Canadian PM Stephen Harper gets splattered. "Tar Nation" is a 1790s-era euphemism for damnation, and a 21st century-style tool for spreading political opposition to tar sands mining. (image: tarsandswatch.org)

An online Canadian video game released Sunday allows users to shoot oil at politicians who support Alberta tar sands mining. Called “Tar Nation,” the game was designed by the Polaris Institute, a Canadian think tank that conducts public outreach campaigns on issues disproportionally represented by corporate-driven dialogue and information. Otherwise known as oilsands, tar sands are a controversial source of crude oil because of their development’s heavy toll on the environment, both immediate and long-term.

Set in the backyard of a foreboding oil refinery, the game features Prime Minister Stephen TARper and Opposition Leader Michael OIL RIGnatieff (that’s Harper and Ignatieff in more relaxed settings) as Jack-in-the-box targets popping up and down behind a tree stump, brown weed, and rock ostensibly subjected to thermal cracking.

Insidious Design Net designed the Flash-animated game as an activism tool. Even if you were just interested in spraying goop, it’s hard not to absorb the underlying message. One’s eyes drift over headlines and phrases such as “most destructive project on earth; “How Canada subsidizes fossil fuels at the expense of green alternatives”; and “about to become Canada’s no.1 emitter of greenhouse gases.” As previously reported, Canada’s tar sands have come under fire especially since it was discovered that nine projects are already failing to meet clean-up rules, leaving vast quantities of toxic waste on the ground. When enough damage has been done, the game presents the player with a letter to the real-life politicians. Compared to the oil shoot-out, that timeless tool of political advocacy gently makes its point.

Dear Stephen Harper and Michael Ignatieff,

I am deeply concerned that you are both stuck in the Alberta tar sands.

The tar sands represent the wrong direction for Canada. With three to five times the greenhouse gas emissions as conventional oil, severely damaging environmental and social impacts, and negative economic consequences for other provinces, the tar sands are taking Canada in the wrong direction.

It is not too late to invest in the new energy economy of the future and turn your back on the tar sands.

Sincerely, . . .

This is not the first time someone has used entertainment vehicles as a way to protest tar sands. In March, a coalition of environmental groups published an ad titled “Canada’s Avatar Sands,” that cast tar sands as the mineral “unobtainium” from the movie Avatar. Parallels between the fictional resource’s role in the film and the issues surrounding oil sands in real life are hard to ignore. Whether Avatar’s makers also intended this connection is open to interpretation.

As owner of the world’s second largest oil reservoir, and as the primary oil exporter to the US, Canada stands at a significant crossway. Developing its oil sands would be very economically profitable in the long run, and give the country new leverage against the US. However, the process of removing bitumen from the Alberta tar sands contaminates millions of gallons of fresh water could decimate an area of land the size of Florida, 14,000 km of which is intact forest—itself a rare thing in the world. These destructive side effects come with no easy solution.

A colorful and engaging way to win people’s minds, “Tar Nation” is an effective way to publicize an issue that deserves wider scrutiny. Also, if you watch the game long enough, you can see Stephen Harper briefly clutching a stuffed animal for no reason.

*Pwned is a 2000s-era version of the word “owned,” itself a euphemism for “taken down,” or “obliterated,” and originating from internet video game culture, where players would mistakenly type “P” instead of “O” when communicating with a defeated player. Its usage is mostly limited to the internet.

VeruTEK’s soil remediation technology could make scenes like the one above, in which a heating oil tank and contaminated soil had to be removed, a thing of the past. (image: luzoninc.com)

A leak in a home heating oil tank can be a nightmare for a homeowner, and an expensive one at that. If the oil seeps into soil or groundwater the homeowner may be responsible for removing tons of contaminated soil along with the leaking tank. But a company in Connecticut has developed an environmentally friendly technology that can remediate soil without removing it, all by using natural ingredients that remove pollutants like oil from soil and groundwater.

VeruTEK Technologies, Inc. of Bloomfield, CT uses biodegradable extracts derived from sources such as oranges, tea leaves, red wine grapes, soybeans, and others that decontaminate soil or water that has been polluted by oil or toxins, reported the Hartford Business Journal on Monday. “Using simple material, we have a series of remediations,” said an EPA scientist collaborating with VeruTEK, Dr. Raj Varma. “Nature does it all the time.” ExxonMobil, Pfizer, and Dow Chemical are among the companies that have used VeruTEK products or services.

