US Wants More Oil From Oilsands
U.S.and Canadian oil executives and government officials met for a two-day oil summit in Houston in January 2006 and made plans for a "fivefold expansion" in oilsands production in a relatively "short time span,"
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But the current extraction of oil from the tarsands results in the spewing of millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere: it's already the biggest source of new greenhouse gas emissions in Canada.
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Yet, according to the minutes of the Houston meeting, to multiply its output by five and to do it quickly, Canada would have to "streamline" its environmental regulations for new energy projects.
I so love euphemisms. “Streamline” indeed! Beyond the greenhouse gases, which have global implications, the basically open-pit mining of northern Alberta and Saskatchewan is destroying huge swaths of countryside. The refining process uses massive amounts of water. Fort McMurray, with 60,000 people, uses the same amount of water as Calgary’s 1.2 million. A fivefold increase means they’ll be using more water than the rest of the three prairie provinces combined.
The resultant water is toxic, how much do you think we should “streamline” its release?
Despite being situated at the confluence of three rivers, Fort McMurray is still thirsty as a result. There are already plans to divert and dam rivers feeding into the Northwest Territories.
In his state of the union address in 2006, U.S. President George W. Bush set out a goal to drastically reduce oil imports from the Middle East and make American dependence on Middle Eastern oil "a thing of the past."
"America is addicted to oil which is often imported from unstable parts of the world," Bush said then.
Paul Michael Weaby, a Washington insider and an expert on the geo-strategic aspect of the oil industry, said Bush is counting on Canada to help wean the United States off Middle Eastern oil — a goal now defined as a national security objective.
"He wanted to have a reduction of 1.5 million barrels a day by 2015 from the Middle East. Although he did not mention Canada, that is in fact where the replacement supply will come from."
You would think that as a “National Security Objective” they could come up with a better plan. As has been pointed out ad nauseum by those defending record profits for the oil industry, the price is set on the world market, regardless where the oil comes from. Stop buying from the Middle East and change suppliers, somebody else simply steps in to fill in the gap. The only way to really hurt the oil-dependant regimes is to wean yourself off the oil. No surprise the Bush Administration hasn’t pursued that course.
Sure, National Security is important, but gasoline profits are sacrosanct.
