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Talk:Athabasca oil sands: Difference between revisions

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Athabasca oil sands article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

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Not only is this claim not supported by the source cited, but to make the claim accordingly, on a website that aspires to public trust, could be properly described only as openly deceitful. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.17.130.17 (talk) 03:25, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the pointer, I fixed it.--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:18, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"historically known as the Athabasca tar sands", however, IS the reality; the "oil sands" terminology was not invented nor in wide use until the 21st century and is known to have been coined as an oil industry p.r. term. Find me cites from Canadian geographic texts from the last century thgat use |"Athabasca oil sands"...you won't, the term was "Athabasca tar sands" in all the textbooks that I and others were raised with, and until recent times was also used by the industry and also academia, even industry-allied academia. Also, given the Sydney Tar Ponds and LaBrea Tar Pits, if this title were to stand then shouldn't those be "Sydney Oil Ponds]] and LaBrea Oil Pits??Skookum1 (talk) 07:16, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have no issue with term tar sands and removed the term "historically" only based on the IP complaint in connection with given source being weak/questionable but without verifying what the actual historic name was. If it turns out, that athabasca tar sands is indeed the historical I have no objection to include that information again, but please with a proper source this time. See also my posting further down.--Kmhkmh (talk) 12:18, 18 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I, personally, would be greatful if someone compiled citations that use this. If this is true, it is a clear case of partisan editing to title this article "Alberta Oil Sands". This being the case, they are the Tar Sands from which we extract Oil, regardless of environmental effects or economic benefits. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.42.123.41 (talk) 00:46, 8 November 2013 (UTC) I colloquially remember in the late 1999s the Alberta TAR Sands being spoken of as a point of national pride - Canada has the largest source of OIL in the world.[reply]

I have an interesting habit of looking up IP addresses as to their location, so in looking up 71.17.130.17's location (Lloydminster SK) I noted his "contributions" and their overtly partisan tone, e.g. in the Robocall article removing "The Conservative Party has not released their records to investigators." without edit comment, and without challenge (the next edit was almost a month later) and on this article - Athabasca oil sands the tone of what he inserted says it all about what he's about. Quickly reverted within a minute by User:Mark Arsten I might add. The pretense that the term "tar sands" never existed is Orwellian in the extreme.... and I agree with 209.42.123.41 that "Athabasca" was the usage "when we were young". As for "Thanks for the pointer, I fixed it.--User:Kmhkmh", I have to ask, fixed what?? I see "tar sands" is in the lede now, despite various attempts to remove it and fight that term.... all of which is why I give this article (normally) a wide berth, along with the related 'history of oil sands' article, whatever its name is, which seems entirely a p.r. piece by industry but has weathered the test of WP:RS/WP:N and despite claims to NPOV, clearly isn't, and serves as spam...but oh well you can't fight progress, they say.... changing the language is apparently necessary for progress.....Mephistopheles would be so proud.Skookum1 (talk) 06:49, 18 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Robocall&diff=prev&oldid=507443355

@skookum1:
You can see here what I fixed. Basically I removed the questionable source the IP complained about and the description as of the tar sands "historically known as", against of which I assumed the IP objecting. I did however not remove the term "Alberta tar sands" as such from the lead, because that is a widespread and established name for it today hence there is no good reason to remove it from lead (see [1]). If however the historic name was indeed "Alberta tar sands" feel free to reinsert the description as "historical" with a proper source.--Kmhkmh (talk) 11:58, 18 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

P.S.: As far as the IP possible agenda is concerned. Do I understand you correctly that there is (ridiculous) argument/edit conflict over "oil sand" versus "tar sand" because "oil sand" supposedly sounds better? As far as that would be concerned, I think Wikipedia's approach regarding that is clear, it provides in doubt all names that are common in reputable literature (or more generally reputable media depending on the subject).--Kmhkmh (talk) 12:12, 18 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I see my name was mentioned here, for references, this is the edit I reverted. Mark Arsten (talk) 16:02, 18 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Was it not changed to "oil" to more accurately reflect what's actually there? There's no tar. It's kind of like how we say we're "filming" something on our phones. There's no film, it's just an old name.NerdNinja9 (talk) 19:26, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Are there really no new information about the status of the large amount of projects under that point?! Most are "approved", "under construction" or "applied for" and one (2011) "anounced". "Operating" (green color) are only 5 of the projects on the list, and that didn't change for over 2 years, I think more 3 than 2. At this time 3 "under construction" projects were listed, "Start up" was 2007 and 2008 for the 2 SunCor-Projects and 2010 "Start Up" for the Royal Dutch Shell project, Shell got another 6 projects, one of these "operating" since 2002 at 155,000 barrels a day. Canadas oil production increased in the last years, and the oil sands where the reason. The onshore oil fields in the populated areas are already mature and off-shore oil or oil fields in the unsettled (except forr very few small towns, mostly from the Indians that live there already for thousand year) are not developed yet due to the high cost and the available oil from the oil sands!

