The Guardian UK reports, “It was the dirty secret of Alberta’s tar sands – until the black mountain of petroleum coke on the banks of the Detroit River grew to occupy an entire city block three storeys high. Now it could become a familiar feature at storage yards and water fronts across the country as the oil industry in the US and Canada struggles to deal with a glut of waste from Alberta’s tar sands production. …Every barrel of crude that comes out of the Alberta tar sands throws off between 60-130lbs of pet-coke. …This particular pile (in Detroit) is owned by Koch Carbon, which is controlled by the Koch brothers, oil billionaires and backers of ultra-conservative groups, including those which work to discredit climate science and block action on climate change.”Council of Canadians Windsor chapter activist states, “We have to end this environmental travesty. Join us on June 25th on the Windsor river front across from the U.S. Post Office for our demonstration, Pots Against Coke Joint Action, with the Sierra Club of Detroit on the U.S side.” The Guardian article notes, “This week, the state environmental authority in Michigan disclosed that an adjacent drain had been left open, raising the possibility pet-coke had been washing into the river and the Great Lakes system.” It also notes, “Pet-coke is made up almost entirely of carbon, which means that it produces more greenhouse gas emissions than tar sands oil or even coal if it is used for electricity.” Last week we learned that the power station at Point Aconi (in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality on the northeastern tip of Nova Scotia) is burning pet-coke because it is cheaper than natural gas. Council of Canadians Atlantic organizer Angela Giles was interviewed by Radio-Canada on this issue this morning. In early-March, Windsor-area NDP MP Brian Masse made a formal request to the Harper government and the International Joint Commission to act on the petroleum coke issue. And now a Michigan member of the US House of Representatives is calling for an investigation into the matter. For more, please read: Detroit’s mountains of petroleum coke are ‘dirtier than the dirtiest fuel’ UPDATE: Windsor chapter fights petcoke now being burned in Nova Scotia