Douglas Anderson, the CFO of VeruTEK, says his company’s technology is more effective and considerably cheaper than traditional remediation. As with a technology that uses bacteria to aid soil remediation, VeruTEK’s product can be injected into affected soil in at least some cases and would not require anyone to leave their home while VeruTEK’s biodegradable product does its work, according to the company’s website.

Cleaning up a home heating spill could take as little as two days, VeruTEK claims. By lowering costs and shortening cleaning times, cutting-edge remediation technologies like VeruTEK’s could be heating oil users first choice in case of a leak.

“Bioheat” is a registered trademark of the National Biodiesel Board—and don’t you forget it. (image: biodieselmagazine.com)

The National Biodiesel Board (NBB) reached a settlement in its lawsuit against a New Hampshire company that had used the term BioHeatUSA to market wood burning heating systems, reported Biodiesel Magazine. Paul Nazzaro, petroleum liaison for NBB, called the settlement “a win for the environment, the industry and consumers using cleaner burning Bioheat heating oil.”

“Bioheat” has been a registered trademark of the NBB since 2006, and the trademark was licensed to the National Oilheat Research Alliance (NORA) so that NORA could make it available to retail and wholesale heating oil dealers. The term is used to refer to heating oil blended with biodiesel.

Earlier this year the NBB filed the lawsuit against Tarm USA Inc., which was marketing wood burning heating systems under the name BioHeatUSA. In the settlement, Tarm USA Inc. agreed to stop using the name within six months, and to stop using a domain name that included the Bioheat name.

“We are dead set on protecting the Bioheat identity,” said Nazzaro. “Protecting the Bioheat trademark is about protecting the integrity of the product on behalf of the entire industry and the more than 300 dealers who offer the fuel.”

As NORA’s website states, the purpose of the trademark is to create a “name that consumers will understand and recognize” for the environmentally friendly blend of heating oil and biodiesel. In the confusing welter of names trying to showcase green bona fides—biodiesel, biofuel, biomass—the heating oil and biodiesel industries want to distinguish their product from others. It’s especially important when biodiesel, the type of biofuel compatible with heating oil that’s derived from many different sources (such as waste cooking oil) avoid the problems and controversies—namely, the potential that biofuel feedstocks compete with food sources for land and create more carbon emissions than fossil fuels—that have hampered the development of other biofuels.

Whitehall Place, London, location of the UK Deparment of Energy and Climate Change. (image: photos.igougo.com)

As reported by the Guardian, the UK government is responding to the report released last month entitled “The Oil Crunch: A wake-up call for the UK economy” by holding a meeting between energy minister Lord Hunt and the British business leaders responsible for the headline-grabbing report.

“We do this all the time; it is just a normal stakeholder meeting,” a spokeswoman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change said Sunday night, denying that the “private and behind-doors” meeting with peak oil advocates represented any deviation from status-quo approach to energy. However, the decision to take into account an independent assessment on the future of cheap oil supplies would be a radical departure from the UK government’s policy of silence on the issue.

The report released by the business group known as the UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security made waves in February by stating an oil crunch was imminent within the next five years and that society was completely unprepared for the consequences. The report was not a scientific study, but rather a collection of “opinion” pieces written by global oil supply expert Chris Skrebowski and London School of Economics lecturer Dr. Robert Falkner. Unlike other, similar warnings from the UK Energy Research Centre in October, and the International Energy Administration, the Industry Taskforce’s report has prompted a faster response, possibly because it comes from the business community, a sector that typically has the most to lose when it comes to environmental awareness, and because the individuals involved are very powerful. The taskforce’s business leaders include billionaire Richard Branson, founder of global brand Virgin Group; Jeremy Leggett, CEO of Solarcentury; and Ian Marchant, CEO of Scotland’s largest company, Scottish and Southern Energy Group.

