Naomi Klein on the Tar Sands

That ain't oil, it's Tar!

Writing in today's Guardian, Naomi Klein argues that the American fiasco in Iraq has given the US the energy security it quested for - in Alberta:

"The invasion of Iraq has set off what could be the largest oil boom in history. All the signs are there: multinationals free to gobble up national firms at will, ship unlimited profits home, enjoy leisurely "tax holidays", and pay a laughable 1% in royalties to the government.

"It is possible to turn Alberta's crud into crude, but it's awfully hard. One method is to mine it in vast open pits: first, forests are clear-cut, then topsoil scraped away. Next, huge machines dig out the black goop and load it into the largest dump trucks in the world (two stories high, a single wheel costs $100,000). The tar is diluted with water and solvents in giant vats, which spin it around until the oil rises to the top, while the massive tailings are dumped in ponds larger than the region's natural lakes. Another method is to separate the oil where it is: large drill-pipes push steam deep underground, which melts the tar, while another pipe sucks it out and transports it through several more stages of refining, much of it powered by natural gas.

"Then came the US invasion of Iraq. In March 2003, the price of oil reached $35 a barrel, raising the prospect of making a profit from the tar sands (the industry calls them "oil sands"). That year, the US Energy Information Administration "discovered" oil in the tar sands. It announced that Alberta - previously thought to have only 5bn barrels of oil - was actually sitting on at least 174bn "economically recoverable" barrels. The next year, Canada overtook Saudi Arabia as the leading provider of foreign oil to the US.

"All this has meant that Iraq's oil boom has not been delayed; it has been relocated. All the majors, save BP, have rushed to northern Alberta: ExxonMobil, Chevron and Total, which alone plans to spend $9bn-$14bn. In April, Shell paid $8bn to take full control of its Canadian subsidiary. The town of Fort McMurray, ground zero of the boom, has nowhere to house the tens of thousands of new workers, and one company has built its own airstrip so it can fly in the people it needs.

"And that's the Alberta tar sands for you: the industry already contributing to climate change more than any other is frantically turning up the heat. The process of refining bitumen emits three to four times the greenhouse gases produced by extracting oil from traditional wells, making the tar sands the largest single contributor to Canada's growth in greenhouse gas emissions. The $100bn in projected investments from the tar sands have also turned Canada into a global climate renegade.

"That money is the primary reason why, at next week's G8 summit in Heiligendamm, my country's oil-friendly prime minister, Stephen Harper, will join George Bush in opposing all serious attempts to cap or reduce greenhouse gases. Back at home, his government fully supports the oil industry's plans to more than triple tar sands production by 2020, with no end in sight. If prices stay high, it will soon become profitable to extract an additional 141bn barrels from the tar sands, which would place the largest oil reserves in the world in Alberta.

"Contemplating the collective madness in Alberta - a scene even the Financial Times has labelled "some dystopian fantasy" - it strikes me that Canada has ended up with more than Iraq's displaced oil boom. We have its elusive weapons of mass destruction too. They are out near Fort McMurray, in the jet-black goo beneath the earth's crust. And with the help of trucks, pipes, steam and gas, these weapons are being detonated."