Download or read book Developing Alberta s Oil Sands written by Paul Anthony Chastko and published by University of Calgary Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alberta's oil sands represent a vast and untapped oil reserve that could reasonably supply all of Canada's energy needs for the next 475 years. With an estimated 300 billion barrels of recoverable oil at stake, the quest to develop this natural resource has been undertaken by many powerful actors, both nationally and internationally. Using research that integrates the economic, political, scientific, and business factors that have been influential in discovering and developing the sands, this book provides a comprehensive history of the oil sands project and a window on the nature of the complex relationships between industry, government, and transnational players. This book is the first comprehensive volume that examines the origins and development of the oil sands industry over the last century.
Download or read book Tar Sands written by Andrew Nikiforuk and published by Greystone Books Ltd. This book was released on 2010-08-01 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tar Sands critically examines the frenzied development in the Canadian tar sands and the far-reaching implications for all of North America. Bitumen, the sticky stuff that ancients used to glue the Tower of Babel together, is the world’s most expensive hydrocarbon. This difficult-to-find resource has made Canada the number-one supplier of oil to the United States, and every major oil company now owns a lease in the Alberta tar sands. The region has become a global Deadwood, complete with rapturous engineers, cut-throat cocaine dealers, Muslim extremists, and a huge population of homeless individuals. In this award-winning book, a Canadian bestseller, journalist Andrew Nikiforuk exposes the disastrous environmental, social, and political costs of the tar sands, arguing forcefully for change. This updated edition includes new chapters on the most energy-inefficient tar sands projects (the steam plants), as well as new material on the controversial carbon cemeteries and nuclear proposals to accelerate bitumen production.
Download or read book Ethical Oil written by Ezra Levant and published by McClelland & Stewart. This book was released on 2011-05-03 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Canada's "no. 1 defender of freedom of speech" and the bestselling author of Shakedown makes the timely and provocative case that when it comes to oil, ethics matter just as much as the economy and the environment. In 2009, Ezra Levant's bestselling book Shakedown revealed the corruption of Canada's human rights commissions and was declared the "most important public affairs book of the year." In Ethical Oil, Levant turns his attention to another hot-button topic: the ethical cost of our addiction to oil. While many North Americans may be aware of the financial and environmental price we pay for a gallon of gas or a barrel of oil, Levant argues that it is time we consider ethical factors as well. With his trademark candor, Levant asks hard-hitting questions: With the oil sands at our disposal, is it ethically responsible to import our oil from the Sudan, Russia, and Mexico? How should we weigh carbon emissions with human rights violations in Saudi Arabia? And assuming that we can't live without oil, can the development of energy be made more environmentally sustainable? In Ethical Oil, Levant exposes the hypocrisy of the West's dealings with the reprehensible regimes from which we purchase the oil that sustains our lifestyles, and offers solutions to this dilemma. Readers at all points on the political spectrum will want to read this timely and provocative new book, which is sure to spark debate.
Download or read book Oil s Deep State written by Kevin Taft and published by James Lorimer & Company. This book was released on 2017-10-06 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why have democratic governments failed to take serious steps to reduce carbon emissions despite dire warnings and compelling evidence of the profound and growing threat posed by global warming? Most of the writing on global warming is by scientists, academics, environmentalists, and journalists. Kevin Taft, a former leader of the opposition in Alberta, brings a fresh perspective through the insight he gained as an elected politician who had an insider's eyewitness view of the role of the oil industry. His answer, in brief: The oil industry has captured key democratic institutions in both Alberta and Ottawa. Taft begins his book with a perceptive observer's account of a recent court casein Ottawa which laid bare the tactics and techniques of the industry, its insiders and lobbyists. He casts dramatic new light on exactly how corporate lobbyists, politicians, bureaucrats, universities, and other organizations are working together to pursue the oil industry's agenda. He offers a brisk tour of the recent work of scholars who have developed the concepts of the deep state and institutional capture to understand how one rich industry can override the public interest. Taft views global warming and weakened democracy as two symptoms of the same problem — the loss of democratic institutions to corporate influence and control. He sees citizen engagement and direct action by the public as the only response that can unravel big oil's deep state.
Download or read book Alberta Oil Sands written by Kevin E Percy and published by Newnes. This book was released on 2012-11-29 with total page 570 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At 170 billion barrels, Canada's Oil Sands are the third largest reserves of developable oil in the world. The Oil Sands now produce about 1.6 million barrels per day, with production expected to double by 2025 to about 3.7 million barrels per day. The Athabasca Oil Sands Region (AOSR) in northeastern Alberta is the largest of the three oil sands deposits. Bitumen in the oil sands is recovered through one of two primary methods - mining and drilling. About 20 per cent of the reserves are close to the surface and can be mined using large shovels and trucks. Of concern are the effects of the industrial development on the environment. Both human-made and natural sources emit oxides of sulphur and nitrogen, trace elements and persistent organic compounds. Of additional concern are ground level ozone and greenhouse gases. Because of the requirement on operators to comply with the air quality regulatory policies, and to address public concerns, the not-for-profit, multi-stakeholder Wood Buffalo Environmental Association (WBEA) has since 1997 been closely monitoring air quality in AOSR. In 2008, WBEA assembled a distinguished group of international scientists who have been conducting measurements and practical research on various aspects of air emissions and their potential effects on terrestrial receptors. This book is a synthesis of the concepts and results of those on-going studies. It contains 19 chapters ranging from a global perspective of energy production, measurement methodologies and behavior of various air pollutants during fossil fuel production in a boreal forest ecosystem, towards designing and deploying a multi-disciplinary, proactive, and long-term environmental monitoring system that will also meet regulatory expectations. Covers measurement of emissions from very large industrial sources in a region with huge international media profile Validation of measurement technologies can be applied globally The new approaches to ecological monitoring described can be applied in other forested regions
Download or read book First World Petro Politics written by Laurie Adkin and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2016-08-04 with total page 691 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First World Petro-Politics examines the vital yet understudied case of a first world petro-state facing related social, ecological, and economic crises in the context of recent critical work on fossil capitalism. A wide-ranging and richly documented study of Alberta’s political ecology – the relationship between the province’s political and economic institutions and its natural environment – the volume tackles questions about the nature of the political regime, how it has governed, and where its primary fractures have emerged. Its authors examine Alberta’s neo-liberal environmental regulation, institutional adaptation to petro-state imperatives, social movement organizing, Indigenous responses to extractive development, media framing of issues, and corporate strategies to secure social license to operate. Importantly, they also discuss policy alternatives for political democratization and for a transition to a low-carbon economy. The volume’s conclusions offer a critical examination of petro-state theory, arguing for a comparative and contextual approach to understanding the relationships between dependence on carbon extraction and the nature of political regimes.
Download or read book Sustainable Development as Environmental Harm written by James Heydon and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-04-01 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this in-depth analysis of First Nations opposition to the oil sands industry, James Heydon offers detailed empirical insight into Canadian oil sands regulation. The environmental consequences of the oil sands industry have been thoroughly explored by scholars from a variety of disciplines. However, less well understood is how and why the provincial energy regulator has repeatedly sanctioned such a harmful pattern of production for almost two decades. This research monograph addresses that shortcoming. Drawing from interviews with government, industry, and First Nation personnel, along with an analysis of almost 20 years of policy, strategy, and regulatory approval documents, Sustainable Development as Environmental Harm offers detailed empirical insight into Canadian oil sands regulation. Providing a thorough account of the ways in which the regulatory process has prioritised economic interests over the land-based cultural interests of First Nations, it addresses a gap in the literature by explaining how environmental harm has been systematically produced over time by a regulatory process tasked with the pursuit of ‘sustainable development’. With an approach emphasizing the importance of understanding how and why the regulatory process has been able to circumvent various protections for the entire duration in which the contemporary oil sands industry has existed, this work complements existing literature and provides a platform from which future investigations into environmental harm may be conducted. It is essential reading for those with an interest in green criminology, environmental harm, indigenous rights, and regulatory controls relating to fossil fuel production.
Download or read book The Future of the Canadian Oil Sands written by J. Peter Findlay and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Patch written by Chris Turner and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-09-19 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In its heyday, the oil sands represented an industrial triumph and the culmination of a century of innovation, experiment, engineering, policy, and finance. Fort McMurray was a boomtown, the centre of a new gold rush, and the oil sands were reshaping the global energy, political, and financial landscapes. The future seemed limitless for the city and those who drew their wealth from the bitumen-rich wilderness. But in 2008, a new narrative for the oil sands emerged. As financial markets collapsed and the scientific reality of the Patch's effect on the environment became clear, the region turned into a boogeyman and a lightning rod for the global movement combatting climate change. Suddenly, the streets of Fort McMurray were the front line of a high-stakes collision between two conflicting worldviews--one of industrial triumph and another of environmental stewardship--each backed by major players on the world stage. The Patch is the seminal account of this ongoing conflict, showing just how far the oil sands reaches into all of our lives. From Fort Mac to the Bakken shale country of North Dakota, from Houston to London, from Saudi Arabia to the shores of Brazil, the whole world is connected in this enterprise. And it requires us to ask the question: In order to both fuel the world and to save it, what do we do about the Patch?"--
Download or read book We Still Live Here written by and published by . This book was released on 2016-06 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Costly Fix written by Ian Urquhart and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2018-01-29 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Costly Fix examines the post-1995 Alberta tar sands boom, detailing how the state inflated the profitability of the tar sands and turned a blind eye to environmental issues. It considers the position of First Nations, the character and strength of environmental critiques, and the difficulties that environmental groups and First Nations have had in establishing a countermovement to market fundamentalism. The final chapter discusses how Alberta's new NDP government, in its first couple of years, has addressed the legacies they have inherited from the previous Progressive Conservative government on climate change, royalties, and the blight of tailings ponds in the boreal forest. Throughout the book, Urquhart demonstrates that too many actors have done too little to prevent Alberta's boreal forest from becoming a landscape sacrificed for unsustainable economic growth.