The Dept. of Energy and Climate minister Lord Hunt and other unidentified energy civil servants started meeting with the taskforce Monday. That the meeting is located at the Energy Institute, the UK’s more expansive version of the (oil industry-supported) American Petroleum Institute, demonstrates an interest in grappling with peak oil issues by understanding the needs of industry. Contrast that to the US, which is involved with energy-efficiency initiatives, but has yet to hear from any private sector leaders even though any adaptive project in transport, agriculture, power generation, or heating would inevitably encroach upon existing commercial structures.

The lagging US response to peak oil issues was explored on the March 6 episode of Financial Sense NewsHour, where peak oil guru Matthew Simmons shared his reaction upon first reading the executive summary of the UK taskforce report, as soon as he found out about it:

I said to myself; You know this is exactly what Sam Bodman, when he was secretary of energy, actually asked the department of [sic]—the National Petroleum Council to do, and we basically punted the ball saying we don’t have a clue. And who would have ever guessed that it would be the Chairman of Scottish and Central [sic] Power, and Richard Branson, who would head this task force, that would effectively say to the United States [sic]—to the UK government, saying that we are in an unbelievably deep hole and if we don’t get out of it, the country will collapse. It’s no minced words, and it’s all the same figures that I’ve been using for the past ten years.

He continued, remarking on his impulse to email a copy of the report to Sen. Susan Collins (ME), Representative Chellie Pingree (ME), Governor John Baldacci of Maine, and Sen. Mary Landrieu (LA) within hours of reading its summary.

What is wrong with the United States? The United States government—that was such a striking report, they should basically either dig down and refute it, or they should say ‘whoa we screwed up.’ And we should not be listening to Dan Yergin, you know telling us everything is in great shape. And now we have basically entered into the greatest illusion I’ve ever heard of, that luckily if you never worry about this shale gas is going to last well into the 21st century.

The last oil crunch that affected the US and UK happened in 1973, when OPEC cut off oil supplies to Western nations to discourage their military support of Israel during the Yom Kippur War. The resulting price spike immediately required the use of strict measures such as fuel rations in the US and Sunday driving bans in the UK. The UK Taskforce report warned that a pending oil price spike would be greater in magnitude and harsher in consequences than the 1973 crisis, due to changes in the UK’s oil dependency (the UK was a net exporter during the 73 embargo, and now is a net importer), greater inelasticity (conservation measures in the past few decades took care of all the easier adjustments) and further diminished supplies worldwide.

The UK government’s meeting will likely bolster the validity of peak oil theory in the eyes of other governments, but then again, Britain has been slow to even acknowledge the issue. Years ago, France and Germany already completed government-sponsored studies on the date of the global peak , with France saying 2013 in a 2004 study, and Germany saying 2006 in a 2007 study. It’s also important to remember that despite the UK’s apparent change of position on peak oil, even emphatic acknowledgment within a culture can coexist with minimal change to a country’s political agenda.

However, the reason independent studies are so promising is because their proximity to government commands attention for the results in a way that outside recommendation does not. It is a positive sign that the UK is taking matters into its own hands. It would be logical that the US would be influenced by a new Anglo seriousness regarding the cheap oil problem, but whether the issue gains any political traction is up to the work of individual politicians.

The EPA is taking on the controversy surrounding hydrofracking, and plans to deliver an answer in 2012. (image: asmalldoseof.org and sierraactivist.org)

Following years of controversy over a technique used for extracting hard-to-reach oil and natural gas called hydraulic fracturing (a.k.a. hydrofracking), the EPA announced on Thursday that it would invest two years and almost $2 million to study hydrofracking’s possible threats to human health and the environment. The Wall Street Journal reported on the agency’s announcement, as made by Paul Anastas, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Research and Development:

Our research will be designed to answer questions about the potential impact of hydraulic fracturing on human health and the environment. The study will be conducted through a transparent, peer-reviewed process, with significant stakeholder input.

The process of hydraulic fracturing involves pumping water and chemicals deep underground at extremely high pressure to crack layers of rock known as shale to access the oil or natural gas below. Environmentalists and residents of communities near hydrofracking sites have expressed concern that the chemicals used in the process could contaminate underground aquifers that supply drinking water. Other concerns over disposal and treatment of the chemical-laced water, depletion of water resources, and effects on surface environments have been voiced as well. In December of 2009, New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection released a report highlighting the threats that hydrofracking in upstate New York poses to the City’s water supply, the largest unfiltered water source in the country.

