the US we spill less than 0.07% of it.

A drop of water in a 5 gallon bucket consists of 0.5% of that total bucket's volume. If you imagine the US oil consumption as filling a bucket, you would have to spill 7 times the amount of oil we spill today to even get a drop of water out of that bucket.

I'm not defending those who make serious mistakes and cause spills that could be otherwise avoided. I'm not "siding" with big oil. I just want the discussion here to be informed with the scope and scale of the problem.

We are carrying millions of gallons of oil and oil products for hundreds and thousands of miles each day using pipes, boats, trucks, etc, and we are spilling the bucket-equivalent of one drop of it each day.

In most other businesses 99.99% reliability would be unreasonable.

And yet we are attaining that with oil inside the US.
Great we've been reducing the amount of gunk we're putting into our drinking water. Why the fuck would we risk turning that trend around by bringing large amounts of Canadian Tar Sands into America? There have been 6 major spills of Tar Sands in the last 4 months and the powers that be have no idea what the fuck is causing them or how to stop the tar sands from spilling.

Is there anything particularly wrong with wanting to make sure that we can safely handle and process Tar Sands before we risk turning around all the progress we've made in avoiding spills?
 
So let's read the article you've linked.

hum de dum de doo....

Ok, so they've spilled "thousands" of barrels over a 6 week period. Sounds like fuzzy numbers. Very small picture. Well, let's assume their numbers are correct, and the blowouts don't just happen four times "over the last few months" (come on, give us dates and hard numbers!), but we get a new blowout with the same volume every 6 weeks. And we'll call "thousands of barrels" 10,000 barrels because they would have used "tens of thousands of barrels" if it were over 10k.

There are 42 galons in a barrel, and 42 days in 6 weeks, so we actually get a nice round number: 10,000 gallons of oil are spilled per day. Just in Alberta, just for their oil sands. Of course, we're playing with heavily inflated "fuzzy" numbers here since the article's authors have no idea what's actually going on, but let's assume it's actually this bad.

Sounds like a lot! Come on Alberta, clean up your act! No wonder your beef is so tough and gamey.

http://www.energy.alberta.ca/OilSands/791.asp

Ok, so Alberta produces 1.1 million barrels of oil just from oil sands production each day. Hmmm.

That's 42,000,000 gallons per day.

That's 0.022% of their oil sands production spilled per day.

That's better than the US's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad spill rate of 0.07%.

Well, better pack up and move to another planet. That spill looks like it contaminated a whole square kilometer! (exaggeration used for effect) That's ... wait, that's too small to be cared about. Let's pretend that spill absolutely polluted and ruined 100 square kilometers of land! No, wait, a thousand! A thousand square kilometers are now absolutely unrecoverable and will forever be barren wasteland because of these oil sands blowouts!

Wow, that's a lot!

We've lost 0.0002% of our planet's land surface to this terrible oil spill. Let us take a moment of silence for those trashed 1,000 square kilometers. Why, if we lose that much land per year, no! Wait, per day! If we lose 1,000 square kilometers of land every day we would run out of land in 1,400 years!

THE WORLD IS ENDING!
 

Dave

Staff member
Canadian companies are not rolling in billions of profits like you are insinuating. We are forced to sell our oil to you (the USA) at a massively discounted rate because we have no other significant outlets. Yay.
You think that these American companies have no pull whatsoever on the actions of their Canadian counterparts? I'm insinuating nothing about the Canadian companies, but instead are looking at the American companies who make billions of dollars each quarter while spending vast amounts of money in our political system and reaping the rewards like ultra-favorable legislation and tax breaks.

The energy companies spend a lot of time and effort in our government and especially abroad, in legal battles that are specifically designed to mitigate and lessen their blame for environmental disasters that ruin the lives of those who don't have the ability to fend for themselves in court due to money.

The sooner we get alternative and renewable sources of energy the better off we will be.[DOUBLEPOST=1374775056][/DOUBLEPOST]It's okay to kill 0.00024% of the babies born because that's such a low number.
 
No, it's not too small to care about. Yes, we should resolve the issue.

No, stopping production of 42 millions of gallons of oil per day to stop 0.02% spillage is absolutely unreasonable and cuckoo. That's a fantastically small amount of spillage, and certainly well within our ability to deal with it over time.

Yes, it will take time.

No, we're not going to pull this car over to the side of the road and slap the driver silly, we're going to fix it on the fly. Besides which, if they stop production, the blowouts stop, and they can't then study them enough to figure out the best way to stop them.

My fix?

