Thursday, April 18, 2019

This Is What Gives Them Away


A lot of stupid people in Canada have come to think of Athabasca bitumen as "oil." That is the single most important victory the petro-state has achieved.

It's not oil. It may be turned into oil at a distant refinery, probably in the States  but we're told even in Asia, at some time, somewhere. Until it leaves that distant refinery it's something quite different from  any conventional oil.

"They" - the federal and provincial governments, our bitumen-friendly media, and the Oil Patch - are lying to us about this stuff, filling your mind with images of something that is not. Whether it comes out of Justin Trudeau's mouth or Andrew Scheer's mouth or Jason Kenney's mouth, they're feeding you carefully contrived horse shit and, by the look of things, you've got a taste for it now.

They don't want you to trouble your precious minds with what they're really doing. They don't want you dwelling on what's really in the crap they're squeezing through their pipelines.

They don't want you dwelling on the ultra-high carbon, granulated coal in their crud - petcoke. Out of sight/out of mind. That stuff gets refined out. Then it gets sold wherever no one is too fussy about burning it. It's a lot worse, pound for pound, than brown or thermal coal, the real garbage stuff.

They'll howl like cut cats at the first mention of the lethal toxins embedded in  unrefined dilbit.
The heavy metals, rated as priority pollutants by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, include mercury, arsenic, beryllium, copper, cadmium, thallium, lead, nickel, zinc and silver. All are toxic. Arsenic is a known human carcinogen; cadmium can severely destroy the kidneys and other organs; and thallium is so poisonous that it pops up in Agatha Christie mysteries as a murder weapon.
That stuff threatens environmental catastrophe wherever a dilbit pipeline runs. It threatens British Columbia's pristine coastal ecology with every wallowing supertanker that navigates our waters.

They know that a dilbit spill in BC waters is virtually beyond clean up. They know that the diluent quickly evaporates out leaving the dense bitumen to sink to the bottom, hundreds of feet down, where it can never be cleaned up and will destroy the marine food chain for many decades, perhaps forever.



They know how pernicious and devastating this crud is. That's why Trudeau's environment minister, Dame Cathy McKenna, has approved the use of Corexit as an "oil dispersent." It's nothing of the sort. It's an outrageous lie whether it comes out of Cathy's mouth or Justin's.  Corexit doesn't disperse oil, even ordinary conventional crude oil. It sinks spilled oil to the bottom. Out of sight/out of mind. It was used in Price William Sound for the Exxon Valdez. It was used in the Gulf of Mexico for the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. It has one purpose - to make the problem go away for those who can turn their backs on what they've done.


Crews are regularly sickened by Corexit. Most of the crews that worked the Exxon Valdez spill fell seriously ill.  Just read the warning label from Nalco, the producer of Corexit.

Corexit is for use on spills on land. Nalco's clean up directions make that obvious.


"Do not contaminate surface water." As if.

There is no justification whatsoever for exposing my province, my land, my coast to this environmental disaster in waiting. All these things - the toxins, the petcoke, the acids and abrasives - could easily be refined out in Alberta, in Athabasca.

The thing is. If they were responsible - Alberta or the feds - and showed just a little respect for British Columbia and demanded that it be refined on site, it would expose how worthless this high-carbon/high-cost/low-value garbage fossil fuel really is.

Despite all this these bastards threaten us. They jail us and give us criminal records.  It's ironic that we should be going to jail, not them. It's pretty rich to hear Liberals whine that, if we don't vote for their boy, we're electing Andrew Scheer. What a laugh.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
You're SOOOO right.
It's garbage, not oil.
TheresT a reason why the price for Alberta crude is so low: no one wants it.
As soon as we understand all of this, we'll be able to move forward.

Toby said...

"There's a reason why the price for Alberta crude is so low: no one wants it."

It's curious that Albertans believe that doubling the pipe and quantity sent to Vancouver will raise the price. I guess supply/demand economics 101 doesn't apply in Alberta.

Rural said...

" the toxins, the petcoke, the acids and abrasives - could easily be refined out in Alberta, in Athabasca." But, but , but then Alberta would be stuck with the 'fruits' of their labour....

rumleyfips said...

Alberta government and businesses do not believe in investing in the oil industry. They want something for nothing. Major oil companies won't build in Alberta because the product is such low quality and expensive to produce there is no hope of return on investment.

Extra cost for Alberta bitumen include; water heating, high pressure washing, diluent manufacturing, coking, upgrading and diluent recovery. These expenses will always be subtracted from the world price of crude leaving less cash in the Alberta cookie jar.

