Hi everyone,
Here an article Macdonald sent me
Fritz
Israel and the Tar Sands
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Yesterday at 10:27pm
by Macdonald Stainsby
17 January 2009
Israel and the Tar Sands
That's right, Israel is a player in the Tar Sands of northern Alberta in a
multitude of ways and with a variety of impacts. While whole neighborhoods
of a small Palestinian city are currently under one of the most one-sided
bombardments imaginable, Cree, Dene and Metis populations-- as well as the
biosphere itself-- are also getting their Zionist due in northern Alberta
and elsewhere. People taking to the streets across what is commonly called
"Canada" are rightly denouncing the total complicity of the Harper
government (and the Ignatieff opposition) in Israeli crimes. Yet the other
side of the operation is also in practice: The settler state of Israel is
contributing to the decimation of indigenous territories in the tar sands
regions through technology, investment and more. There is an interplay here
as yet barely explored.
Many Palestinian solidarity activists within Canada have decried the
Canadian government becoming, along with the USA, in total lock step with
the Israelis on most votes, issues and declarations (even boycotting
anti-racism conferences that dare to call Zionism racism). The reasons are
usually understood as being ideological: Canada is an imperialist country,
supports the US-led war on terror, and is also founded upon the same
colonial settler process. Yet, there may be an even deeper connection
between Canada, Israel and global battles for dwindling supplies of fossil
fuel energy.
Unlike most of the region, Historical Palestine is not equipped with massive
fossil fuel deposits, whether speaking of oil or gas. Much like how
white-ruled South Africa developed technology to turn coal into oil during
the time that their state was under sanctions or how the German Nazi regime
turned to Estonian shale to produce oil during WWII, the Zionist state is
surrounded by states they do not have trade relations with and has opted to
produce very dirty forms of energy in a vain attempt to achieve energy
self-sufficiency. They have large oil shale deposits. There are two parts to
the Zionist energy strategy of note currently.
One of the attempts at this energy strategy traces back to the start up of
the corporation Ormat Industries in 1965(1), oddly (given the lack of
geology in historical Palestine for this plan) known primarily as a
geothermal energy pioneer. This is not the only form of energy that is
produced by Ormat, however. They are also heavily involved in what they call
"Recovered Energy Generation," a process that involves capturing waste
energy forms from industrial development. One of these is a very insidious
technology, designed to burn off literally the bottom of the barrel of the
dirtiest of all "oils", oil shale. This has been dubbed "cogeneration". It
can produce over 8 times more greenhouse gas emissions than "sweet,
conventional" crude.
Unlike tar sands production, not even last years all time record highs for
oil prices have yet made oil shale production viable or attractive, when one
factors in the energy return on energy invested (EROEI). Virtually none of
the worlds oil shale deposits have yet to reach a level of technological
innovation to produce commercially (Estonia, with among the highest quality
shales, being the only exception). But in what Zionists call Israel, "some
15% of the country is underlain by Oil Shale beds(2)," according to an
Israeli government website. And to get this "oil" (it would need a massive
upgrading, conversion and refining process to turn the shales into a
synthetic oil) at an energy dividend will require a lot of practice. Alberta
has lots of bitumen that can be extracted in a very similar manner.
Ormat has figured out how to make EROEI come on the plus side a lot easier.
Oil Shale will produce, aside from massive water waste and tremendous scars
on the earth, a lot of left-over gunk. The gunk cannot be processed into
anything resembling known fuels, but this waste will indeed burn. Ormat has
found a way to partially power the very project that is carrying out the
shale production with gunk left over from the extraction process. They have
even patented the procedure, "OrCrude"(3). Most importantly, Ormat is the
parent corporation for the Canada based energy company, Opti(4). Why did
they do this? In their own words:
"In the early 1990s, Ormat developed a technology for producing oil from
shale. But with oil prices low at the time, the Israeli government was
unwilling to back an ambitious project to develop the country's huge shale
reserves.
Now, Ormat has adapted the technology for use in the tar sands of Canada's
Alberta province, where it's being used in a project run by Opti Canada set
to begin production this year."(5)
Opti, in partnership with Nexen, runs by far the largest of all the Steam
assisted gravity Drainage [SagD] tar sands projects. South of Fort McMurray,
it is the closest of all major projects to a community. Anzac, a Metis and
first nations settlement, is only 7km's away from where this massive
undertaking takes place. Having publicly celebrated their opening in
October, 2008 this plant would eventually reach 140,000 barrels of mock oil
every day, and produces many times the climate changing gasses as regular
oil, more than three times the greenhouse gasses of a major strip mine (such
as Syncrude or Suncor's projects) or double what is produced by other
In-situ ("in place") operations that currently exist. There are already
tailings ponds that are growing rapidly near this project, and the air
pollution near Anzac will soon be off the graph. They also plan a twin
project, Long Lake South, adjacent to the current plants.
