This video from Mining.com shows an interview with Preston McEachern, adjunct professor at the University of Alberta and Sayta Das, Principal of Cambridge Strategies. Sayta Das is a former journalist and a really good PR guy who has written a book called “Green Oil”. Here’s an excerpt from his blog:
Already, it is becoming clear that fossil fuel energy companies have the capital and the resources necessary to pursue alternatives: whether this is “green washing” or a serious commitment remains to be seen, yet there is little doubt about the capacity. Alberta, however, as owner of the oil sands*, can put in place both the regulatory framework and the public resources necessary to ensuring that greener oil sands production and non-fossil-fuel energy sources can evolve as expeditiously as possible.
Listen as Mr. Das coaxes along Dr. McEachern who went a bit overboard recently and defamed two other scientists in his quest to preserve his job as the top oil sands scientist.
*the oil sands were formerly owned by the government of Alberta, now Sinopec and Petro-China have been increasing their ownership. For more background info on foreign ownership of the tar sands, read this article that appeared in Alberta Venture magazine. The asterisk is mine.
Tags: Alberta Tar Sands, oil
Did you know there was an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 1979? It happened in June caused by Sedco’s malfunctioning equipment.
Sedco has since become Transocean. Sedco was also responsible for the Ocean Ranger platform which sank in 1982 off the coast of Newfoundland.
In 1979, crude oil kept gushing in the Gulf of Mexico for months and months and they tried all sorts of ‘new’ techniques like the junk shot and top hat. Sound familiar? The only thing that stopped the oil spill was when they finally got around to drilling relief wells. Consider this: 31 years ago the oil company was drilling in only 200 ft of water and with a much smaller platform.
Tags: offshore oil drilling, oil spill
In January 2007 when thousands of migratory seabirds were travelling through the Grand Banks off Newfoundland, 74,000 litres of synthetic drilling lubricant was spilled by one of Chevron’s oil platforms. No environmental assessment was ever done. Chevron did not perform any clean-up – referring to the lubricant as “mud”.
The Hebron field is located 340 km offshore the province of Newfoundland and Labrador in 92 metres of water. Discovered in 1981, the field is expected to be developed using a gravity-based structure with integrated drilling and production topsides. Hebron contains an estimated 400 to 700 million barrels of recoverable oil.
In May this year, Chevron started drilling the deepest offshore well off the coast of Newfoundland in Orphan Basin called Lona O-55. At 2,600 metres below sea level, it is considerably deeper than the existing White Rose, Terra Nova and Hibernia rigs off the Newfoundland coast. In comparison, the well at BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico is about 1,500 metres deep.
An environmental assessment commissioned by Chevron and its partners in 2005 estimated there is only a 0.0086 per cent probability of an “extremely large” oil spill of more than 150,000 barrels. However, if one were to occur, Chevron stated it could only clean up “2%” of the recoverable oil given the rough wave conditions that the area is known for.
“Physical recovery of spilled oil off the coast of Newfoundland will be extremely difficult and inefficient for large blowout spills,” the report states. “First, the generally rough sea conditions mean that containment and recovery techniques are frequently not effective. Second, the wide slicks that result from subsea blowouts mean that only a portion of the slick can be intercepted.”
In November 2005, the Canadian government relaxed the environmental assessment rules for offshore projects, eliminating the need for a comprehensive study at the exploratory drilling stage.
Tags: offshore oil drilling, oil spill
The Ocean Ranger was an offshore oil rig that sank off the coast of Newfoundland in 1982. 84 crew members perished and only 22 bodies were ever found. Mitsubishi Industries in Japan built this ‘unsinkable’ rig and handed it over to Mobil Exxon who ignored every single safety warning. Oil spills went unreported.
When this rig went down in the night of February 14, 1982, were they drilling for oil? How much oil leaked below the surface when the Ocean Ranger sank? There were no underwater cameras to report any environmental damage. In 1982 fishers were hauling in cod along the Grand Banks. Since that time, cod and other ground fish have gone virtually extinct – could this oil spill from the Ocean Ranger contributed to the collapse of the cod stocks?
I urge you to watch this video done in 1984 by CBC’s Fifth Estate and pause at approximately 26:40 and listen to the former captain and how Mobil prevented him from reporting the oil spill.
Now that Chevron is drilling off the coast of Newfoundland, will history repeat itself?
Tags: offshore oil drilling, oil spill
Here’s a look at how BP handles crises: No wonder the oil’s still gushing!
Tags: oil spill
Where is Canada’s fake lake? One of the buildings the federal government built for the G8 summit includes a “fake lake” which cost millions of dollars. According to the Toronto Star:
Prime Minister Harper said: “These aren’t expenditures for a fake lake but rather for a pavilion to promote Canadian tourism. Thousands of people will be our guests from all over the world and we intend to promote tourism.”
This fake lake represents the fake lake that Taseko Mines is being asked to create once they destroy the pristine and healthy Fish Lake, Big Onion Lake, Wasp Lake and Prosperity Lake. One fake lake to ‘replace’ 4 real lakes, home to trout and migratory birds.
This is the reality for hundreds of fresh water lakes around the country because of new laws that have changed the Fisheries Act to allow mining companies to dump toxic waste in lakes and rivers by reclassifying them as “tailings impoundment areas.”
I have written several posts on the plight of lakes in Canada being made to serve as dumping grounds for cheap mining companies who can’t be bothered to safely dispose of their tailings.
