I can't figure out what this post is supposed to mean. Is it somehow Obama's fault that the tar sands extraction process uses, and contaminates, huge volumes of water? What does Obama have to do with Canada's oil business?
More Ducks Tarred and Feathered?
- Thread starter Spade
- Start date
I can't figure out what this post is supposed to mean. Is it somehow Obama's fault that the tar sands extraction process uses, and contaminates, huge volumes of water? What does Obama have to do with Canada's oil business?
If you have a 22 square kilometer lake, it is not possible to keep wildlife away effectively. That is not the point. The point is, why do you need a lake that size? Did that lake exist there before mining started and if it did not, then it is affecting the environment and weather patterns. I live on the Arrow Lakes, which used to be the Columbia River before they damned it. Over the past forty years the weather has changed drastically because the rise in water volume at the surface of the lake has moderated the overall temperature and moisture levels. If the "developed" part of the tar sands was ground surface and now there are a lot of lakes and ponds, then it is impossible to not alter weather patterns. You build ponds and lakes on the flyways of migratory water fowl, they will land in them.
But that is not my point. The natural world is our life support system. But consuming our natural resources at the rate we are we are endangering the well being of all living things, including ourselves. It is mindless consumerism, the engine that moves our economy, that is going to be our downfall. We are like a parasite consuming our host. The host dies, then so do we. We only have a finite planet so consuming it as if it were infinite is just plain stupid.
Well hopefully they will do what CNRL did and get some bloody lasers as they do work and CNRL hasnt had a bird incident all year,the air cannons dont work,ive seen ducks swim right by them and not even flinch when they go off.Not all the ponds have bitumen on them,bitumen is the only thing that kills these birds,they also could have been washed down but it was the fish and game guys that told them to euthanize them.
Some big bucks to be made here for someone to start a company called duck busters and hire a few hundred more newfys to sit out there in boats and phsically scare the birds off when radar shows them approaching.
The oilsands operators have lots of money and arent shy on spending it,a few million dollars is chump change to them.
Why the havent followed CNRL's policy is beyond me.
A few more years and these tailings ponds will be a thing of the past anyways,they arent allowed any more new ones untill the old ones are reclaimed and they only need one per mine and they dont have to be big,the reason they are is because they use the open pits after they are finished mining the ore out of them,ore goes out,2% bitumen gos back in along with the water they use in extraction which is also recycled over and over again for extraction.
Good idea for a halloween costume,wear a black poncho with some fake ducks on it and go out as a tailings pond.
I have explained it many times,tailings ponds are old open mine pits,they arent lakes and never were.The exact same material that came out of them go's back in them minus the bitumen and other marketable gasses and chemicals.
Sorry but your wrong,it is the only way to settle mature fine tailings as the video shows aside from waiting 30 years for it to settle by itself,this technology has only been used for one year and MFT production from these ponds will double or triple next year,it is #1 priority at all the mines and money is no object.
They dont need to shut up anyone,no ones going to shut them down,theres too many jobs and money pouring into Canada from them.
Things have changed from an environmental point of view in all industry.
Reclamation and being environmentally responsible is #1 priority period.
I see first hand how many millions of dollars they are pouring into this.Hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars,they just bought us 12 snowcats at 1/4 million each so we can continue to kill MFT after freeze up.It's a waste of money,the snowcats cant run on the MFT cells,the big dozers can,so we continue to pump 20,000 tonnes each day into each tailings ponds cells which were explained in the video and were building another 1200 acres of drying cells just so we can ramp up production,I watch the tailings ponds dry up more and more every week,it does work.
Thats 40 years ago,people used to go into the bush to do an oil change on their car back then.
Get with the times man,educate yourself.How do you know if it smells if you havent been there since the late 60's?
The cattle slaughter houses I drive by smell a thousand times worse then the oilsands ever will,maybe you should stop eating meat as your contributing to this stench.
Too bad my computer wont do pdf's anymore.