Even after heating and washing, most of the sludge in the pipe is not product. 25% is diluent, 5% is water and sand, 6% is sulphur, 25% is petcoke etc. Less than half the stuff in the pipeline becomes oil.

Building the infrastructure to coke and upgrade in Alberta would double the capacity of the pipeline using current facilities. Alberta should do it but they want someone else to pay .

the salamander said...

.. bitumin - diluted bitumin - dilbit - diluent - petcoke - carbon - sulpher - tailings ponds - a scalped & gouged former boreal region. This is not oil. Its basically a synthetic slurry. According to Andrew Scheer its the most ethical, highest grade 'oil' on the planet. Yes that's what he says. It seems Justin Trudeau has similar feelings. But that's what Stephen Harper thought would be his crowning glory.. making Canada an 'energy superpower' via bitumin extraction and export. Yes he did say that. Kind of like he had warm fuzzy feelings for asbestos.

Canada's smug politicians and our sold out MainMedia need a barrage of head slaps & throat punches.. kind of a warning signal to them. We need a Robert Meuller here.. to blow the lid off the corruption and sellout ignorance.. The pissing on our collective Canadian leg & informing us its raining aint cuttin it .. come clean.. fly straight or toddle off to the USA .. join the GOP - I don't care.. but I sure do care when I see OUR MainMedia, OUR public servants, whether elected, unelected, whatever.. and their annointed corporate jackasses are all screwing Canada and Canadians over.. and over and over again.

Trailblazer said...

Unfortunately the Canadian public has been re-educated into believing this pack of exaggerations and downright lies.
I hear no one in the msm challenging the project.
If the talking heads of the media do not,as Toby mentioned, question the simple economics of the project then we are doomed to ruin the planet and forever be cutters of trees and diggers of minerals.
We,Canadians, have raped the fishing grounds and cleared the forests now it's onward to the next easy pickings!

TB

the salamander said...

.. I like my current message to Canadains and especially Albertans.. Pretty sure I described this here.. or to another indy blogger.

Boat Harbour, Nova Scotia - ask Albertans of any type, age, sex.. If they think that ecological disaster can be fixed, solved.. fully remediated. I explain my premise (I have lots of family in Alberta and British Columbia to test it on.. plus in Ontario.) Its simply stated what the task is. I have no idea of the cost however. Here it is..

Close the pulp mill and thus cease to pump millions of daily litres of pulp bleaching effluent in the estuary. Do not let a single employee lose a single paycheck. Do not let the town wither and die. Train all employees willing - to become experts in closure and remediation. The plant, environs - property.. as well as the now poisoned and dead estuary. There are tidal accesses to Northumberland Strait that must be appraised re contamination as well as the actual main shoreline and area. The remediation skills and know how gained, means those folks can 'seed' other remediation in Canada.

OK .. after folks give their opinion.. doable? Too expensive to even try? Farcical.. whatever...

Ask them how about Alberta then .. the tar sands, the tailings ponds. That's all. And who should pay for that astonishing task? How does it get done, if ever or never. OK .. remediate a single frack site. Just one, what might that cost and how would it be done? What would be the remediation criteria. Can it be referenced relative to Boat Harbour remediation & its unique economics.

Bottom line, Mound. They just plan to write it off. Write all the 'oil' experiment off once the payoff shrinks.. not good for investers y'know. A small token herd of bison shall roam. Some, a lot.. have made out like bandits and want Canadians.. and Albertans to buy into the great continuing scam. To keep paying and paying for an 'oil' industry that will dissolve away.. leaving behind one of the worlds most catastrophic ecological disasters, the tar sands. Is it worse than Fukashima ? Chernobyl ?

Hell, what about Mt Polley ? Remediation ? When? The former owners Imperial Metals will not pay.. they walk. Such good friends of Rona Ambrose that she and her rodeo boy broker bud can lounge aboard Saskatchewan boy Murray Edwards megayacht and chat about the amusing fact no federal or provincial charges have been or will be brought. Why should I cheer for his Calgary Flames hockey team ? Hell, he created Canadian Natural Resources.. the tar sands giant.. how's that remediation going Rona Multimillionaire? How bout you Jason Multimillionaire Kenney ? What's your platform say about Remediation as opposed to expansion of the extraction & making it even worse ? Cost if a single tailings pond collapses into The Athabaska River ?

Owen Gray said...

Dr. Goebbels understood the power of the repeated lie.