Download or read book Petropolitics written by Alan J. MacFadyen and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2014 Book of the Year Award from the Petroleum History Society!The importance of energy to the functioning of any economy has meant that energy industries are amongst the most regulated of industries. What might appear to be purely private decisions are made within a complex and evolving web of government regulations. Petropolitics: Petroleum Development, Markets and Regulations, Alberta as an Illustrative History provides an economic history of the petroleum industry in Alberta as well as a detailed analysis of the operation of the markets for Alberta oil and natural gas, and the main governmental regulations (apart from environmental regulations) faced by the industry. The tools used within this study are applicable to oil and gas industries throughout the world.
Download or read book Beautiful Destruction written by and published by Rocky Mountain Books Ltd. This book was released on 2014 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Alberta oil/tar sands are a place of superlatives, of awesome beauty and equally awesome destruction. They are a kaleidoscope of contrasts, colours and patterns keeping time with the seemingly unstoppable movement of machinery, smoke and effluent set in an immense boreal landscape with its own immutable patterns, cadence and cycles. Beautiful Destruction is a large-format, high-quality photography book that uses over 100 stunning, full-colour aerial photographs to transcend the polarities that dominate public discourse of the largest industrial project in North America: the Alberta oil/tar sands. With short essays by renowned personalities Bill McKibben, Charles Wilkinson, Duff Connacher, Elizabeth May, Eric Reguly, Ezra Levant, Jennifer Grant, Rick George, Gil McGowan, Allan Adam, Megan Leslie and Francis Scarpaleggia from both sides of the oil/tar sands debate discussing the artistic, industrial and environmental perceptions of northern Alberta's petroleum-based mega-project, Beautiful Destruction is one of the most ambitious, provocative and unique photography projects to be published in years.
Download or read book The Chemistry of Alberta Oil Sands Bitumens and Heavy Oils written by Otto P. Strausz and published by [Calgary] : Alberta Energy Research Institute. This book was released on 2003 with total page 695 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Bitumen written by Peter McKenzie-Brown and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book covers the written record of Alberta's oil sands - the world's second-largest petroleum resource - from 1715 to the present day. The focus is on men and women who contributed to the enormous scientific and technological advances that enabled the oil sands sector to become a petroleum giant. Equally, it reviews recent developments that make much of the sector at best marginally economic. According to renowned petroleum historian Earle Gray, the book "is a powerful addition to the corpus of writing about Canada's petroleum industry. But it is more than history: it is an account of current challenges and visions of future possibilities. While he focuses on the vast oil deposits in the Alberta oil sands, he also sheds wide-ranging light on other aspects of the Canadian petroleum industry's history." The author "has weaved his story from an impressive array of diverse sources, as well as intensive and extensive research," Gray continues in his foreword. "The result is a must-read for anyone interested not only in the history of the Canada's oil business, but perhaps more importantly, Canada's economic history." The Petroleum History Society's Clint Tippett adds, in the Afterword, that "there are still major hurdles ahead if we are to truly fulfil the promise of the oil sands. Extracting the bitumen and upgrading it are intensive both in terms of energy use and of greenhouse gas generation. Transportation and market access continue to be challenges." "It remains to be seen whether the Canadian oil sands sector will be nimble enough to avoid becoming roadkill, or at least become significantly restricted," he says, "in either a fundamental economic sense or through the global controversy concerning greenhouse gases and global warming." Calgary-based economist Peter Findley, whom he cites, a different perspective. Although oil sands production growth "has been impressive and robust since 1999," he said, "it seems that the more production barrels that come online from the massive heavy oil basin, the more headwinds arise that operators must overcome to deliver a return to increasingly impatient investors." Operators had little to show from their investments, he said, "even before the oil price rout." In this bust a "lacklustre" job market elsewhere in Canada (except B.C.) contributed to Alberta's pain, added Todd Hirsch, another of several economists cited. In effect, individuals in the workforce voted with their feet...by going elsewhere. "The nasty recessions of the 1980s saw tens of thousands of people pack up and leave Alberta, resulting in a drop in the size of the work force," he said. "During the darkest days of 1987, the province saw more than 1.2 per cent of its workers leave or drop out of the labour market. This repeated itself during the recessions of 1992 and 2009-10." "One reason was that those earlier busts coincided with stronger economies elsewhere in Canada attracting the province's unemployed," the author says. "Alberta's pain this time around got no such assistance - indeed, new international immigration made matters worse. Unemployment reached 8.6 per cent, the highest since 1994. "Gradually, though, things got better. After touching US$26 per barrel in February 2016, West Texas oil prices doubled within a year. At this writing, the worst of the bust seems behind us."
Download or read book Bituminous Sands of Northern Alberta written by Canada. Mines Branch and published by F.A. Acland. This book was released on 1926 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Development of the Alberta Bituminous Sands written by S. M. Blair and published by Government. This book was released on 1951 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