Thats what I do,I work in the TRO project.
Thats all we do is get rid of the tailings ponds,up to 50,000 tonnes of mature fine tailings each day with all plants running,the other operators have pilot projects built and will follow suit.
I did get an offer from a strip mine in B.C. to come work there so I may bid goodbye to fort macnewfy soon.
And why do you think things have changed in these 40 years? I suppose you think it's because the execs at Syncrude sat down one day in 1968, and said, 'Gee, I'd really like to clean things up for no reason'
Well that makes no sense,why have all things become less damaging to the environment?
It's called being responsible for one thing and being educated about what is harmfull for another.
Maybe were evolving as a species?
Technology has come a long ways since the 60's and I for one am glad that folks are useing it to solve problems in the environment.
Some of us are pro active and some people have an agenda and playing the blame game and pointing fingers only makes them look foolish.
Things need to change,get er done!Thats the mindset in the oilsands right now,get it done.No excuses,no whining and crying,just do it.
Regulation of industry. Directive 74 would be the current relevant document. Oil-sands operators weren't meeting the conditions of their applications. Long-term containment of fluid tailings inventories grew.
Ding!!! You win the prize. You qualify for a blue robin sticker.
Chapter 2 says: And how did we become educated about what is harmful?
Not because of Syncrude.
It's because of the environmental movement. You know, the people you denigrate as 'Alberta haters' etc etc.
They are the people that ultimately created the need for the job that you love and claim to do so well.
Oh well. It's just a few less ducks that would have eaten farmers' grain before flying into Montana and being blown out of the sky.
Suncor came out with their own directive,meet and EXCEED Directive 74
Sorry,you win the dodo award,environmentalists had little to do with it,regular people did,environuts do more harm to the environment with ignorance and propaganda then anything,thats why most arent taken seriously anymore.
The proof is in all these topics on this site,most dont even know what a tailings pond is or whats in it but they condemn the oilsands for whatever agenda they have,a hatred of big oil or Alberta for example.
Most environmentalists arent taken seriously by those involved in cleaning it up.
But still the lakes continue to grow. Those dams will not last forever. I don't support getting oil from the oil sands using present technology, water is to precious to waste extracting oil.
Their not lakes,there the open pits they took the bitumen ore out of in the first place and the dykes they build around them are very strong and not many of them have water levels that even get close to the dykes,most are below ground level now since the tailings reduction operations started just over a year ago.They also recycle a huge percentage of water used in extraction,it's taken directly from the ponds,used and then go's through the whole cycle again.You dont need pure water for extraction,the bitumen is steamed out of the sand.There is no need for dykes on the majority of the ponds I drive by everyday,thats how far the water has receded in only one year.
They are getting rid of the tailings ponds,every operation will have only one active pond soon,you wont even know the others were there.
oilsands operations are strip mines,they dig a hole,take the bitumen out and put the waste left over back in,really simple actually.They arent putting anything back in the ground that wasnt there in the first place.
Whats the alternative? Buying middle east oil and putting hundreds of thousands of people out of work in Canada?
You have no idea how many easterners make their living in the oilsands,thats tax money the west doesnt have to shell out to the east,they are funding their own province from Alberta.
But lets worry about a few ducks,people dont matter,let them starve and continually hit the government up for more taxpayer dollars to survive.
:roll:Lets help Premier Stelmach and nip the misconceptions in the bud. Lets get the straight poop on the tailing ponds in Alberta.
Source: National Resources Canada )4-29-2008 - At a massive 540,000,000 cubic meters in volume, Canada’s largest dam is second in size only to China’s Three Gorges Dam. But unlike that world-famous utility structure, the monumental Syncrude Tailings Dam near Fort McMurray, Alberta, doesn’t generate electricity or attract the attention of tourists.
540,000,000 cubic meters. The worlds second largest dam is used to contain toxic sludge. How much is 540 million cubic meters? It is equivalent to all of the waste water produced by the State of Israel in 1 year. And this is only ONE pond...
