This Project is Being Compared to the Pyramids & the Great Wall of China

Terence Newton, Staff
Waking Times

Do you think this development should be compared to the Great Wall of China or the Great Pyramids of Giza?

There are plenty of good reasons to be concerned about the health of the environment here on planet earth, however, if you watch the global debate on this, you’ll notice that certain critical items are missing entirely from the conversation. Take the Canadian oil sands, for example, the largest industrial project and the largest energy development on the face of the earth, with an environmental impact second only to a nuclear disaster.

Yet some are comparing this monumental effort to some of the greatest and most fantastic engineering feats in human history.

“It is an enterprise of epic proportions. Akin to building the pyramids or China’s Great Wall, only bigger.” –Stephen Harper, former Canadian Prime Minister

Oil sands, often called tar sands, extraction is big business in the boreal forests of Alberta, Canada where the world’s second largest oil deposits are estimated to be found. The oil is not located deep underground where traditional oil wells or even fracking operations could pump it the surface, but contained instead in an earthen mixture of materials located just beneath the topsoil of the forest.

“Oil sands are either loose sands or partially consolidated sandstone containing a naturally occurring mixture of sand, clay, and water,saturated with a dense and extremely viscous form of petroleum technically referred to as bitumen (or colloquially tar due to its similar appearance, odour, and colour).” [Source]

To extract hydrocarbons from oil sands, everything must first be stripped from the land, which annihilates the eco-system, leaving behind a continuously expanding, scorched and scarred toxic wasteland. It is even more devastating than strip-mining or mountain-top removal to get at coal seams in Appalachia, because the oil containing bitumen is naturally mixed with other materials and must be chemically separated before then being shipped thousands of miles to market by railways and pipelines that snake through some of the most pristine forests on the planet.

“Extracting and refining this hydrocarbon, however, is “the most polluting and carbon intensive oil process on earth, draining wetlands, diverting rivers and stripping all trees and vegetation from the forest”, according to International Boreal Forest Conservation Science Panel. This led the UN special advisor, Maude Barlow, to describe the landscape of the oil sand development in Canada as reminiscent of J.R.R. Tolkein’s Mordor.” [Source]

The process itself uses an enormous amount of hydrocarbons, and leaves behind a massive pools of toxic run-off that must be contained in tailing ponds, ostensibly until the end of time. Where once you had a thriving wildlife habitat, you now have irreprable badlands.

Image Source

Ninety-percent of the water used to process bitumen is dumped in giant, toxic lakes called tailings ponds. ©Greenpeace / Eamon MacMahon. Image Source

Here is a look at the process require to extract oil from tar sands:

All wetlands in the area to be mined must first be drained, and any rivers diverted.
Trees, peat moss and soil are scraped away by bulldozer, exposing the sandy deposit. This means that all wildlife in the area is lost or displaced.
The top layer of tar-soaked sand is scooped up by colossal steam shovels, each of which burns 16,000 litres (4,200 gallons) of diesel per day, into enormous multi-million dollar dump trucks (that each weigh 40% more than a Boeing 747 airplane) to be hauled to the extraction plant.
The sand is then processed at intense temperatures, using much water and natural gas, to separate out the extremely thick bitumen. Impure and too viscous to flow, it must be pre-processed through an “upgrading” process before it can be sent through a pipeline to an oil refinery.
However, only about 20% of the sand is shallow enough for it to be scooped up in that manner. The portion of the deposit that is at a depth of more than 100 metres (328 feet) cannot be obtained with open-pit mining. Instead, steam as hot as 538ºC (1,000ºF) is injected into the sand, which reduces the bitumen’s viscosity and allows it to drain and then be pumped up to the surface and pre-processed.
Regardless of whether the crude was obtained via pit mining or in-situ production, it must then be further processed at a refinery in order to transform it into usable products like gasoline, jet fuel and other petroleum products.

The scale of the operations is staggering, and the equipment involved is of such enormous size it’s almost comical to look at, however, there are few recent photos of the development to be found online, but almost no live-action aerial video footage is available on the internet.

Media access is apparently very well limited, but some idea of the size of the sites can be seen from Google Maps, although the images are of unknown date, and the projects are expected to more than double over the next 20 years. See for yourself:

The bitumen has been used for centuries by regional natives along the Athabasca river to water-proof canoes and other vessels, but now it is seen as a valuable commodity in an energy-starved world. Even though oil prices have collapsed to around as low as less than $40 a barrel, this projects will continue.

This video is lends a hand in understanding the magnitude of this evelopment:

Final Thoughts

Any debate about climate change, global warming, or whatever you like to call it, without considering the direct effects that the energy industry is having on our eco-systems right now, is incomplete. An internationally agreed upon 2 °C (3.6 °F) ceiling on global warming will be rather meaningless if we have no forests to clean and renew our oxygen supply, and no clean water to drink.

This project is so vast that former prime minister of Canada, Stephen Harper has compare it to the Great Pyramids of Giza and the Great Wall of China. What are your thoughts?

Read more articles from Terence Newton.

About the Author

Terence Newton is a staff writer for WakingTimes.com, interested primarily with issues related to science, the human mind, and human consciousness.

This article (This Project is Being Compared to the Pyramids & the Great Wall of China) was originally created and published by Waking Times and is published here under a Creative Commons license with attribution toTerence Newton and WakingTimes.com. It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution, author bio, and this copyright statement. Please contact WakingTimes@gmail.com for more info.

Sources including images:

– http://www.mining.com/canadian-oil-sands-producers-hike-output-despite-dim-crude-price-31389/
– http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34017183
– http://www.iosi.ualberta.ca/en/OilSands.aspx
– http://www.mining.com/investment-in-canadas-oil-sands-to-fall-more-than-30-this-year/
– http://oilsandstruth.org/maps-tar-sands-development
– http://oilsandstruth.org/mineable-oil-sands-existing-approved-and-proposed-projects-compared-edmonton-and-calgary
– http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21615488-new-technologies-are-being-used-extract-bitumen-oil-sands-steam
– http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2078085/The-worlds-dirtiest-oil-Satellite-photos-relentless-expansion-Canadas-controversial-tar-sands-industry.html
– http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/photos-new-aerial-pictures-alberta-tar-sands-mines-show-scope-eerie-destruction/

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nonplused

The real reason for the current hate on oil sands is not the environment, it’s shale oil. Once that scam is proven for what it is people will stop talking about an open pit mining operation in the middle of nowhere that eventually reclaims all of the land. Good luck with your fracking waste water and earthquakes! For now Keystone was killed to protect Buffet’s bullet trains and the US shale oil industry, neither of which is a better solution. But I guess out of sight is out of mind. I have personally been to a major shale operation and observed the massive water handling that goes on. I cannot believe shale oil extraction is either less energy intensive or produces less polluted water per barrel of oil than oil sands production does, it’s just spread all around the country. You just have to see all those trucks hauling water (and sand, etc.) coming in waves and all those pressure pumping trucks, up to 40,000 hp worth at a time rumbling away during a frack and you will be converted. The air over the site literally plumes up with all the diesel exhaust. The main difference is that waste water from the oil sands is treated somewhat effectively, whereas waste water from fracking is generally just pumped into an aquifer or dumped in a river.
D. Koss Uber

I’m sure the people of the future will look back in awe.
nonplused

This article is very disingenuous. The final stage of any bitumen mining operation in Alberta is that the exhausted portions of the mine is reclaimed and planted back to forest by law. Sure it takes a very long time for a mine area to run its full course and the forest to recover but the net long term impact to the environment is very much over stated if you only look at the areas currently being mined. They just put the sand right back where it came from, only there is a lot less oil in it now, and cover it up with topsoil. Once you have an exhausted pit, the sand from current operations goes straight in the old pit to fill it back up and the top soil from new areas goes straight over that. You could call it a giant clean up operation. Even the tailing ponds are eventually reclaimed although no doubt they are a toxic mess while in operation.
- D. Koss Uber
  
  If one looks at the history of mining the legacy is more often depleted and toxic aquifers. i.e. pathogenic agents, organic chemicals, nutrients, heavy metals, silt, and toxic salts making their way into the water. So maybe this part of Canada will be like Mexico; Fun to visit but don’t drink the water.
  - nonplused
    
    Are you suggesting to ban all mining and return to the stone age then?
    What you have with tar sands mining is a huge layer of oil filled sand near the surface when you start and a huge layer of sand with less oil in it near the surface when you finish. I won’t deny there is lot of nasty toxicity involved in the process but over the long term it is not nearly as bad as opponents make it out to be. It is certainly not the threat to all life on the planet that the nuclear industry is, and probably not as bad as coal as an energy and chemical source.
    - D. Koss Uber
      