Hydrofracking has been used by the oil and natural gas industries for decades, but the process has come under scrutiny in recent years as new technology has made oil and gas deposits hundreds of feet underground accessible. The use of the technique has expanded rapidly following the discovery of massive natural gas reserves trapped under shale beds around the US, such as the Marcellus Shale formation that stretches from Tennessee to western New York State.

The oil and gas industry points to the 50 years of hydrofracking as evidence that the process is safe and effective, and frequently state that links between hydrofracking and water contamination and other environmental problems have never been scientifically proven. The EPA undertook its first study of hydrofracking six years ago, as the Associated Press reported: “A 2004 EPA study found no evidence that fracking threatens drinking water, but critics argued that the report was flawed and last year Congress asked EPA for a new study.” The critics referred to by the AP usually cited the cozy relationship between the George W. Bush administration and the oil and gas industry as source of pro-industry bias in the 2004 study. The energy bill shepherded by former Vice President Dick Cheney and passed in 2005 specifically blocked the EPA from regulating hydrofracking.

Groups on both sides of the hydrofracking issue seem to be pleased with the EPA’s recent announcement. An in-depth, scientific study conducted by an objective federal agency will hopefully provide well-supported answers to the many questions about hydrofracking and give a clear picture of the how the potential health and environmental drawbacks of the technique weigh against the economic benefits of increased domestic oil and gas production in the US. The EPA is expected to complete the study by 2012.

EnviroTech’s owner has been arrested for a scam that charged customers for needless soil cleanups. Now the company is under investigation for polluting its own property. (image: Michael Duffy, The News-Times)

A Connecticut environmental company was already accused of scamming customers by carrying out needless soil remediation after removing heating oil tanks, and is now under investigation for possible heating oil contamination at its own site, according to the News-Times of Danbury, CT.

Roger Passaro, Jr., the owner of EnviroTech of Bethel, CT, was arrested on charges of larceny last year. His company, hired to remove heating oil tanks, has been accused of bilking consumers by convincing them that their tank had leaked and that costly soil remediation was necessary. According to court documents, EnviroTech sent soil samples to an independent laboratory, Brooks Laboratories, where test results were falsified to show contamination. The president of Brooks Labs, Michael Zubarev, was also arrested for larceny last year for his role in the scam.

EnviroTech came under investigation after a former employee came forward because she “could not sleep at night knowing what (Passaro) was doing to his clients.” The employee also tipped off authorities that the environmental company did not properly dispose of heating oil tanks on its own property. She said she saw oil tanks “crushed” in a dumpster, where oil and sludge leaked onto the ground. Another former employee called EnviroTech’s property “a mess,” and said a 1,000 gallon tank containing that still contained oil sludge had been partially buried on the property. Authorities have taken soil samples from the property to test for contamination.

This isn’t the first time EnviroTech has come under scrutiny for possible heating oil contamination. EnviroTech’s property is within 100 feet of a wetland that feeds into the Still River, and in 2007 a Bethel wetlands official issued a cease and desist order against EnviroTech for improperly storing oil tanks. The site was cleaned up and soil samples were tested and contaminants were found to be within acceptable levels.

The state Department of Environmental Protection would not disclose the results of the latest tests from the EnviroTech site, because it was part of an ongoing criminal investigation. A spokesman for the Chief State’s Attorney’s Office said there was no immediate threat to public health.

Unfortunately, heating oil consumers appear to have few defenses against such a scam. Legitimate leaks may not be discovered until an underground heating oil tank is removed, and may require remediation. According to the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection’s website, oil tank removal must be carried out by a registered home improvement contractor. EnviroTech remains a registered home improvement contractor, according to both the company’s website and the State of Connecticut eLicensing Website. EnviroTech is not a Better Business Bureau (BBB) accredited business, but BBB gives the company a reliability rating of B+; Brooks Laboratories gets an A from BBB.

Heating oil users could seek a second opinion on soil contamination, which might be a worthwhile investment if it avoids the expense of a remediation project—depending on the extent of contamination, cleanup can cost thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars. If Passaro and Zubarez are found guilty, hopefully their example will discourage any environmental companies or laboratories from trying to emulate their scam.