White Water to Black Gold in Alberta

[Kauai Kid]

Watched an interesting one hour expose on a canoe trip in Canada from Jasper National Park north to the eventual mouth of the river.

The trip took the team by the refineries converting oil shale into oil.

To refine one barrel of oil takes 3 barrels of water that are contaminated and stored outdoors in lakes contained by earthen dams.

The show was a real eye opener.


Sterling

 

[Passepartout]

The high cost of cheap fuel. I guess potential environmental damage is preferable to going to war for it, but that's debatable. (comments my own and not intended to start a forbidden discussion here)

Jim

 

[Kauai Kid]

Letter from Her Majesty

Received a Royal Summons from Her Majesty Wow:

Once I opened the letter I found the summons was to appear in court or pay a $140 speeding ticket by photo detection that I got in Canmore.

Because it took 9 days to get up to Alberta from Texas I received a warning letter that the fine would be doubled if I didn't pay up right away. My check for $140 cleared the next day. Sounded like the next step was extradition.

I'm awaiting a refund from the court since fine was paid in US $ not Canadian Loonies. So the court owes me a partial refund. :hysterical:

Don't speed in Canmore especially if you are going downhill into town and the road makes a sharp right with the speed limit posted 10 meteres from the photo detection system.

What is really ironic is the fact I was driving a 4 cylinder underpowered Nissan Sentra that couldn't keep up with the traffic on the Transcontinental HW.

If the Province needs money they should start enforcing the speed limits on the Transcontinental HW. No one drives the speed limit there.

Thanks for letting me vent,

Sterling

 

[Meow]

Watched an interesting one hour expose on a canoe trip in Canada from Jasper National Park north to the eventual mouth of the river.

The trip took the team by the refineries converting oil shale into oil.

To refine one barrel of oil takes 3 barrels of water that are contaminated and stored outdoors in lakes contained by earthen dams.

The show was a real eye opener.


Sterling

Not sure how a rant, denigrating Canada's Oil Sands Industry, fits in to a forum concerning Timesharing. I though that one of the rules is not to raise political issues unrelated to the timeshare experience.
What next? We Canadians putting down your President for vetoing the XL Keystone Pipeline? Let's stay relevant to the objectives of this forum, please.

 

[bizaro86]

Watched an interesting one hour expose on a canoe trip in Canada from Jasper National Park north to the eventual mouth of the river.

The trip took the team by the refineries converting oil shale into oil.

To refine one barrel of oil takes 3 barrels of water that are contaminated and stored outdoors in lakes contained by earthen dams.

The show was a real eye opener.


Sterling

If comments like this are allowed, then I'd like to take an opportunity to respond, at least to the factual inaccuracies.

The Athabasca river doesn't pass refineries, but it does go by oilsands mines. The mines do use water (~2.5 bbl H2O/bbl of oil). The very small sand particles are stored in tailings ponds until the solids settle out. These ponds are being regulated out of existence.

Most oil sands oil comes from in-situ production (ie, wells drilled into the ground). They use ~0.5 bbl of water per bbl of oil produced, and no ponds are created. This is very similar to the steam flood processes used to produce heavy oil in California, and usually has lower carbon emissions than that process.

Also, the regulator in Alberta requires water be recycled, currently 85-90% of the water used is recycled, and almost all of the new water sourced is from deep saline non-potable aquifers. There are a few legacy permits to remove water from the river, mainly held by the oldest mines.

The government of Alberta has this to say: http://oilsands.alberta.ca/water.html

 

[Chrispee]

Although there is a political aspect to this thread, I think it's interesting from a travel standpoint as many of us take note of industry and environmental issues when when visiting different places. For instance, the abundance of wind and solar panels in use in Hawaii have caught my attention, as has the lack of a recycling program in Montana.

I myself am not in favour of the Oil Sands (more accurately Bitumen Sands), but I can definitely understand how many from Alberta are standing by the project as it has essentially shaped the economy for the past decade. As a counterpoint to the Government of Alberta link, here's something from the opposite end of the spectrum:
http://oilsandsrealitycheck.org