Put an oil rig there and pump it before it reaches the surface - it's already under pressure, and it's obviously formed a conduit. Sounds like the perfect way to find new locations for oil access points.[DOUBLEPOST=1374775323][/DOUBLEPOST]
It's okay to kill 0.00024% of the babies born because that's such a low number.
Ooh, is this an abortion thread now?
 
Great we've been reducing the amount of gunk we're putting into our drinking water. Why the fuck would we risk turning that trend around by bringing large amounts of Canadian Tar Sands into America?
You're bringing crude oil from the tar sands. The tar sands themselves stay here.
There have been 6 major spills of Tar Sands in the last 4 months and the powers that be have no idea what the fuck is causing them or how to stop the tar sands from spilling.
It's not like... There's just oil everywhere and everyone's running around through pools of sticky bitumen, pulling their hair and screaming "WHERE IS ALL THIS COMING FROM. THIS ONYX FLOOD WILL WIPE US FROM THE MAP, OH, WOE UNTO US WHO SOUGHT TO CHALLENGE THE GODS' JEALOUS PROTECTION OF FIRE."

There's 100 acres of environmental damage: not insignifcant, but not massive. Flora and fauna have been killed. Both the regulatory bodies and the company involved have acknowledged this. The regulatory agencies have requested suspension of certain operations by Canadian National Resources Ltd (the company with the leaks to which you are referring) and the ministry in the government has said if an investigation is required it will be launched. To suggest no one knows what's going on is a little disingenuous. These leaks imply there is a fault with CNRL procedures, and they may really not know the cause yet, but it doesn't mean there's like... no knowledge, or theories, or credible attempts at cleanup in the meanwhile.
Is there anything particularly wrong with wanting to make sure that we can safely handle and process Tar Sands before we risk turning around all the progress we've made in avoiding spills?
Nothing! Nothing wrong at all with wanting that. I am in 100% agreement. But since there are more companies than just CNRL working with the tar sands and plenty of other CNRL tar sands projects aren't leaking, I'd suppose that we do know we can safely handle and process tar sands. There are risks. But we have hardly "turn[ed] around all the progress we've made in avoiding spills," in fact we've done a lot to move ahead to lower risk.
 
You think that these American companies have no pull whatsoever on the actions of their Canadian counterparts?
This is an interesting conversation to have. I don't know enough to say a lot on it.
The sooner we get alternative and renewable sources of energy the better off we will be.
Oh yeah, totally agreed. No dispute.
It's okay to kill 0.00024% of the babies born because that's such a low number.
Are these intentional kills? No one is intentionally spilling oil. Also, no one is saying the oil spills are 'okay' so much as they're not significant. If 0.00024% of babies died because there is a rare post-natal allergic reaction to fluorescent light, would all hospitals have to switch to incandescent lighting because that risk is too high? Well, I think yes, buuuut: I think people would want to start taking efforts to light maternity units with incandescent bulbs, but in the meantime we can't deliver babies by candlelight.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Are these intentional kills? No one is intentionally spilling oil. Also, no one is saying the oil spills are 'okay' so much as they're not significant. If 0.00024% of babies died because there is a rare post-natal allergic reaction to fluorescent light, would all hospitals have to switch to incandescent lighting because that risk is too high? Well, I think yes, buuuut: I think people would want to start taking efforts to light maternity units with incandescent bulbs, but in the meantime we can't deliver babies by candlelight.
That would make the incandescent bulb ban pretty ironic.
 
You're bringing crude oil from the tar sands. The tar sands themselves stay here.
Tar Sands Oil, Tar sands mixed up the terminology sorry.

It's not like... There's just oil everywhere and everyone's running around through pools of sticky bitumen, pulling their hair and screaming "WHERE IS ALL THIS COMING FROM. THIS ONYX FLOOD WILL WIPE US FROM THE MAP, OH, WOE UNTO US WHO CHALLENGED SOUGHT TO CHALLENGE THE GODS' JEALOUS PROTECTION OF FIRE."

There's 100 acres of environmental damage: not insignifcant, but not massive. Flora and fauna have been killed. Both the regulatory bodies and the company involved have acknowledged this. The regulatory agencies have requested suspension of certain operations by Canadian National Resources Ltd (the company with the leaks to which you are referring) and the ministry in the government has said if an investigation is required it will be launched. To suggest no one knows what's going on is a little disingenuous. These leaks imply there is a fault with CNRL procedures, and they may really not know the cause yet, but it doesn't mean there's like... no knowledge, or theories, or credible attempts at cleanup in the meanwhile.
FTA
"Everybody (at the company and in government) is freaking out about this," said the scientist. "We don't understand what happened. Nobody really understands how to stop it from leaking, or if they do they haven't put the measures into place."
Now that's from their own scientist. And I haven't found any articles that say differently.