These technologies, even with the use of "cogeneration", still consume vast
levels of energy and in Alberta this is usually natural gas. While OrCrude
has reduced the reliance on natural gas, it is a long way from eliminated.
With oil shale development will come higher natural gas requirements.
Off the coast of the Palestinian populated Gaza Strip is a massive natural
gas field, only discovered in the year 2000. In 1999, exploration agreements
(that eventually yielded the large discoveries) were established with the
energy corporation British Gas(BG Group) and Greece based, Lebanese owned
Consolidated Contractors International Company (CCC) and the Palestinian
Authority. This was a 25 year agreement. After the next years discovery and
the following years election of Ariel Sharon as Prime Minister of Israel,
Sharon stated quite bluntly:
"Israel would never buy gas from Palestine.(6)" This declaration was
followed by a Supreme Court of Israel challenge to Palestinian sovereignty
over this natural gas, and his office vetoed the rights of BG to develop the
field and sell Palestinian gas to Israeli buyers. After Hamas became the
power in Gaza, even Britain's PM Tony Blair moved to block a deal between BG
Group and Egyptian interests to develop and market this gas. As retired Lt.
Gen. Moshe Yaalon wrote in October 2007:
"It is possible that the prospect of a major natural gas transaction with
the Palestinians has been a factor in the Israeli cabinet's refusal to
launch a Defensive Shield II operation in Gaza."(7)
So, in terms of making oil shale viable, in terms of further strangling
Palestine, in terms of controlling some level of fossil fuels in the region
and in terms of gaining all revenues from the gas fields, it makes the most
rational sense for the Zionist state to directly challenge the Palestinian
sovereignty over the territory. BG Group canceled their plans to sell the
gas to Israel and closed their offices two months after the Yaalon article
went public.
It gets much worse. June 2008 was when the Olmert government began military
preparations to assault Gaza, code-named "Operation Cast Lead"(8) but it was
months later that BG Group was re-approached by Israel to start negotiations
on having BG Group develop the gas. While building military preparedness for
the assault on the open air prison of the Gaza Strip, the same Israeli
government changed the field of negotiations and began anew. Old contracts
carried by BG Group for the region are announced as canceled by BG Group
itself on their website, while 'reassuring' investors that they are
"...evaluating options for commercialising the gas(9)" that legally belongs
to the Palestinian Authority.
Of course, just as the state of Israel was founded on the myth that there
were no Palestinians in the territory, the absence of government in Gaza--
an intended consequence of the massive bombardment of the imprisoned
territory-- will be used as an excuse to simply take control of the gas,
develop it and burn it to produce oil shale at the cost of the lands where
shale is extracted and the very biosphere itself-- not to mention the funds
for crucially needed infrastructure within Gaza itself, after Israel has
decimated schools, homes, hospitals, mosques and more. The Gaza Strip is to
be left with destroyed infrastructure in order to prevent Gazan control over
the development prospects and capital needed to rebuild.
Dene, Metis and Cree communities throughout the multiple areas in Alberta
where tar sands are produced are already seeing the worst aspects of
colonialism: in exchange for the destruction of their lands, languages,
culture and history, the full value of the resources are being taken for
mere pennies and what is left is a legacy of diseases, respiratory problems,
alienation and ultimately cultural genocide. Yet the whole purpose for
learning how to develop the oil shale in Palestinian lands is hardly less
sinister: Israel, founded upon the expulsion of the indigenous Palestinian
population, cannot exist peacefully with its neighbours for mainly that
reason. So, Israel has an energy problem as it currently exists. Alberta is
providing an outdoor laboratory to practice what will eventually be the
decimation of Palestinian traditional territory on the altar of the worst
forms of oil and gas development.
Rather than honoring international human rights law and admitting every
single Palestinian refugee back to live in their homelands and thereby
likely receive energy supplies from neighbouring countries, Israel protects
the apartheid conditions of its current state with the most destructive of
energy strategy possible-- in terms of human rights and in terms of the very
climate itself. One, the above listed Israeli corporations helping Canadian
settler colonialism in order to promote their own settler colonialism. Of
course, of all tar sands mock oil over 70% already is directly shipped to
the United States.
Canada has lurched headlong into quiet, no questions asked support for
Israeli attacks on anything Palestinian (or Lebanese, Syrian and Iranian).
There is little doubt as to the affection for US imperial policy that has
been enunciated by the Harper government and the Ignatieff opposition. But
the actual energy plays under way in a world of peak oil and increasingly
desperate and destructive options that remain is an aspect of Canada that
needs to be understood. Now, in more ways than ever, struggles for
self-determination against Canadian colonialism and Israeli colonialism are
interlinked -- from one end of production through to the other, anywhere in
the world that oil-based hydrocarbons lie -- no matter what the cost,
whether to the environment or directly to people themselves. This is the
true meaning of Dick Cheney's comments after 9-11 that "The American way of
life is non-negotiable."
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