Energy battles boiling over

Energy battles boiling over

Industry faces public conflict across Alberta

Richard Cuthbertson and Dan Healing, with files from Renata

Calgary Herald

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

CREDIT: Ted Jacob, Calgary Herald Native elder Taz McGillis of Edmonton takes part in a protest Monday at the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers symposium at Calgary’s Hyatt Regency hotel.

A Wall Street analyst attending Calgary’s prominent energy investment forum found himself in the eye of a growing environmental storm battering Alberta’s oilsands — one of several clashes centred on the energy sector Monday.

About 50 people gathered outside the Hyatt Regency to protest the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers investment conference, an annual event that draws hundreds of oil executives and well-heeled corporate clientele from around the globe.

Ross Levin, a New York hedge fund analyst, decided to find out what the fuss was about, but when Greenpeace spokesperson Mike Hudema offered him a bottle of muddy Lake Athabasca water to drink — the main source of water for the booming oilsands — he declined.

Alberta Should Say No to Upgraders

Alta shouldn’t approve Edmonton oilsands refineries without greener rules: report

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By: John Cotter, THE CANADIAN PRESS

EDMONTON – Alberta should not approve as many as six more oilsands upgraders near Edmonton until the province has a solid plan to limit the huge amount of fresh water they will use and to better manage the pollution they will produce, a new study says.

The Pembina Institute’s Oilsands Fever report, released on Monday, says nine bitumen upgraders are expected to begin operating just northeast of the capital between 2015 and 2020.

Together they would consume 10 times as much water as the City of Edmonton each year and spew 45 megatonnes of greenhouses gases – the equivalent to an amount produced by 10 million vehicles, the report says.