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“The other oil disaster”

billboard

Forget the BP oil spill for a moment. An international PR war is heating up this week between environmentalists and the oil industry over an entirely different sore spot: The Alberta oil sands in northern Canada.

Billboards targeting the region with the largest crude reserves outside the Middle East sprang up in four major U.S. cities this week in the launch of a multi-million dollar, multi-year campaign led by NGO Corporate Ethics International.

The campaign, supported by a network of foundations including Polaris Institute, Friends of the Earth and Earthworks, is scheduled to also run in Europe and Asia.

Billboards in Denver, Portland, Seattle and Minneapolis urge U.S. travelers to boycott Alberta, (dubbed “The Other Oil Disaster,”) because the energy-intensive extraction process of the oil sands is destroying wildlife and habitat on a scale that far exceeds other hotbeds for environmental concern, including the BP oil spill, according to their website.

“We think that actually in the end there’s no comparison. The tar sands are much worse (than the BP spill),” Corporate Ethics director Michael Marx told the Edmonton Journal.

Unlike conventional oil and gas, production of oil sands is more carbon-intensive because it requires the use of hot water and chemicals to separate the sticky black bitumen from the sands. The used water then collects in toxic ponds. Upgraders convert the bitumen into synthetic light oil that is shipped to refineries in Canada and the United States.

Last month, a judge found Syncrude Canada Ltd, Canada’s largest oil sands producer, guilty in the deaths of 1,600 ducks that landed on one of the “tailings ponds” in 2008, and ruled the company should have had deterrents in place. The company faces maximum penalties of C$800,000.

But the oil sands are a major source of revenue for the Canadian province. After investment in the region collapsed during the financial crisis, companies have again begun to spend on new oil sands projects and the Energy Resources Conservation Board expects output to reach 3.2 million barrels by 2019.

Last week, the province paid $55,000 to run a half-page ad in the Washington Post to defend the oil sands industry, after 50 U.S. Congress members urged Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to delay the $12-billion Keystone XL pipeline expansions to Texas.

“Most Americans, and probably most Canadians, don’t know we are the largest supplier of petroleum to the United States, bigger than Saudi Arabia, bigger than Venezuela,” spokesman to Alberta’s premier Jerry Bellikka told The Edmonton Journal.

Following the Syncrude incident, the Alberta government tightened regulations and now requires companies to prepare plans for the ponds and file reports on them annually.

During the court case, the oil industry mounted a PR blitz about how it is tightening procedures and developing new technology to stop the spread of tailings ponds and deal with the waste.

The boycott campaign “absolutely will affect business,” Ken Fiske, vice-president of tourism and marketing for the Edmonton Economic Development Corporation, told the Journal.

What do you think? Is the oil sands a bigger environmental concern than the BP oil spill?

_______________________________________

Image shows one of the “Rethink Alberta” billboards launched in four U.S. cities the week of July 13, 2010, reprinted courtesy of Corporate Ethics International. REUTERS/Handout/Corporate Ethics International

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Power utilities want less of your business

Tarya Seagraves-Quee loads laundry into the washing machine at a laundromat in Cambridge, Massachusetts July 8, 2009.    REUTERS/Brian Snyder

Avoid mopping your floor, laundry and washing your dishes during the day and save energy in the process – that’s what power utilities in the U.S. are telling customers this summer.

Heard this before?

The difference is this year, heat waves have already caused blackouts and power-grid strain across the country, and it’s only mid-July. This begs the question: Do power utilities want less of your business?

Heat waves last month meant increased cooling needs – up as much as 76 percent in some regions – which adds in turn to the threat of power outages.

At least four power companies: Duke Energy, Dominion Virginia Power, Allegheny Power and FirstEnergy have already come up with their own power saving tips, like adjusting thermostats.

Duke Energy says “a ceiling fan will create wind, it will not cool a room, so be sure to turn if off when you’re not home.” It adds “on hot days, cook outdoors, use a microwave oven or prepare cold meals to avoid excess heat in the home.”

FirstEnergy, meanwhile, says residents in the areas that it serves can avail of a discount of $1 per CFL light bulb, which can lead to a household cutting its power bill by up to 15 percent — an attractive option during a recession.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), replacing 10 60-watt incandescent bulbs with 13-watt CFL bulbs will save $420 over the life of the bulbs.

It also encourages installing smart meters that shift power consumption to off-peak hours.

“Choose an Energy Star-qualified room AC, and with the money you save in energy costs, you could buy an MP3 player,” DOE says on its website.

Have you noticed a push in your community to cut back on energy use? Do you think the energy efficiency trend will go beyond the summer?

____________________

Photo shows Tarya Seagraves-Quee loading laundry into a washing machine at a laundromat in Cambridge, Massachusetts, July 8, 2009. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

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Oliver Lowenstein on making Cyclestations work

Bicycle

Hurry up and wait.

There’s nothing new or unusual about the idea of using bicycles to replace cars to help combat the effects of climate change on the environment. Neither is there anything new or unusual about it taking so long to put the concept into practice.

Oliver Lowenstein has spent several years in pursuit of what he says could become an environmentally sustainable network structured around economically viable “cyclestations” or covered rest points, which would help make long-distance travel more feasible for cyclists.

A touring exhibition titled “Riding on Empty: Designing our travel infrastructure for the end of oil” on show in Bermondsey Square until July 4 as part of the London Festival of Architecture includes models of shelters designed by architects Steven Johnson and Alex de Rijke.

The project has been ongoing since before 2005 when it was awarded a 700,000 pound EU Inter-regional grant in a group application led by the University of Brighton.

“It’s intended as an environmental synergy between sustainable architecture, design and sustainable forms of transport,” Lowenstein told Reuters.

“I think its time is fast approaching given that a whole slew of different elements are converging to affect how we travel,” he said citing oil depletion, climate change and built environments as factors.

Picture Credit: Picture shows a bicycle in the “Riding on Empty” exhibit in Bermondsey, London, June 22, 2010. REUTERS/Julie Mollins

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The roof is on fire

Much has been written about how solar power could help to
solve the energy crisis facing mankind. Ideas range from
harnessing the Sahara’s heat through parabolic mirrors to
transmitting solar energy from space to earth.

The Desertec solar project, for example, aims to supply 15
percent of Europe’s energy needs by 2050. Yet according to
Brussels-based EPIA, the world’s biggest solar industry
association, [...]

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Who is responsible for cleaning up our oceans?

– David Rockefeller, Jr. is a philanthropist and CEO of Around the Americas and Chairman of Sailors for the Sea. Any views expressed here are his own. –

When the Ocean Watch set sail from Seattle last May at the launch of our Around the Americas expedition, our greatest challenge was to make Americans start thinking [...]

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Logo designers compete to create a new oil-spill themed icon for BP

Does BP’s now-familiar yellow-and-green sunflower logo need an update? Joe Daley thinks so. As the founder of a website that acts as a clearinghouse for logo designers around the world, Daley reckons the British oil giant’s corporate icon should reflect the spreading oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. So Daley’s launched an online contest [...]

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Walruses in Louisiana? Eyebrow-raising details of BP’s spill response plan

Louisiana walruses? Seals swimming along the Gulf Coast?

These creatures normally live in the Arctic Ocean, not the Gulf of Mexico, but they’re listed as “sensitive biological resources” that could be affected by an oil spill in the area in a document filed by BP last June with the U.S. Minerals Management Service. More than a [...]

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Now is not the time to research oil cleanup

– Rona Fried, Ph.D., is CEO of SustainableBusiness.com, a news and networking site for green businesses: including a green jobs service and a green investing newsletter.  Any views expressed here are her own. —

Before the catastrophic BP oil drilling failure, polls showed that Americans favored oil drilling as a safe way to increase [...]

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