The Patch

The People, Pipelines, and Politics of the Oil Sands

Chris Turner

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781501115110
• Topic: Politica e relazioni internazionali
• Subtopic: Politica ambientale ed energetica

Bestselling author Chris Turner brings readers onto the streets of Fort McMurray, showing the many ways the oilsands impact our lives and demanding that we ask the question: In order to both fuel the world and to save it, what do we do about the Patch?In its heyday, the oilsands represented an industrial triumph and the culmination of a century of innovation, experiment, engineering, policy, and finance. Fort McMurray was a boomtown, the centre of a new gold rush, and the oilsands were reshaping the global energy, political, and financial landscapes. The future seemed limitless for the city and those who drew their wealth from the bitumen-rich wilderness.But in 2008, a new narrative for the oilsands emerged. As financial markets collapsed and the scientific reality of the Patch's effect on the environment became clear, the region turned into a boogeyman and a lightning rod for the global movement combatting climate change. Suddenly, the streets of Fort McMurray were the front line of a high-stakes collision between two conflicting worldviews—one of industrial triumph and another of environmental stewardship—each backed by major players on the world stage. The Patch is the seminal account of this ongoing conflict, showing just how far the oilsands reaches into all of our lives. From Fort Mac to the Bakken shale country of North Dakota, from Houston to London, from Saudi Arabia to the shores of Brazil, the whole world is connected in this enterprise. And it requires us to ask the question: In order to both fuel the world and to save it, what do we do about the Patch?

INDEX

A note about the index: The pages referenced in this index refer to the page numbers in the print edition. Clicking on a page number will take you to the ebook location that corresponds to the beginning of that page in the print edition. For a comprehensive list of locations of any word or phrase, use your reading system’s search function.

Abasand Heights, 8, 66, 178, 296, 301, 303

Abasand Oils Ltd., 38, 42

Abbott, Tony, 252

Abraham’s Land, 86

accelerated capital cost allowance, 182

Access Western Blend, 100

Acden, 154, 273

acid rain, 189, 207, 249, 253, 313

Adam, Allan, 196, 214, 270

advertising program, 249–51, 253

Aecon, 3

Air Canada, 136

air quality, 204–5, 265–68

airline industry, 136–37

Alaska, 27, 67

Alaska pipeline, 21

Alberta and Great Waterways Railway, 8, 37, 38

Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute, 268

Alberta Chamber of Resources, 181

Alberta Clipper pipeline, 116–17, 141

Alberta Energy Company, 72, 74

Alberta Environment, xxi

Alberta Environmental Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting Agency (AEMERA), 268, 278

Alberta Fish and Wildlife, xxi, 157

Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund, 67, 70, 191

Alberta Innovates, 263

Alberta Oil magazine, 284

Alberta Oil Sands Technology ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Map: Fort McMurry
• Prologue: Ducks on a Pond
• One: Rush Hour
• Two: The Rise of the Patch
• Three: Standard Operating Procedure
• Four: Midday
• Five: Growing Pains
• Six: Shift Changes
• Seven: Night Falls on the Patch
• Eight: Boom and Bust
• Nine: Downstream
• Ten: Spoiled Patch
• Eleven: Footprints in the Sands
• Twelve: Reckoning
• Thirteen: Complicity
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Glossary
• Index
• Copyright