The Canadian government supports fake lakes, not real ones. For more information, go to the Council of Canadians which has a resourceful site on all things water.
Tags: lakes, Water issues
In 1952, the following obituary appeared in the Nechako Chronicle:
OBITUARY
Passed away, on Wednesday, October 8, 1952, at 10:27 a.m., the ageless and mighty Nechako River.
The passing, which brings great sorrow to residents of the Nechako Valley, was slow and agonizing to the tens of thousands of minnows, trout and the few salmon trapped in pools along the gravel banks as the waters slowly receded.
The incident may well mark the first time in history such a large and majestic river has been so suddenly and completely stilled at its source in the name of progress.
The passing, due to the intervention of man, has destroyed forever a thing of beauty and of divine creation. Gone also, unless man again intervenes, is a haven to thousands of geese, ducks and swans at the Nechako Bird Sanctuary. Add to this loss the treasured beauty of the broad expanse of water which has served as a jewel-like setting for the Village of Vanderhoof, and as a landing place for seaplanes.
To Nechako Valley residents and to Vanderhoof in particular the loss is a tragedy.
Prior to 1952, the Nechako River’s headwaters originated in a vast chain of lakes in the Tweedsmuir Park on the eastern slopes of the Coast Mountains. A plan originally conceived in the 1920s became reality in 1950 with the construction of the clay-core rock filled Kenney Dam by the Aluminum Company of Canada (ALCAN) – now owned by Rio Tinto. This is one of the few instances in history where a river’s flow has been reversed. The water impounded by the Kenney Dam in the Nechako Reservoir now flows west to the Coast Mountains, then through a ten mile tunnel, dropping 2,600 ft. to generate power for aluminum smelting at Kitimat. Cheap power is essential to the manufacture of aluminum since it takes more electrical energy to process one ton of aluminum than most Canadians use to heat their homes over ten years. Bauxite, the ore from which aluminum is made, is not found in Canada and was brought up from Jamaica or Africa. When the price of aluminum dropped, Alcan decided just to sell the power to the province.
Site C Dam – 2010
Will a similar obituary be published when the Site C dam is pushed through? The government of BC is not allowing any environmental assessment done. Similar to the Kenney Dam, the largest rocked filled dam in the world, electricity from Site C is to be used for industrial projects – namely to power shale gas operations in the eastern part of British Columbia.
“Site C is clearly not about BC’s energy needs, it is about powering dirty fossil fuel projects and providing a massive subsidy to the private power sector. . .” stated Joe Foy of the Wilderness Committee.
Isn’t this the same scenario as what happened in the 1950s? Big projects done without any thought to the future.
Tags: fossil fuels, Kitimat, Site C
The Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans announced that they are considering a cull of over 200,000 grey seals on Sable Island, a continental island near Nova Scotia. This is being done supposedly to help the recovery of fish stocks such as cod, haddock, pollock, silver hake and the flatfishes. How do they get these high numbers? According to Exxon Mobil’s observations, the population of breeding grey seals is around 45,000.
The underwater area around Sable Island is a unique canyon of extremely high productivity. Everything from sharks, tuna, whales and other marine life either stop here during migration or make this unique marine ecosystem their home.
Groundfish stocks have been depleted over the years due in part to over fishing and changes in water temperature. Most groundfish move with the seasons. In autumn and winter they move from the tops of the banks to deeper, warmer waters along the edges and adjoining basins, however, cod spawning patterns have recently changed from two peak spawning periods to one in the autumn. The same applies to silver hake whose spawning appears to be strongly influenced by water temperature, and variations impact the growth of juveniles.
The grey seals of Sable Island are stable, but harbor seal populations have plummeted in recent years. Both gray and harbor seals feed on the same prey—tiny fish called sand lances. Their feeding behaviors, however, are different. While harbor seals follow schools of sand lances and eat fish that have strayed from the school, gray seals dig into the sandy ocean floor to find fish hiding there. What studies have been done on sea lances? How have they been impacted by nearby aquaculture? There are roughly 40 groundfish farms in the area.
If groundfish are affected by changes in ocean temperature what affect will culling grey seals have?
What about the Sable Offshore Energy Project? The area around Sable Island contains the largest natural gas reserves remaining to be developed and already Mobil Exxon have several platforms. What happens to this area when there is a natural gas leak? No one will see it.
Mary Crowley is an ocean defender but she needs your help to destroy an island. A big plastic island in the Pacific Ocean twice the size of Texas and a whole lot of other places. To this end she has started Project Kaisei which involved sending researchers and boats to this area to sample the debris and figure out what can be done. I’m hoping it can be brought back and recycled somehow! Visit www.projectkaisei.org to learn more.
Tags: oceans, plastic, plastic bags
Anaheim California is looking at recycling their water as part of their 2060 project. In the meantime, they are constructing a small scale purple pipe water reclamation project which will service their City Hall buildings. From their website:
“The Waste Water Demonstration Project is a perfect example of how the City of Anaheim needs to identify future needs and implement solutions today for those needs. The lack of water will only grow in future years. Small scale purple pipe systems are the only way forward for Anaheim, and the City is out to prove it’s possible.”
Here is their video – no narration but easy to understand with the funky music!
Anaheim Water Recycling Demonstration Project from Grant Henninger on Vimeo.
If you want to learn more about purple pipes, see my page “About Purple Pipes” at the top of my blog.
Tags: purple pipes, reclaimed water
