Tag Archives: tar sands

In a 62 to 36 vote, the U.S. Senate passed a bill approving construction of the trans-broder Keystone XL pipeline to carry tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada for refining in the Gulf of Mexico. Nine Democratic Senators joined Republicans voting for the bill, including Michael Bennet (Colo.), Tom Carper (Del.), Bob Casey Jr. (Pa.), Joe Donnelly (Ind.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.), Joe Manchin (W.Va.), Claire McCaskill …

EarthTalk® is a weekly environmental column made available to our readers from the editors of E/The Environmental Magazine Dear EarthTalk: How is it that migrating birds are being negatively affected by oil extraction in Canada’s Boreal forest?  — Jennifer Chase, Fort Lauderdale, FL Each year tens of million of migratory birds “overwinter” in the Canadian Boreal forest, a vast tract of mostly uninhabited coniferous …

This week people from across North America and around the world are commemorating the one year anniversary of the Lac-Mégantic oil train disaster. There is growing concern about the dangers shipping oil by rail and increased public calls to reign-in oil trains. The environmental and emotional legacy of the Lac-Mégantic disaster On July 6, 2013, a runaway train carrying crude oil derailed and exploded killing …

There are two principal issues at play within the tar sands oil controversy.  First and foremost, the extraction of tar sands oil is a process that releases significantly more greenhouses gasses into the atmosphere than conventional drilling methods. As a primer for those not privy to this situation, the oil industry has revamped old methods of extracting oil from sediment that is soaked in …

EarthTalk® is a weekly environmental column made available to our readers from the editors of E/The Environmental Magazine Dear EarthTalk: What are “dirty fuels” and why are they so called? — Bill Green, Seattle, WA The term “dirty fuels” refers to fuels derived from tar sands, oil shale or liquid coal. Just like their more conventional fossil fuel counterparts such as petroleum and coal, …

A head-to-head comparison demonstrates the overwhelming superiority of renewable energy over the Keystone XL. If approved, the northern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline will carry 830,000 barrels of tar sands oil per day from Alberta to the Gulf Coast in Texas. In addition to risks from spills and potential water impacts, the pipeline will facilitate the mass extraction of Canada’s global warming causing …

The proposed Keystone XL pipeline that would transport liquefied bitumen from massive tar sands deposits in Alberta south through Midwest US watersheds and agricultural areas and on down to the Gulf of Mexico would significantly boost the carbon emissions that fuel climate change and thus fails to meet the criteria set out in President Obama’s recently announced National Climate Change Action Plan, according to …