Oil Sands Essay

The oil production in Canada has several significant issues that depict the destruction nature of the industry. These issues can be categorized as environmental, political, economic, and social. The environmental issues lead the pack; in that the environmental destruction associated with the industry is extensive. The environmental problems are climatic, land, water and air related (Best & Hoberg, 2015). Under climatic effect, studies indicate that the development of the tar sides has resulted to three times more greenhouse gases (GHGs) than in production of conventional oil. These environmental issues are caused by the composition of the tar sands. Unlike the convention oil, tar sands are a mixture of bitumen and sand. The process of separating the two results triples GHGs emissions when compared to conventional oil production (Koring, 2013).

The social community improvements of alberta as a result of the oil sands. The albertan government committed around 2.5 billion dollars in fixing up the communities of alberta as a result of the oil sands making so much money(Alberta government,march 15 2013). Some examples of this are the 1 billion in road projects, 241 million in building new neighbourhoods, and 103 million in wastewater treatment and to improve the old ones(Alberta government,march 15 2013). Air is rated good 99% of the time, drinking water consistently meets the the guidelines for canadian drinking water(Alberta government,march 15 2013). Which means the quality of life is good in the oilsands region. In conclusion the oil sands affect the communities of that region positively, by bringing in enough money to make improvements to the infrastructure.

Government has been working closely with industry for years, which is also a key factor in developing the oil sands in a socially responsible way. Most major oil companies are involved with initiatives like Water for Life Strategy, Alberta Water Council and Petroleum Technology Alliance Canada (CAPP, 2012). Alberta’s oil sands are being developed with social responsibility in mind.

The Alberta Oil Sands have affected many stakeholder groups such as government, residents, researchers and employees. However, we will focus on how it affects the Alberta Government; specifically, Ed Stlemech of the Conservative Government. As my stake holder, Ed Stlemech does not live within the Alberta Oil Sands area as well as have any direct relevance to it, I will instead examine how it has affects the citizens of Alberta and more importantly, those who live in and near the Fort Chipewyan area. In this way, the environmental, the economical as well as the societal impacts will impact Albertan voters and therefore impact the Conservative Government in way of the Alberta General Election.

In “Tarmageddon: Dirty oil is turning Canada into a corrupt petro-state,” Andrew Nikiforuk argues that the Canadian oil industry has harmed Canada’s environmental, political and economical images. First, Canada starts to be regarded as having a defensive attitude towards environmental issues since the Bitumen has been explored. Regardless of the Bitumen’s high cost and emission, Canada still welcomes billions of foreign investment in the Bitumen. Consequently, newly operated industries begin to destroy the forest and generate toxic waste (even into water). While refining oil, lots of energy and freshwater are squandered, outpouring a considerable amount of carbon emission. Hence, Canadian oil industry has been pictured as a “carbon-making

Countries having the bituminous sand but the wide range of this sand are finding in Canada. The research show that this company is important for economy and showing robust future in the future because in 2004, the processing of engineered unrefined petroleum (SCO) and natural rough bitumen spoke to 41 percent of aggregate Canadian oil generation. At an accepted WTI cost of $32 for every barrel, the oil sands generation is relied upon to expand three fold by 2017, helping considerably more than 50% of Alberta's oil supply. The normal elevated amount of oil action ought to prompt gigantic budgetary development in the district and in addition in the area. The number of inhabitants in the locale (i.e., Wood Buffalo-Cold Lake Economic Region7) has expanded by 8 percent between 2000 and 2004. This contrasts and a development of 7 percent for the region, and 5 percent for the country over the same period. The development and improvement in the oil sands industry at the provincial level affects the common, national

While the Alberta oil sands are critical to the Canadian economy, environmental policies must be strengthened in order to diminish the immense risk in the transportation of crude oil, the harming of human health, and the deterioration of the surrounding

Konrad Yakabuski’s stance on the issue was made clear from the title, “Why Canada needs to develop the oil sands”. The author’s decision to add the word “why” indicates that there will be several pieces of evidence to back up the author’s argument. These pieces of evidence included: How vital the oil sands are to Alberta’s economy, it provides employment, and how the oil sands are a great opportunity for Canada to grow economically. When talking about the province’s economy in relation to the oil sands the author writes, “Oil sands royalties are critical to Alberta’s fiscal health. And Ottawa relies on oil-related tax revenue from Alberta to fund federal programs.” 2 The author also talks about how it is “a source of valuable foreign investment that

