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@Lornz - That is simply not true. As shown in Deucalion's post, the disturbed land is 0.2% of the boreal forest area in Alberta. That is the three pink dots that are hardly visible on the map. This is also 0.006% of the area of Canada. In additon, every surface mining permit requires a reclamation plan. 10% of the disturbed land has already been reclaimed back to its natural state. If you look on Google maps, it is actually difficult to find the areas of disturbed land.
There is a huge campaign against "dirty oil" from Alberta's oil sands. The basis for this negative campaign is very weak considering the alternatives.
Most days, this sort of sensationalist headline grabbing posting and linking does not bother me. Every once in a while, it pisses me off. Here is another example, Apple avoiding billions in Taxes.....portrayed in a negative sense.
So......why does the state deserve it's cut. Is it the state playing the role of Shylock? Does it deserve its pound if flesh (FYI - I have no love for Apple but not because of this). This is nonsense......I present to you something that must be read to see why this pisses me off...
In case you do not have the patience to read it, I will take out Sowell's end analysis -
"Since virtually everything affects virtually everything else, however remotely, "interstate commerce" can justify virtually any expansion of government power, by this kind of sophistry. The principle that the legal authority to regulate X implies the authority to regulate anything that can affect X is a huge and dangerous leap of logic, in a world where all sorts of things have some effect on all sorts of other things."
"The power to regulate indirect effects is not a slippery slope. It is the disastrous loss of freedom that lies at the bottom of a slippery slope"
I don't see how that contradicts my statement? If I blew up your house, it would be hard to find on Google Maps, but I'm sure it would be a minor inconvenience to you.
However, it's both a dirty and an inefficient way of extracting energy, and much less technologically inspiring than offshore drilling. It's feels very medieval.
I'm not in the mood to argue, and I'll let you Canucks to whatever you fell you must to poor Mother Gaia!
A good weekend to all!
P.S. I agree with your last point; There is a lot of hypocrisy among those campaigning against fossil fuels....
let me say first I agree with you....Call me simple but I didn't view thier (BI) article as being from the eco-weenie perspective....maybe I'm wrong.
You could liken it somewhat I suppose to Anwar and all the controversy surrounding that.....the part that would be "exploited" is about the size of a postage stamp and in the end has pretty much zero impact on anything.
I agree, it was quite subpar. I'm in the middle of a brain melt, so here comes another one:
I'm somewhat familiar with oil, but not with oil sands. Considering where I'm from, it shouldn't come as a surprise that I am slightly interested in oil technology. Several of my friends works as engineers for Statoil, one of them is working on the US shale project. Statoil is also involved in Canada, so there has been a lot of noise, including protests, here in Norway about the oil sand project(s).
I never said that my concern was environmental, though. I hate ugly things, and those trucks aren't visually appealing. I understand that I might be construed as not being serious, but I've always been that way.
I find "pipe dreams" (!) like this more interesting: BXPL
My arguing is always more ironic than it appears, which is why I hate message boards. I was just looking for a little friendly banter to unwind my brain after 10 hours of symbolic logic. I apologize! Shit, my steak is burning... Now I'm out....
Kbit....believe me, we are often not proud how it "looks". But a lot of us "dirty canucks" are worried about the real issues.....the immense input of water used and nat gas in extraction (for both surface mining and SAGD) among others.
I hate it when "journalists" like Robert Johnston post 4 out of context pictures showing ugly ass black ponds of goo of surface mining tailings (which as you can tell is not the majority of the tar sands). But this is enough for the whole stupid world to label us as Neanderthals raping and pillaging the earth. Yes, we use too much water, and too much nat gas....and yes, we should have done a better job....but we are trying.
Lornz....that shit is cool! I see that it has an impregnated bit type cutting surface.....which is interesting. I wonder what rock type it can cut into. Usually something on that type of low WOB won't cut Silicates, chert, consolidated sandstone and rock with good cement. This could be a limiting factor as a lot of reservoir rock passes through some hard consolidated cap rock. This is less true in, say in the WCSB but more true in places like GOM or, Northern Africa or Middle East
However it should be able to do a good job with softer carbonates and limestone type formations (with or without clay sands in between). Off shore drilling truly develops some ridiculously cool technology like Wired Drill pipe and remote headers among others. I can see some issues with actual operation of such a tool but I don't know enough about it, I am sure the developers would have found a way around such things.
Mind you, similar on-land stuff like hybrid coil on jointed pipe operations as well under-balanced and managed pressure drilling applications are paving the way for new ground-breaking stuff in all sorts of places. The nature of the industry is the same everywhere....necessity drives invention. And I have seen some magnificent cool toys out there.
For example - one of the last ops I did when I was in the patch was in Northern BC, when we used drilled natgas, scrubbed it clean and re-injected into drill-pipe instead of burning it to use as a drilling medium for not only conserving gas but reducing formation damage and creating a closed loop system. Achieving both efficiency and environmental acceptance at the same time. It wasn't driven by eco nazis or public image. It was sheer common sense and innovation. That's all it takes. But the industry often does a poor job of advertising its abilities.....oil patch types don't give a rats ass about what the rest of the word thinks.....
Although that is changing too...and the newer engineers and managers (pussies!) feel as if a public image needs to be cultivated. Part of it is because the industry has indeed got a spotty record and part of it is media driven
