Currently viewing the tag: "Oil"
Activists from Seattle hoped to block the departure of an oil rig Shell wants to use for oil drilling in the Arctic. But a small fleet of kayaks proved no match for the giant platform as it set sail for Alaska. “We have made our point well,” a kayaktivist said.
Shell sees the deep sea port of Seattle as an ideal base for its fleet to explore for oil the Arctic. But many people in the city on the West Coast are opposed to the company’s plans. ‘Kayaktivists’ want to stop the impending departure of Shell’s oil rig for Alaska.
Shell wants to increase oil production from the Canadian tar sands by expanding its Jackpine Mine. The company says it can do so responsibly. But opponents resist the high pace of tar sands development, demanding stronger safeguards for health and the environment in northern Alberta.
The train disaster in Lac-Mégantic has exposed a creeping trend in North America: an exponential increase in the transport of crude oil by rail. Railway companies like the booming business, but critics say the risks of the oil trains are too big.
The people of Lac-Mégantic cannot yet grasp the enormity of the train disaster that wiped out their town centre this weekend. There is growing disbelief: how could a runaway train careen into their town to cause such deadly devastation?
A freight train carrying crude oil derailed and exploded in the centre of the Canadian town of Lac-Mégantic this weekend. Dozens of people are missing following a massive inferno. Canada’s Prime Minister compared the disaster area with a war zone.
Shell sees great potential in oil drilling off the north coast of Alaska. The energy company has invested billions of dollars in plans to search for oil in the region. But the permit process is taking years. Opponents fearing an oil spill in the ecologically fragile Arctic fight each permit.
In Texas and other U.S. states, opposition is growing against a proposed pipeline to transport heavy crude oil from the Canadian tar sands to refineries along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Proponents of the Keystone XL project see economic growth, critics fear an oil spill and warn of pollution.
Canada is home to one of the largest oil reserves in the world, the Alberta oil sands. Extracting oil from the vast resource is tricky, costly and hard on the environment. Still, oil majors are investing billions of dollars in the tar sands, as exploitation “now makes economic sense.”
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