Alberta’s
tar sands (also known as oil sands) are the world’s third-largest reserves of
recoverable crude oil.60 Though it is expensive to extract, this oil fetches a
much lower price than other heavy oils due to the difculty in getting the
landlocked tar sands to the United States and other potential markets. Thus,
tar sands companies are desperate to promote new and expanded pipelines. The
need for new pipeline capacity is particularly acute as companies ramp up
production at projects that were started several years ago, while still
planning new projects, such as Teck Resources’ massive Frontier Mine.
ADS
loading...
Wednesday, December 26, 2018
Sunday, December 23, 2018
CASE STUDY: OPPOSING THE LINE 3 TAR SANDS PIPELINE
Enbridge’s Line 3 so-called “replacement” project is a
proposal for a new pipeline that would cover more than 1,000 miles from
Hardisty, Alberta, to Superior, Wisconsin, transporting an average of 760,000
barrels of crude oil from the Alberta tarsands each day, with capacity for
844,000 barrels per day.
Enbridge intends to abandon its existing Line 3 pipeline if
it is able to complete its new Line 3, leaving the corroding pipe in the ground
and a lasting legacy of contamination. The replacement Line 3 would take a
brand new route. This path cuts through pristine wetlands and watersheds in
northern Minnesota, passing through the headwaters of the Mississippi River to
the shores of Lake Superior, through the heart of Minnesota’s lake country and
some of the largest and most productive wild rice beds in the world.
Wednesday, December 19, 2018
CASE STUDY: EXTREME ENERGY INJUSTICE AND INDIGENOUS RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN ALASKA
Alaska
Native rights and Indigenous sovereignty cannot be separated from the problem
of extreme oil and gas production in Alaska. Politicians and oil interests have
a long history of pushing legislation nullifying Alaska Native land claims,
especially those claims that stood in the way of oil and pipeline development.
After being declared a state in 1958, Alaska selected for
oil development tracts of land on the North Slope, in an area called Prudhoe
Bay. Without consultation and consent of the local Inupiat village, but with
approval of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, these lands were transferred to
the state.
Friday, December 14, 2018
COAL MINING POLICY REVIEW
The global coal mining sector is under pressure like never
before. An increasing number of analysts and industry watchers (including at
Goldman Sachs175) are declaring that thermal coal has now entered structural,
rather than cyclical, decline. Coal mining companies have to contend with the
fact that six countries, states, provinces, or cities have completely phased
out coal power since 2014, and an additional 17 haveannounced a coal power
phase-out date of 2030 or sooner. Among them are three G7 countries, eight EU
countries, and Beijing and Delhi — all committed to becoming coal-free. Also in
2017, South Korea, the world’s fourth largest coal importer, announced a major
reduction in its coal power reliance, a move that has dire implications for
Indonesian coal producers in particular.
Tuesday, December 11, 2018
CASE STUDY: HOUSTON: HURT BY THE CAUSES AND SYMPTOMS OF CLIMATE CHANGE
The
torrential downpours and violent winds of Hurricane Harvey struck Houston,
Texas in August and September 2017. Harvey killed at least 68 people and
displaced over one million,leaving approximately 200,000 damaged homes along
its 300- mile trail. Damages from the hurricane tallied an estimated $125
billion. The aftermath is still being felt through the region.
Environmental
racism exacerbates the pain caused by natural disasters by disproportionately affecting low-income communities of color close to industrial
sites. In the wake of Harvey, these communities were exposed to increased
levels of toxic chemicals from Houston’s superfund sites, chemical plants, and
oil refneries during the storms. Houston is an industrial hub with a busy ship channel,
in a state that’s home to 30 percent of the country’s oil refning capacity.
According to the Environmental Defense Fund, Hurricane Harvey causeddamaged
refneries and chemical facilities to release nearly sixmillion pounds of
cancer-causing chemicals into the air.
Sunday, December 9, 2018
STOP FUNDING FOSSILS: WHY THE FINANCE SECTOR MUST FOLLOW THE WORLD BANK’S LEAD
Achieving the goals of the Paris
Climate Agreement will require action across all sectors of the economy, and
the finance sector is clearly fundamental. In fact, one of the Paris
Agreement’s three objectives is “making finance flows consistent with a pathway
towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development. Recent
announcements by some of the world’s largest financial institutions reveal an
emerging consensus that all fossil fuel investment and financing risks both
climate security and economic value. The finance sector has an important role
to play in ending further exploration and the expansion of fossil fuel
production.
Thursday, December 6, 2018
THE BEGINNING OF THE END
2017 may
go down in history as the year when it frst became clear that the fossil fuel
era was fnally starting to sputter to an end. The cost of new solar and wind
power started to fall below the price of new coal and gas plants in a growing
number of regions. The CEO of NextEra Energy, one of the largest electricity
producers in the US, now predicts that “early in the next decade” — just a few
years from now — power will be cheaper from unsubsidized new wind and solar
plants in the US than from existing coal and nuclear plants. It’s still far from game over for the
fossil fuel industry, but the game hasdrastically changed.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)