Water plays an essential role in surface-mined oil sands production, with about 12 barrels needed to produce one barrel of bitumen, the heaviest, thickest form of petroleum. Although much of this water can be recycled, a significant portion — 30 percent, or almost 4 barrels — is lost, in the remaining sand and in the mud-like tailings.
“In the past ten years, we’ve accomplished more in advancing research and technology in tailings management than what we’ve done over the 30 years before that.”
40 years spent on this problem, but don't worry...
Oil companies will protect us.....:roll:
Source: National Resources Canada )4-29-2008 - At a massive 540,000,000 cubic meters in volume, Canada’s largest dam is second in size only to China’s Three Gorges Dam. But unlike that world-famous utility structure, the monumental Syncrude Tailings Dam near Fort McMurray, Alberta, doesn’t generate electricity or attract the attention of tourists.
540,000,000 cubic meters. The worlds second largest dam is used to contain toxic sludge. How much is 540 million cubic meters? It is equivalent to all of the waste water produced by the State of Israel in 1 year. And this is only ONE pond...
Water plays an essential role in surface-mined oil sands production, with about 12 barrels needed to produce one barrel of bitumen, the heaviest, thickest form of petroleum. Although much of this water can be recycled, a significant portion — 30 percent, or almost 4 barrels — is lost, in the remaining sand and in the mud-like tailings.
“In the past ten years, we’ve accomplished more in advancing research and technology in tailings management than what we’ve done over the 30 years before that.”
40 years spent on this problem, but don't worry...
Oil companies will protect us.....:roll:
NEWS FLASH!
Remains of Wooly Mammoth found in tar pond!
Syncrude to be fined 17 million dollars.
Remains of Wooly Mammoth found in tar pond!
Syncrude to be fined 17 million dollars.
Your not paying attention to what I have been saying about the TRO technology which is new,adding polymer flocculent to the mature fine tailings that allows them to release the water that would be otherwise trapped in suspension at the bottom of the ponds for 20 plus years instead of 21 days,read up some more on the newer technology Juan if your going to use it to push your hatred for the oilsands,things change fast and your quoting articles from 2008,thats so old it isnt even accurate anymore.
How many times to I have to repeat what adding poly flocculent to MFT does?
That was the whole point of Directive 74...the lakes were growing, and the companies were not meeting the conditions of their applications.
Suncor says they will now meet and exceed. Kakato is naive if he thinks that the pressure from "environuts" had nothing to do with the pressure which forced the government to get tougher on the companies it is supposed to be regulating and holding to the agreements.
Heres a more updated version of how much water is used and how it compares to other industries.
Sustainable Water Use — Sustainability - Suncor Energy
This is why the ponds are shrinking every day,something some cant seem to grasp for some reason.
Dont tell me they are growing,we build our MFT drying cells right on the beaches of these ponds as the water recedes,something you couldnt do last year as they were all under water.
Sustainable Water Use — Sustainability - Suncor Energy
This is why the ponds are shrinking every day,something some cant seem to grasp for some reason.
Dont tell me they are growing,we build our MFT drying cells right on the beaches of these ponds as the water recedes,something you couldnt do last year as they were all under water.
One alternative is using the oil we now have both on & off shore, South Eastern U.S. as well as California and Texas have massive reserves. Oilsands can wait, water is more important than oil. In the U.S. Colorado, North Dakota and even California do not have to support each others economy separately, we are one country with all 50 states supporting the one. Here the goverment (everyone) cleans up major environmental disasters or bury those to big to clean up forever. It is time to stop thinking about today and start thinking about tomorrow. The ducks (and other animals) are only the barometer of what is happening. Without fresh water we all die. Can't believe that I just said that because I do not consider myself a environmentalist, but facts are facts.
You mean keep doing what BP did?
Your kidding right?
Fact is the oilsands are way cleaner then any kind of extraction of conventional oil.
Read my link to see how they compare