Tag Archives: tar sands

America’s largest college mutual fund VA529 owns Spectra Energy, a stranded investment

Parents and grandparents buy 529 college savings plans as safe investments,
so VA529 chose poorly in Spectra Energy,

the very risky company behind the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline now plowing through the Floridan Aquifer drinking water of south Alabama, Georgia, and all of Florida and under the Withlacoochee and Suwannee Rivers against growing opposition.
Maybe you’d like to mention that to

Mary G. Morris, the Chief Executive Officer of Virginia529 College Savings Plan,
the biggest mutual fund investor in both Spectra Energy and in Enbridge, which is buying Spectra.
There’s a handy

VA529 contact form or you can call or write:

1-804-371-0766

Toll-Free: 1-888-567-0540

9001 Arboretum Parkway

North Chesterfield, VA 23236

Spectra is so risky it just sold itself so Enbridge would
take on about $22 billion of Spectra debt.
Debt especially racked up since Continue reading →

Pipelines are bad economics: invest in renewable energy instead –Harvard

Let’s stop wasting money on the slide-rule technology of Keystone XL
or Sabal Trail: they’re both bad investments, either short-term or long-term.

Andrew Winston wrote for Harvard Business Review 30 January 2015,

Why the Keystone Pipeline Is the Wrong U.S. Energy Debate,

In the short run, with oil at $50 per barrel, Keystone will connect
refineries to oil that may be unprofitable to extract. In the long
run, as the world turns away from fossil fuels aggressively, the
pipeline will be moot — a relic of the past.

Either way it’s a poor investment.

What, then? Continue reading →

Floods cause oil spill in the tar sands capital of Calgary

Meanwhile, solar panels seldom flood and work again as soon as
the sun comes out.
And how much more flooding would we get here with a good hurricane
sitting still for a while?

John Upton write for Grist 25 June 2013,

Calgary floods trigger an oil spill and a mass evacuation,

Epic floods forced more than 100,000 people to flee their homes last
week in Calgary, Alberta, the tar-sands mining capital of Canada.
More than seven inches of rain fell on the city over the course of
60 hours.

Now the floodwaters are Continue reading →

BP: the beaches are open for everyone to enjoy!

BP must be getting desperate about people catching onto what they did to the Gulf.
A BP video ad has been replaying itself every few minutes beside various
news stories since yesterday, claiming two years after the oil disaster
(“spill” doesn’t describe it) “the beaches are open for everyone to enjoy!”

BP’s website
says “We are helping economic and environmental restoration efforts in the Gulf Coast as part of our ongoing commitment to the region following the Deepwater Horizon accident in 2010”.
Neither the ad nor the website says BP actually cleaned up the oil.
Because they didn’t.
It’s still there, as is the even more toxic “dispersant” Corexit BP
dumped on top of the oil to make it sink.
Both are busily poisoning dolphins, fish, birds, and humans.

Antonia Juhasz wrote for The Nation 7 May 2012,

Investigation: Two Years After the BP Spill, A Hidden Health Crisis Festers,

Continue reading →

Arkansas tar sands oil spill

Will Exxon clean all these tar sands oil spills like BP “cleaned up” the Gulf?
Meanwhile, a solar spill is called a nice day.

June 2013, pipeline ruptured in
Alberta:
250,000 gallons spilled into the Red Deer River.

27 March 2013, train derailment in

Minnesota: 15,000 gallons spilled.

“Only about 1,000 gallons has been recovered,” said Dan Olson, spokesman for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. “The remaining oil on the ground has thickened into a heavy tar-like consistency.”

30 March 2013, pipleline rupture,

Mayflower, Arkansas: “thousands of gallons” spilled.

Kimberly Brasington, an Exxon spokeswoman, confirmed the oil from
the ruptured Pegasus pipeline originated in Canada. The oil is
“Wabasca Heavy Crude from Western Canada,” she said in
an e-mail Sunday. Canadian group CrudeMonitor describes Wabasca as a
blend of heavy oil production from the Athabasca region.

Aerial footage of the Arkansas crude seeping through woods, waterways, streets, and yards: