Extreme Energy - Alberta Oil Sands

Fort McKay, Alberta (CNN) -- Celina Harpe was 7 when her grandfather made a prediction that would forever change her life.

"I won't see it, I'm too old now, but it's going to be really bad," she recalls him saying on a warm summer night after returning from a moose hunt. The two were standing on a hill that overlooks the birch-and-spruce-lined river here in far northwest Canada.

"You see these plants and this water we've got? That's going to be all polluted. You're going to have to buy water -- and water is life.

"Mother Earth is going to be all torn up."

His statement felt almost ludicrous at the time -- after all, the land seemed so infinite. Decades would pass before Harpe began to put any stock in those words. Now 72, she has watched oil companies surround her village with city-sized strip mines that look like something out of Mordor from "Lord of the Rings" -- with gas flares, smokestacks and the constant boom of propane cannons on the horizon. The explosions, which sound like mortar fire, are meant to scare off migratory birds. An oily death awaits them if they land in the area's toxic industrial lakes, byproducts of the mining process.

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AndyH said:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/innovation/04/19/oil.sands.extreme.energy/index.html?hpt=C2

Fort McKay, Alberta (CNN) -- Celina Harpe was 7 when her grandfather made a prediction that would forever change her life.

"I won't see it, I'm too old now, but it's going to be really bad," she recalls him saying on a warm summer night after returning from a moose hunt. The two were standing on a hill that overlooks the birch-and-spruce-lined river here in far northwest Canada.

"You see these plants and this water we've got? That's going to be all polluted. You're going to have to buy water -- and water is life.

"Mother Earth is going to be all torn up."

His statement felt almost ludicrous at the time -- after all, the land seemed so infinite. Decades would pass before Harpe began to put any stock in those words. Now 72, she has watched oil companies surround her village with city-sized strip mines that look like something out of Mordor from "Lord of the Rings" -- with gas flares, smokestacks and the constant boom of propane cannons on the horizon. The explosions, which sound like mortar fire, are meant to scare off migratory birds. An oily death awaits them if they land in the area's toxic industrial lakes, byproducts of the mining process.

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CALGARY — An oil spill in a remote northwestern corner of Alberta has turned out to be the province’s largest in 36 years, according to regulators.

Approximately 28,000 barrels of oil were spilled in the Rainbow pipeline rupture, which was discovered April 29, the Energy Resources Conservation Board said Tuesday.

A spill of that magnitude on a provincial pipeline hasn’t happened since 1975 when the Bow Valley line leaked 40,000 barrels of oil, said board spokesman Davis Sheremata.

“This is the biggest crude oil pipeline spill that we’ve had in certainly some time,” Sheremata said.

Crews reached and exposed the damaged section of Rainbow pipe Tuesday afternoon after being hampered by boggy conditions. Sheremata said the spill had been contained and cleanup efforts were ongoing, Sheremata said.

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hill said:

Is is just me? . . . or has any one else noticed the nexus between more/less education, and the likelihood / unlikelihood whether someone will spout something similar to the following:

" . . . there's no shortage of oil ... there's PLENTY of oil. We're not running out - that's just an oil industry conspiracy ... it's just the speculators causing the prices to go up ..." etc.

.

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TRONZ said:

hill said:

Is is just me? . . . or has any one else noticed the nexus between more/less education, and the likelihood / unlikelihood whether someone will spout something similar to the following:

" . . . there's no shortage of oil ... there's PLENTY of oil. We're not running out - that's just an oil industry conspiracy ... it's just the speculators causing the prices to go up ..." etc.

.

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I do remember my Sociology from college. Basically, educated people want to research facts and information to form beliefs. Less educated believe what they want despite facts and information.

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