To Fort Smith, Saturday, 22 February, 2014
Feb 26th, 2014 by rallyadmin
Fort McMurray used to be a logging town along the way to the interior of the Northwest Territories. Then someone figured out how to separate the oil and tar from the oil sands that had been discovered here. When oil prices were low (you remember back then), it wasn’t economically feasible to even attempt to recover the oil.
Then 2 things happened: oil prices rose dramatically and Arctic natural gas became abundant. Even more fortuitous, the was a veritable glut of natural gas that far exceeded the capability to export it. Just what the oil sands industry needed: cheap fuel.
The oil is separated from the sand by simply boiling it off with steam. The almost free supply of natural gas made the production of crude from oil sands an economic reality. Simply wash the sands with high temperature steam and then separate the oil from the resulting water stream. The process goes from an oil/sand separation problem to an oil/water separation problem and that is doable.
The double edged sword for Fort McMurray and the rest of Alberta is the resource and the process to turn it into a monetary stream brings the twin curses of environmental disaster and all the social problems of sudden economic boom. Both of these curses are in full view in Fort McMurray.
There is construction everywhere. Roads, buildings, plants. The cost of living is through the roof. The only things that appears to be missing are environmental markers. But the oil companies are anything but stupid and the massive environmental damage caused by this extraction process are successfully hidden behind tall fences and down long private roads. Gates barring access are everywhere.
On the wait out of town, there is a steady stream of traffic headed south from the refineries on the north of town. We lost count of the number of charted buses returning with workers whose shift had ended. The buses bring the starting shift workers up the road and return with the ending shift workers. One after another, the buses just kept coming.
As we passed the refineries, we noticed an odd thing. When we started up the road out of town the trucks external thermometer showed a brisk -37°F. As we passed one of the refineries, the temperature rose by more than 10° as we drove through the thermal plume that drifted from the refinery across the road. We wouldn’t have noticed if we weren’t watching thermometer.
And that symbolizes the quandary that the oil sands industry poses. The economic benefits of the oil boom are everywhere. I guess whether one sees this as a desirable boon depends on your point of view and whether or not you’re part of the boom. The XL pipeline debate in the US is the logical extension of this boom.
The other side of the quandary is the hidden environmental cost that is so successfully hidden by the oil companies. Pay no attention to the critics, they say. Everything is safe and under control. Trust us.
Obi-wan
One Response to “To Fort Smith, Saturday, 22 February, 2014”
Hi Paul,
I’m trying to get ready for alcan 2016. I live in WNC. Id love to pick your brain sometime. Any words of advice would be welcome.
Jeremiah