The Tar Sands Disaster is a piece of content written by Thomas Homer-Dixon. His purpose on writing the piece was to help bring awareness on the potential environmental damages that are caused by tar sands production in Canada. Thomas explains that Canada is using pipelines (specifically the Keystone XL pipeline) to export tar sands to the United States, and while it does help the economy financially, it harms the environment. Thomas hopes for his readers to go against the tar sands industry, and help shut it down. His target audience is Canadians. He claimed that even though many Canadians are against tar sands production, they cannot have open conversations about the problem, due to the fact that the Conservatives attack researchers for climate

In 2015, the world will face a vast amount of dilemmas; these dilemmas range from how someone is going to get their food to how they are going to cook. But the biggest dilemma of them all, is how they are going to continue to get energy to do everyday tasks. The most efficient resources are those of the nonrenewable variety. These nonrenewable resources include fossil fuels, such as coal, natural gas, and petroleum. Someday these resources will run out and will not be replenished for thousands of years. As of now, an overwhelming majority of the energy used in the world today is non-renewable. We, as civilized people, are so dependent on fossil fuels that we go through extraneous efforts to retrieve these properties. The world needs energy to function and sites that once contained vital resources are on the verge of depletion. It is inevitable that the world looks elsewhere for another resource to absorb the depleting reservoirs. One reservoir capable of withstanding the demand for oil are the tar sands located near Alberta, Canada. These tar sands are the third largest reservoir of crude oil in the world and are conveniently located just north of the United States border (About the Project). There is a wide spread debate on whether or not the crude oil produced from these tar sands should be transported via pipeline. With critical analysis of all point of views, it is without a doubt that the United States should cease their delay on

The statement ‘Canada oil sands are much more of a blessing rather than a curse’ is not true because the disadvantages of oil sands outweigh the advantages. For this reason, this paper aims at indicating points against the statement. To understand the defects of oil sand exploration in Canada, one has to delve into the explanation of what oil sands are as well as how the entire process of mining and refining and thereafter, determine the disadvantages based on socioeconomic factors, environmental factors, as well as the infrastructure and energy required for its production.

Tar/ Oil sands are definitely another alternate source of energy because energy sources have become a vital point in the economic development of every country. In North American region, efforts should be made to discover and identify new sources of tar/ oil sands to cope with everyday energy needs. On the one hand, oil or tar separation from sands is very crucial to meet expanding energy needs of North America, but on the other hand it is

Tar sands oil and oil shale are dirtier cousins to conventional oil. Despite its name, oil shale is not oil at all, but a rock that contains a waxy substance known as kerogen. Kerogen has only one tenth the energy potential of crude oil. When kerogen is heated to high temperatures, it liquefies and can been turned into a synthetic petroleum product. There are two methods to extract the kerogen from rocks. The first is to mine it, crush it, and heat it without oxygen in a machine known as a retort. The second method is to heat the rock while it is still in the ground, and pump the liquefied kerogen to the surface, a process known as situ. Each method is more energy and water intensive and more

Energy is the most important factor for growth and development. Petroleum being the primary source of energy can be categorized into conventional and non-conventional forms based on the viscosity and API gravity. Heavy oil and Bitumen are the non-conventional forms of energy which are often referred as oil sands or tar sands having high

The pioneer in development and application of tar sands technology is unquestionably Great Canadian Oil Sand LTD (GCOS). Which was primarily own by an American company. In 1964 GCOS began construction, in 1968 they began commercial production. – operated at a huge loss with “Even, so GCOS operated at a loss for 8 years... [They gained a] profit of $25 million the last 2 years, the company still has an operating deficit of 54 million. The companies need to worry constantly about replacing buckets, cleaning machinery and those are costly material. Imperial oil was controlling the section with the first deep tar sands that was exploited at Cold lake, where reserves estimated at about 160 billion barrels. Lots of companies like, BP Canada Ltd., Hudson’s Bay oil and Gas Ltd. and AOSTRA are studying a combustion method employing steam injection and in situ combustion 6 requiring the oil the companies were able to choose from two major was of extracting oil. Mining of bitumen involves the open-face mining of oil sands ore. Ore is transported to a central processing plant, where the bitumen is separated from the sand and subsequently upgraded to synthetic crude oil. Mining can only be effective for bitumen deposits located sufficiently close to the surface. In situ bitumen extraction refers to the extraction of bitumen directly from the ground. As the bitumen does not flow naturally at the reservoir temperature, the viscosity of the bitumen must first be lowered to allow the bitumen