Nothing! Nothing wrong at all with wanting that. I am in 100% agreement. But since there are more companies than just CNRL working with the tar sands and plenty of other CNRL tar sands projects aren't leaking, I'd suppose that we do know we can safely handle and process tar sands. There are risks. But we have hardly "turn[ed] around all the progress we've made in avoiding spills," in fact we've done a lot to move ahead to lower risk.
Considering how in all 5 of the oil spills that have happened in Canada the local authorities and Oil companies didn't see fit to actually tell the media or the locals that those spills had happened until they were outed I honestly don't think you can make any of those claims at least not without the overly ominous addition of "...so far"
 
Some numbers in this article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323971204578626273811559896.html

Seems like since 20 May there has been 175 barrels leaked. So, not exactly... 10 000. I mean, close. Relatively speaking, I mean. 175 and 10 000 are not at all far apart when you think there's an infinite number of numbers.

4 years ago, according to the WSJ article, CNRL leaked and recovered 7 500 barrels. So it may be that there needs to be an investigation of the company's practices if the cause of these new leaks are related to that one. But 175 barrels over two months is less destructive than it could be. Thank goodness.[DOUBLEPOST=1374777216][/DOUBLEPOST]
Now that's from their own scientist. And I haven't found any articles that say differently.
Gov't scientist, not 'their own,' assuming you mean the company who has spilled the oil. I didn't remember that quote from your article. At the same time, I'm suspicious of his claim 'everyone' is freaking out.
Considering how in all 5 of the oil spills that have happened in Canada the local authorities and Oil companies didn't see fit to actually tell the media or the locals that those spills had happened until they were outed I honestly don't think you can make any of those claims at least not without the overly ominous addition of "...so far"
I don't know the research on this. I don't think I'll be adding '...so far,' to my stance on the lowering risk of oil spills, but I think I will just start ending certain declarative sentences with it for dramatic effect. Like, "This discussion has been fun ...so far."[DOUBLEPOST=1374777364][/DOUBLEPOST]
Bacteria will take care of it - no worries.

http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/science/publications/microbes/index-eng.html
I know Joe Suflita - he's a good prof.
This is cool! I'm going to have to read this more carefully later
 

GasBandit

Staff member
I don't know the research on this. I don't think I'll be adding '...so far,' to my stance on the lowering risk of oil spills, but I think I will just start ending certain declarative sentences with it for dramatic effect. Like, "This discussion has been fun ...so far."
My favorite is "... in accordance with prophecy."
 
Personally I think we have enough carbon* up here in the biosphere already, and should leave the subterranean carbon down there where it can't cause any more trouble. The trouble is that oxygen keeps getting stuck to the carbon up here so we keep having to go get more.

--Patrick
*total carbon. That includes carbon-based lifeforms, not just hydrocarbons and greenhouse gas.
 
So we solve our energy problems the way the Druuge did? Brilliant! I am 100% on board with this.
+1 for the Star Control reference


Also, the whole "new" way of extracting is because people don't like the look of open-pit mining. It's better in every way EXCEPT optics, and even those are fixed over time. Reclamation is mandatory up there. So it's a big open-pit mine for a while, and then is again wilderness when it's all over. You want to be against a certain method of extraction? Fine. So advocate for it to go back to 100% open-pit with mandatory reclamation, which is already happening by law.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
A lot of people just don't realize how absolutely essential getting as much oil out of the earth as possible as fast as possible is to having a civilization beyond the horse-drawn carriage. The spice must flow, goddamn it.
 
A lot of people just don't realize how absolutely essential getting as much oil out of the earth as possible as fast as possible is to having a civilization beyond the horse-drawn carriage. The spice must flow, goddamn it.
These people are the same that bitch about the US giving billions to Egypt and Israel each year... the spice must flow through the canal.
 
This isn't really related to the topic at hand, but it does amuse me: my uncle used to work as a cook for the rig pigs at their camp. There are tons of environmental regulations on the particular type of rig they were working on: this and that for emissions, water, spills and so on. So all the crap that gets pumped out and vomited into the sky is relatively low compared to what it would be with no oversight. More of it is contained, or cleaned or disposed of in different ways.

But the camp is not the rig. And there's zero regulation about the camp's garbage disposal. So after every meal they just tossed their paper plates and plastic forks and knives and all the unwanted food and plastic cups into a giant ass hole and then set it on fire. CLEAN
 
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