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Oil Sands Anxiety Is Overblown

August 26, 2011 by Geoffrey Styles
with 1,461 views
19

As I was catching up on a two-week backlog of news after my vacation, I ran across a New York Times editorial with the promising title of "Tar Sands and the Carbon Numbers." Thinking that perhaps the Times might have woken up to the necessity of comparing the lifecycle emissions from oil sands to those from other crude oils, I was... [read more]

The Mark: A new climate change policy for Canada

March 23, 2010 by Simon Donner
with 145 views
0

My proposal for a compromise deal that could break the long stalemate between Alberta and the other provinces on climate change appears in the Mark. The compromise solution is an “opt-in” federal climate change program. The program would include a range of existing and proposed policy instruments, like a carbon tax that is revenue-... [read more]

Large-scale storage of wind energy using compressed nitrogen and old pipelines… Could it work?

February 22, 2010 by Tyler Hamilton
with 358 views
1

I just got back from a trip last week to Edmonton, Alberta, where I visited a startup called Lancaster Wind. I’ve been following this company for over a year now, but only recently has its founder and CEO — Dave McConnell — started talking about his approach to storing huge amounts of energy in the same pipelines used to carry oil and... [read more]

CCS, the cost, the risk, and the law of unintended consequences

October 11, 2009 by Tyler Hamilton
with 242 views
0

When the Alberta government announced last week that it would be handing over $745 million to Shell Canada so it could move ahead with its Quest commercial-scale CCS project, and when the federal government said it would chip in another $120 million, it didn’t sit well with environmental and energy think-tank The Pembina Institute. It’... [read more]

To Love or Not to Love the Tar Sands

September 29, 2009 by margotgerritsen
with 133 views
0

Albertan Tar Sands: Podcast 1In terms of oil, we are more dependent on Canada than on Saudi-Arabia. 20 % of our oil imports comes from Canada, and more than half of that is produced from the oil sands in the Albertan boreal forest. We are by far the largest consumer of oil sands and it is our increasing demand for oil that... [read more]

A student's perspective on the oil sands in Alberta

August 14, 2009 by margotgerritsen
with 133 views
1

We visited the oil sands, also known as tar sands, near Ft McMurray in Alberta last week. We are still in the process of editing our footage and preparing a documentary covering the controversial production of the oil sands. As a teaser, here's the perspective of Samora Garling on this trip. Samora is a sophomore at Stanford and my... [read more]

Catch The Wind partners up with Canadian Hydro Developers on wind-sensor tests

August 6, 2009 by Tyler Hamilton
with 101 views
0

I first wrote about Catch The Wind back in November and in the 10 months that have passed the company with the “spider sensor for wind turbines” (my wording) has made some solid progress. The company’s sensor, called the Vindicator, can detect wind speeds and direction up to 1,000 metres away, giving a wind turbine’s control system... [read more]

Document alert: PHEVs and Alberta

July 28, 2009 by Lou Grinzo
with 100 views
0

Green Car Congress: University of Calgary Study Finds Large-Scale Adoption of PHEVs in Alberta Could Support Wind Power; PHEV GHG Benefits Range from 40-90% in Emissions Reduction: The environmental benefit of a large-scale deployment of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) in the Canadian province of Alberta could vary... [read more]

The Struggle for North America's Energy Future: California and Alberta

April 27, 2009 by Climatico Analysis
with 113 views
0

California, the US’s most populous and wealthy state and Alberta, a far less populous but nonetheless vital part of Canada’s economy sparred this week, as California seeks to push forward ever bolder Climate Change initiatives. The battle pits two states that could hardly be more dissimilar when it comes to Climate... [read more]

Midwest Oil Refineries Gobble Up Canadian Tar Sands, Spew Greenhouse Gasses

February 13, 2008 by Jesse Jenkins
with 128 views
0

Midwest oil refineries are gobbling up more and more crude oil from Canadian tar sands and are set to belch out up to 40 percent more greenhouse gas emissions in the next decade. According to the Chicago Tribune, oil refineries across the Midwest are set to expand (see graphic) and are planning on processing heavy crude oil from... [read more]

Mordor? No, Athabasca

October 29, 2007 by Jonathan Smith
with 394 views
0

In case your Halloween is too happy / not horrible enough, Monkeyfister relays1 a story in The Guardian2 about “land rape on a gigantic scale.” In ten years, according to the article, the mining in the province of Alberta “will encompass an area as large as Florida… All that spoiled land, ruined fresh water, and wasted Natural Gas. It’s... [read more]