8 of the Most Toxic Energy Projects On the Planet

[Robbien]

Alberta Tar Sands

Alberta, Canada is home to the second biggest recoverable oil reserve in the world: the infamous Athabasca tar sands. But the massive deposit of heavy crude oil (aka bitumen) is under a staggering 54,000 square miles of boreal forest and peat bogs, which are slowly being destroyed by the open pit mining used to recover Alberta's oil. These open pit mining projects also deposit toxic mercury, arsenic, cadmium, and lead into the Athabasca river system, creating "masses of toxic soup." Suncor Energy, Syncrude Canada, Shell Canada, Marathon Oil, and Chevron are all pursuing projects in the Athabasca sands.

Three Gorges Dam

China's Three Gorges Dam, a hydroelectric dam in the Yangtze river, is world's largest electricity-generating plant. Completed in 2006, the dam has already produced 348.4 TWh of electricity since its inception. But the Dam has its drawbacks--construction displaced 1.2 million people (not the only Chinese water project to displace huge populations), increased the risk of landslides in the area, and made nearby Shanghai significantly more vulnerable to flooding.

Africa's Biofuel Land Grab

A new kind of colonialism is quietly taking over Africa as European companies snatch up land to grow biofuels. Major projects are located in countries including Mozambique (over 183,000 hectares allocated for jatropha), Benin (400,000 hectares of wetlands to be converted to oil palm crops), Sierra Leone (Swiss company Addax Bioenergy purchased 26,000 hectares for sugarcane), and Ghana (over 800,000 hectares purchased by international biofuel companies). They're a boon to European nations that want the clean fuel, but these projects also increase soil degradation, trigger the loss of arable land for food, increase food prices, and cause water depletion for local communities.

more . . .
http://www.fastcompany.com/1687376/8-of-the-most-toxic-energy-projects-on-the-planet


The rest of the article discusses the other five on-going toxic projects of:

Sidoarjo Mud Flow

Pascua Dam

Pavillion, Wyoming's Natural Gas Wells

Greenland Gas Drilling

Appalachian Mountaintop Removal Mining


Such major on-going disasters going unnoticed by US mass media.

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