Comments about ‘Conflict heats up over tar sands mining in Utah’

This is what oil exploration looks like these days. And we've unconditionally come out in favour of it, right here on these pages. And, I'm all for it. And yes, I've seen the mines in Fort Mac. Drill, baby. I don't mind if a few hardscrabble ranchers are displaced, or if a massive refinery get's built a mile from my house, and no one else should, either.

The reason tar sand oil is now feasible (along with Canadian tar sands, Keystone pipeline, Mitt's proposal to drill off the Atlantic coast) is because of high oil prices.

If prices were low, as they were in the mid-1980s when Saudi Arabia flooded the world with oil to cut off threat of alternative energy instigated under the Carter administration, we wouldn't be facing the "burn, baby, burn" crowd demanding more oil drilling today.

While Utahns are complaining about hard-to-clean oil splatters on their homes due to a local oil refinery blow out, Hurrican Isaac just washed up oil rements onto the Mexican Gulf's beaches from the 2010 BP oil spill. This is hurting tourism and local fishing as people don't want to eat polluted Gulf seafood or visit oil-strewn beaches. This is hurting small business owners who rely on a clean environment for their livelihoods.

Whether its the nuisance of cleaning oil scum off your house or the devistation of small businesses in the Gulf, this is just the price we pay for being addicted to oil.

Oh, and Mitt wants to eliminate fuel efficiency standards on cars too... "burn, baby, burn!"

Utah already has one of the largest environmental disasters on the planet in the Kennecott open pit mine. So what's a few more holes in the ground? I do agree with Hutt, American Fork should be displaced and a giant refinery and open pit be put in its place. An improvement by anyone's measurement.

I wonder if the tour guide allowed questions from those that attended. Questions like these:

Why should we get involved in this project when it is 30 miles away from anything or anyone?

Why will this project affect any groundwater way out here? We are 50 miles from any community.

If there is a sizeable resource here, what is wrong with a pilot project to see if it is feasible?

If the company and investors are willing to build this and see if it will work, why should we drive 250 miles from our comfortable homes and try to get some attention? Let them bild and thing and give their technology a try.

Baron Jimmy Hutterite Show me were and how you can obtain the plastics and metals to further your clean energy resources? Who's yard are you going to build the mines, refineries, and development of rare earth materials? How much mining is required to build the batteries in those non gas electric cars? How are you going to get the clean natural gas to run all the demand source power plants? The only option you provide for a non mining, non-oil development society is 3,000 years ago. Woops, if you use a horse or oxen to move goods, your producing methane. It is one thing to spout off real and reasonable development. But claiming Kennocott shouldn't exist tar sands development should take place, and then turn your computer on to complain, is total hypocrisy. You start using the resources you complain about the moment you wake in the morning and open your eyes. You mine the resources where they are.