Mining Tar Sands Produces Much More Air Pollution Than We Thought

[Coyotl]

Research shows that emissions of a class of air pollutants are two to three orders of magnitude higher than previously calculated
By Joseph Stromberg February 3, 2014 http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/mining-tar-sands-produces-much-more-air-pollution-we-thought-180949565/

Last week, the U.S. State Department released a report indicating that the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry oil from Western Canada's Athabasca oil sands to the U.S., wouldn't have significant environmental impacts. It's worth noting, though, that the report didn't say that extraction from the oil sands itself won't have environmental impacts—just that this mining will proceed with or without the pipeline being built.

Your feelings on the pipeline aside, it's well-established among scientists that extraction of oil from these oil sands (also known as tar sands) is environmentally dicey. The petroleum found in them doesn't flow easily like conventional crude—it's a sticky, viscous type formally known as bitumen but more commonly known as tar—so companies have to resort to alternate measures, either surface mining (digging up the rock or sand covering the oil-laden sediment) or injecting steam to get it out of the Earth.

This uses up an enormous amount of water, distributes toxic metals into the surrounding watershed and perhaps most important leads to an estimated 14 percent higher level of greenhouse gas emissions than conventional oil, because some natural gas must be burned simply to convert the bitumen into a usable form.

To this list of concerns, we can now add another. .........

[NYC_SKP]

1. Reminds me of the way coke and crank addicts will vacuum carpets to find bits of drug...

Or scrape bowls of pipes.

It's an addiction.

[proudretiredvet]

2. Canada will not stop producing oil from the oils sands.

Canada will not stop selling the oil that it produces from the oil sands.
So what is the best option for this oil?
Canada will either sell it to us and it will be burned here with rather strict rules or it will be sold to China who will burn it with almost no restrictions.
What is the best real life solution for this situation. The oil will be produced and burned someplace.

[Vincardog]

3. If they build the Keystone pipeline, the toxic tar will be processed in an "special enterprise zone

Meaning the Koch brothers will export it to China and pay NO taxes.

If they cannot use our Golf coast to ship it they will not be able to export it to China, and a lot less old of the toxic sludge will be "mined".

The choice is build the Keystone and raise gas prices in the USA, contaminate the water in Canada and speed our race over the Carbon cliff.

or

Don't build the Pipeline. Leave the toxins in place, and spend research dollars on Alternative energy.

The Toxic sludge does NOT have to be "produced and burned someplace."

[proudretiredvet]

7. I agree the best may to leave it in the ground but this gene is already our to the bottle.

This oil exists and the price has been paid to build the infrastructure to extract it. No one who has oil just sits on it. They always market at least some of it. Canada has already said they will build a pipeline to the west coast so they can ship, transpacific, to China if the keystone pipeline is not built.
Right now they are shipping it by rail and a few people are getting much richer off of that increased of the railroads.
This oil exists now and I believe that it will be sold and consumed. My question still remains what is the best place to do that and what is the safest way of getting it there. I really do not believe that you will ever put this high dollar black gold gene back in the bottle.

[Vincardog]

8. If the Canadians want to build a pipeline across their country I have no say in that. They shouldn'

build it here.

[okaawhatever]

4. The best real life solution is to not risk our watersheds when we're not getting anything in return.

First, Canada won't let them build this pipeline in their own country, so that should tell you something. Second, even though the Koch Brothers own a lot of this they won't pay US taxes on it. It will create 50 permanent US jobs (that's assuming those jobs are given to Americans). The pipeline itself isn't built in the US. So what does the United States get? A giant threat to a water aquifer that furnishes water to several states and 12% of farmland. What will happen if the pipeline leaks? Or there's an attack on it? HInt: Americans will end up footing the bill. The Koch brothers have already sold oil equipment to Iran through one of their foreign subsidiaries so it's clear they don't give a shit about this country or our safety.

It's time to stop letting people take advantage of this country. Why should we allow something Canada won't? It doesn't even have to travel very far in Canada. We're better than that. We aren't so desperate a country that we need to risk our water aquifers for fifty jobs.

[burrowowl]

6. Amen!

[sakabatou]

5. No shit

People have been saying it's a very dirty operation for this.