[IPSM] Israel and the Tar Sands

[Macdonald Stainsby]

Israel and the Tar Sands
January 17, 2009
By Macdonald Stainsby
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/20283

      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 19651, 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 beds2," 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, Opti4. 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 gas9" 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."