      I’m not suggesting we should go back to the stone age and I mostly agree with your statement on nuclear and coal. I would argue that almost always the real costs in such projects are generally not “known”(ie disclosed) and left to the future generations to figure out(and pay for). In Arizona we have mines literally hundreds of years old, from the Spanish in the 1500’s, shafts into solid rock that continue to pollute water courses today. I think it’s time the people of the planet stop touting the price of everything and start thinking about the real costs. I have no idea of the geology of tar-sands or what future costs will be incurred but I think it’s an oversimplification that sand is removed, cleaned and returned. That sounds like a sales pitch as literally thousands of interplaying factors involved. Just my opinion.
      - nonplused
        
        It’s certainly a lot messier than “removed, cleaned, replaced”, especially if CO2 is considered and also what goes into the tailings ponds, which contain some nasty stuff. But my point would be the other end of the spectrum is an exaggeration as well and the impacts long term are probably not a lot different than shale oil and there is less risk of a catastrophe such as a deep water blow out or a tanker running aground. I don’t know what to say about the Spanish mines other than I think they operated under different environmental legislation. Long term considerations are an issue for much of what we do including modern farming which causes top soil depletion, and I agree all of these things will eventually come home to roost. But placed in the larger picture, I think oil sand production is being unfairly singled out. The oil starts out locked in the sand so you can’t spill it any worse than it already is, then it goes in a pipe until it gets to the refinery, which is about the safest way to move it. No exploding oil platforms or coated coast lines involved. No middle eastern dictators profiting handsomely from the American consumer either, just a bunch of redneck Albertans cruising around in big Ford trucks. Pipelines do leak from time to time, but if it’s on land it’s generally a lot easy to recover the oil and clean it up than a spill in the ocean. And modern pipelines shut down automatically if a big leak is detected which helps limit the size of the spill. Once the Valdez went aground there wasn’t much to do but pray.
doodaa

And they want to pump this caustic/abrasive “stuff” through a metal pipeline from Canada all the way to southern US. What could go wrong?………Plenty of things.
- nonplused
  
  They don’t pump the caustic sand to the US, they pump the oil, and they have been doing it for probably 40 years now. Keystone was not going to be the first pipeline by a long shot, the country is literally covered with oil pipelines already and most current oil sands production is already piped to the US. What can’t go in the now defunct Keystone is going anyway just in Warren Buffet’s bullet trains. More oil has leaked out / blown up via rail over the last few years than from pipelines in many more years. Pipelines are just way safer than rail for transporting combustible liquids. The reason the pipelines go (already, it’s not new) from Alberta to Cushing and then on to Henry Hub is because that’s where the refining is to make it into gasoline and whatever else. The myriad of things made from petroleum is too long to even get into but if it’s made of organic materials like plastics or whatever else it probably came from oil or natural gas.
Gordon

First worked this area in 1968 to 1975 left and came back to area 2010 till 2014 the area has a lot of development , amazing progress. After area is mined and reclaimed, replanted with trees, vegetation of the area it looks better and I believe will be able to grow trees for lumber and other products. The projects provide many good paying jobs, development of many new technologies, a constant learning process ,also is cleaning up the largest natural oil spill in the world. Clean energy systems are only profitable with subsidies’ and tax reduction, electric cars not clean with manufacture and disposal of batteries. For now the best bang for the $ buck$ is oil
- doodaa
  
  The big question is….Will the oil companies actually pay for the clean up and restoration or will it fall on the taxpayers as usual?
Alex 51

Hard to imagine what kind of moron would compare this to the Great Wall or the Pyramids,
- 16rpark18
  
  …a Petrochemical Industry Lobbyist- and only then, if you regard a giant sh*t hole laudable.
  - Alex 51
    
    Yeah, a giant sh*t hole. Perfect description.
- Johnny Canuck
  
  The once Great Puppet, I mean “Leader” of the great White North, Herr Harper. He is History, but it’s going to take a while to undo the damage this Minion of the ZioNeoCons has left us.
Sam Nelson

People have lost their minds, this must stop now. How totally idiotic is this process and just to make some million or billionaire more money. We are allowing the rich to destroy our world. This must stop now and even if it takes the ultimate human sacrifice, it must stop…Canada, have you lost your mind?
Jerry Cook

Far too much damage and must be replaced with clean energy systems.