If someone has a reference I would update the "graphic" too as far as I can... sorry for my bad english and greetings from Berlin :) Kilon22 (talk) 14:36, 12 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Every other "Operating" is marked green, the orange this Operating from Imperial oil got is for "Approved". Just an error or what is up? The table should be more actual or the numbers of production :>

Kilon22 (talk) 18:04, 6 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

the recent attempt to ask for a citation for "tar sands" (duh) caused me to look at this article, which I generally shy away from because of its potential for propaganda wars, but I noted this "deposits of bitumen or extremely heavy crude oil," .... bitumen is extremely heavy crude oil seems a wanton distortion. It's a carboniferous goop that heavy crude oil can be processed from, but it is not oil, and is a long ways from being crude oil. Can someone justify to me why that is there, or should I just remove that phrase as ..... propaganda (which, to me, it is).Skookum1 (talk) 06:11, 18 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the source, from our bitumen/asphalt article:

"Oil sand is a naturally occurring mixture of sand, clay or other minerals, water and bitumen, which is a heavy and extremely viscous oil that must be treated before it can be used by refineries to produce usable fuels such as gasoline and diesel. Bitumen is so viscous that at room temperature it acts much like cold molasses." Source: Alberta Energy.

I'm not sure exactly what the difference from bitumen to "extremely heavy crude oil' is; both are forms of petroleum that have lost volatiles. Maybe an actual expert will chime in.--Pete Tillman (talk) 07:04, 18 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The government of Alberta is hardly a non-partisan source :-|. I believe there was a name-war on Oil sands vs the title tar sands also. Won by overwhelming use of industry sources, and by cites from industry-allied governments. If what you say is true than "Sydney Oil Pits" and "LaBrea Oil Pits" are mandated as titles, also.Skookum1 (talk) 07:30, 18 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have difficulties to understand, what you actually want to change or what you're asking for. You're asking for a source confirming what exactly? And which term do you want to remove from the lead? Oil sands, tar sands or none?

As far as the names are concerned both belong in the article, as they both are in widespread use (references can easily be googled). And that applies regardless of what the government of alberta may or may not call them and whether its website is to be considered partisan or not.--Kmhkmh (talk) 20:33, 18 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What I was responding to was your compliant reply to the oil-troll who wanted "tar sands" deleted and called us a bunch of names for ever including it (see my other post above here somewhere, where I looked into who he was). I couldn't easily find - or never took the time to look for - what it was you'd done to "take care of it". Newspeakers require that old language be obliterated in order to establish their own; either by outright deletion or by media inundation of the preferred term to make it seem more in public use; wide in industry use, yes, and even going way back; the iconography of the tar sands in the Canadian identity, by that term, was accepted and used by industry in the Trudeau years, when that shibboleth of Albertan beliefs was actively promoting them, under that name...as was the govt of Alberta of the day. Yes, the government and industry terminology has to be included; but a vigilant watch - and background checks - are needed to patrol this; and I'm among those who think this article should be called "tar sands" and not pander to the oil lobby's pretense that bitumen "is a form of oil", or (gaagh) extremely crude oil. They also talk about the Gateway pipeline carrying "crude oil" and more......language is politics, politics is language; this is one of those articles where that reflexive axiom is inescapable. And where the paid p.r. machine will lurch into motion, either via established accounts of nasty, whining IP interlopers like the 71. IP in question.Skookum1 (talk) 21:36, 18 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oh. Pete Tillman (talk) 00:04, 19 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This make no sense to me. I never deleted the term "tar sands" from the article nor did anybody else manage to remove it (permanently) and it is currently still in the lead. So what are you talking/complaining about? The only thing missing is the attribute "historical" and there are no objections to readd that either (based on a proper source).--Kmhkmh (talk) 08:05, 19 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

p.r. trolls often don't make sense: in fact, that's their job (spewing nonsense and discord). But he said that the wording, including that "historical" bit, was "deceitful" (liars often accuse others of lying), and your response was "thanks for the pointer, I fixed it.". I'm not accusing you of anything, I just want to know in what way you read his "pointer" and how you "fixed it".Skookum1 (talk) 00:03, 20 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I explained that already in a section further up, I removed the phrase "historically known as" (based on the IP complaint and the weak sourcing).

Now do you want of concrete change in the current lead or not? And if so what is it?--Kmhkmh (talk) 02:16, 20 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the term "historically" wasn't needed, as they're still called the tar sands, whether industry (or that IP address) likes it or not. It's fine the way it is now; I couldn't find the specific edit that you had done in reply to the IP troll (and troll it is, look at its edit history/diffs). I'd prefer to see "commonly" included there, but that would take a lot of google-point-comparison; it's more commonly called the oil sands because of the media/p.r. avalanche advancing the industry-preferred term.Skookum1 (talk) 20:46, 20 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Just so you know, I'm moving some text from the "Oil sands" article to the "Athabasca oil sands article". It is only relevant to this article because the the Athabasca is the only major oil sands deposit in the world which is surface mineable. The other oil sands are not mineable, so other production techniques will have to be used on them. In fact, only a fraction of the Athabasca sands are mineable, so most of it will have to be produced using other techniques over the next 100 or so years. The total oil sands deposits in the world are bigger than the conventional oil deposits, so this is going to be very important in the very, very long term. The Orinoco oil sands in Venezuela are bigger than the Athabasca oil sands, so I want to emphasize that fact in the Oil sands article. There is a lot of politics around this whole issue of non-conventional oil, but I'm trying to avoid paying any attention to politics. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 23:39, 15 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This article says it's the largest of three deposits, including Peace River. OTOH, Peace River oil sands says that one is the smallest of FOUR. Someone who cares should probably fix this. Eaglizard (talk) 18:33, 25 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It's a bit of a technical issue. The fourth largest deposit, the Wabasca oil sands, lies underneath the Athabasca oil sands, so the two are often referred to as one (the Athabasca-Wabasca oil sands) since they occupy the same surface area, although they are geologically separate and distinct. In-situ oil sands wells in the area may have dual completions, one in the Athabasca and one in the Wabasca, and both zones produce to the same surface facilities. It is probably most proper to refer to the Peace River oil sands as being the smallest of the three major oil sands deposits in Alberta since the Wabasca is a smaller, secondary deposit. In fact there are about two dozen oil sands deposits in Alberta, but only the three largest (Athabasca, Peace River, and Cold Lake) are world-scale supergiant oil/bitumen reservoirs.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 21:17, 25 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

One way to approach neutrality is to ask what were they called before they were seen as profits? GoogleBooks-advanced-search easily lets us search by century, and verbatim phrases, which I did for the 19th century (1800-1899). I got

just 3 hits for Alberta and the verbatim phrase "oil sands"

but 3 pages of hits for Alberta and the verbatim phrase "tar sands"'', including the both the US and Canadian Geological Surveys.

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 10:52, 8 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Language evolves and names change, though not all at once. In the case of the oil sands, we now know there's no actual tar there. Perhaps next we'll stop saying we're filming things on our phones when there's no actual film involved. This historical-usage-of-word argument has been pushed for a while now. It proves nothing except what I just mentioned, that language evolves. Perhaps it's time to stop repeating it.NerdNinja9 (talk) 19:35, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm currently working on updating the list of projects, which is based on 2007 data. Since the table was created there have been a huge number of new projects, which will make the table absurbly long. I have two possible solutions:

1. Move the table to a new article, with more content (ie. project status), likely List of Athabasca Oil Sands Projects. Summarize the data with a paragraph or short table.
2. Include only major projects in the table (over 1 million bbls/day projected). This appears to have been the original intent of the table.

Any thoughts? Samuell ^{Lift me up}or_{put me down} 23:01, 21 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Just an idea, but you could do two things. First, the separate article you describe. Second, you could include a table of the biggest ones here without any elaboration, and also provide a link to the comprehensive and more detailed list in a a sentence about all the other ones not in the table. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 02:09, 22 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I made an list for a new article, right now it has all the mining projects and a selection of in situ projects. It is in My Sandbox. Comments? Samuell ^{Lift me up}or_{put me down} 02:55, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]