Tar Sands Oil Extraction - The Dirty Truth

each and every year we become more not less addicted to oil a 19th century fossil fuel that is dirty dwindling and dangerously expensive most Americans don't know is that for the last seven years Canada has been the number one supplier of oil to the United States we replaced Saudi Arabia we are the new Saudi Arabia the nice thing about Canada is that it is a direct pipeline to the US it's reliable fuel it's from a stable source and it's not going to be affected by weather issues like hurricanes so it's a significant factor in I expect one that will continue to grow in the future digging the bitumen out of the ground squeezing the oil and converting it into synthetic crude is a monumental challenge it requires vast amounts of capital brogdon agee and technology and an array of skilled workers in short it is an enterprise of epic proportions akin to building the pyramids or China's Great Wall only bigger the tar sands are the largest industrial development and the largest energy project on the face of the planet at land that we're talking about being disturbed is an area 149 thousand square kilometres an area the size of the state of Florida or the entire country of England tar sands production is going to quadruple over the next 20 years or so the tar sands are a very interesting example of end to end environmental degradation whether it be excess use of water whether it be toxic sludge that's out there affecting ecosystems or whether it be greenhouse gas emissions 120 billion dollars has been invested in tar sands development over the last 12 years the Canadian reserves hold up to a hundred and seventy three billion barrels of recoverable crude oil second only to Saudi Arabia tar sands production uses enough natural gas to heat three million homes and it spews out as much greenhouse gas in a day as one point three four million cars there's nowhere else on earth where we're talking about destroying an area the size of Florida there is nowhere else on earth where you have toxic ponds that are so big that you can now see them from space what we are doing is probably the greatest form of moral carelessness you can find on the planet at the moment we now have sixty kilometers of toxic lakes all along the Athabasca River and what we know at this point in time is that we know that every single one of these tailings ponds leaks they were after all only made out of sand Alberta's Liberals say tainted water leaked from an oil sands plant into the Athabasca River was kept secret for months the opposition released a report today saying the leak from Sun Coors wastewater pond happened last fall and that residents downstream were not told about it until two weeks ago I don't know the when they were told and that's one of the things they want to find out for sure is whether people notified and again what it was the level of toxicity tar sands generate a number of toxic chemicals hazardous to life more disturbing is that these pollution levels are rising tar sands are not standard forward they are full of all sorts of very nasty things that we do not want in our world when you put arsenic and PAH is together the carcinogenic effect can increase by 8 to 18 fold and this is exactly what we have in the water and in the sediments of the river and in the Delta if you continually put billions of litres of tailings into ponds every day 1.8 billion liters per day where is it going to go it eventually some of it has to leak the best estimates right now are that for about every 160 liters of tailings that are produced one leaks and escapes to the ecosystem that's pretty good from an engineering perspective 160 liters we put on a pond only one gets away the problem is we're dealing with toxic substances on of massive volumes and so that's not a good thing and the reality is that this project threatens the world's third-largest watershed the area is fast a toxic pond that stretches for several square kilometers and a landing point on Monday for hundreds of migratory birds out of almost 500 that landed on this toxic pond it's sink crude oil sands cite only a handful have been recovered and now there seems to be little hope of saving the Ducks a completely oiled bird um would sink nearly immediately this all coming is Alberta is on a twenty five million dollar PR campaign supporting the oil sands you're seeing a string of waterfowl and other other birds dying on these tailings ponds all the time Fish and Wildlife have reported that animals as big as moose drink from these tailings ponds so you know you're definitely not keeping the wildlife in those surrounding areas safe at 35 million acres Canada's boreal forest is one of the largest remaining intact forest ecosystems on earth larger than the Brazilian rainforest the boreal is the nursery for countless migratory birds and endangered species and we have a lot of information about the health impacts on wildlife certainly we know there are major impacts on wildlife populations through loss of habitat woodland caribou herds in Northeast Alberta have declined by 50% over the past decade as a result of oil sands development like most seen declines in a whole number of boreal forest birds and other another mammal species so that's obviously a big concern today's government and stakeholders can look back with pride at the approach we all took in managing the oil sands deposit and the consistent and acceptable picture we have created from whatever perspective you look at it the world is no longer watching us to see if we'll fail they are now lined up to learn from our success you know the the announcement last night is Heather Kennedy and this lady I know that I know very well from Suncor is now in the government and and and in the area of approvals so what does that say to you it's not only unusual it's completely unacceptable we have now someone who's a senior official with Suncor has been made in Deputy Minister responsible for development around Fort McMurray and Suncor is still paying our salary and the conflict of interest here is so thick you couldn't cut it with a knife it's right now what we have is a government that is basically industry's best friend and they will not lift a finger that will do anything to harm industry in any way our environmental rules although they're very good are rarely enforced the government gives waterway to companies without charging a fee there are very very few violations or prosecutions on environmental issues whether it it has to do with air pollution or water pollution I've spoken with environmental officers for the Alberta government who have been frustrated to tears because they have filed reports have caught polluters year in year out and nothing ever happens it gets to a certain point at the political level and they kill the investigation it's it's a big wrong it is a huge wrong and there probably is you know criminal activity going on to to suppress you know a report if it doesn't have it happens and nobody sees it it's like the tree falling in the forest does anybody here does anybody care we've got protocols in place creamer just signed a protocol a the Environment Minister of Alberta Rob Renner even recently stated in the legislature that it is not the job of Aalborg Environment to act as an advocate for the environment and that's a stunning statement the government has evolved its responsibilities towards monitoring what's happening there to a privately controlled consortium it's controlled by industry having private data that I can't get if I want to analyze it telling the government what is happening there it's completely out of control the big winner and all this is the federal government the federal government stands to make more than seventy billion dollars from oil sands taxes by 2020 in contrast the Alberta government will be pulling in something like 40 billion so Alberta is essentially a Petro state it behaves like a Petro State it operates like a Petro state in the sense that it's all about oil and gas production and just about any other values are being sacrificed from all our perspectives what we should be doing is putting people first and realizing that the price of this absolute unabated development that's going on not just in the tar sands but all over the world is perhaps getting too too big a price to pay a lot of the dirty energy economy is not just subsidized by hidden tax benefits by access to public lands for free it is subsidy by people's lungs and by their own bodies when the water and air that they depend on become the dumping grounds for private interest what this really has to do with is big people picking on small people and assuming they can get away with it it is bullying at the worst level and it puts people cannot protect themselves in harm's way that is maddening all of this destruction is really by popular demand and I'm part of that demand we're at a real crossroads within the United States and within the world on getting the energy economy right decisions are being made today that will make that happen or commit us to perpetual decline in more and more filth more and more disease and less and less choice but the Americans by asking this really important question well do we really want to run on dirty oil and how long do we run a run on dirty oil for might actually force us to clean up things

Channel: SustainableGuidance

Views: 493,818

Keywords: tar sands, shale, fossil fuels, pollution, toxic, air, water, crisis, tailing ponds, deforestation, forests, CO2, oil, sands, H2oil, bitumen, Petropolis, Greenpeace, Leslie Iwerks, trailer, part 1, privatization, depletion, scarcity, industrial, documentary, movie, show, 2010, 2011, 2012, renewable, energy, economic, environment, electric, cars, ev, resources, production, extraction, Gasland, crude, reserves, future, supply, global, climate, Alberta, Canada, Canadian, life, endangered, animals, controversy, health, Keystone, XL

Id: YkwoRivP17A

Length: 11min 38sec (698 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 27 2011