In December, 2002, the oil sands of Alberta, Canada – earlier seen as an obscure, obstacle-ridden scientific project – were for the first time included in the Oil & Gas Journal’s year-end review of worldwide oil reserves. To explain this decision, the editors of this prestigious international petroleum magazine cited the basic neoclassical economic theory of price-driven resource substitution. This thesis contends, however, that the neoclassical theory in fact explains very little of how it became possible to profitably extract petroleum from Alberta’s bitumen-saturated sands. Merging insights from resources geography on the politics of nature-based production with scholarship on calculation and classification in Science and Technology Studies, this thesis fleshes in much-needed detail and dimension to the neoclassical account by emphasizing the role of key actors and decision-makers, many within the state but also within the private sector, who have actively negotiated supply costs and pursued technological strategies for the oil sands. In doing so, it argues that market prices and supply costs are not independent objects, but are underpinned by a malleable, contingent, and profoundly political process. As evidence, this thesis draws on national and international petroleum statistics, industry publications and public relations campaigns, as well as over 80 years of archived and more contemporary government documents, in order to show that substitution between two materially different resources is rarely an independently propelled or inevitable response.

In December, 2002, the oil sands of Alberta, Canada – earlier seen as an obscure, obstacle-ridden scientific project – were for the first time included in the Oil & Gas Journal’s year-end review of worldwide oil reserves. To explain this decision, the editors of this prestigious international petroleum magazine cited the basic neoclassical economic theory of price-driven resource substitution. This thesis contends, however, that the neoclassical theory in fact explains very little of how it became possible to profitably extract petroleum from Alberta’s bitumen-saturated sands. Merging insights from resources geography on the politics of nature-based production with scholarship on calculation and classification in Science and Technology Studies, this thesis fleshes in much-needed detail and dimension to the neoclassical account by emphasizing the role of key actors and decision-makers, many within the state but also within the private sector, who have actively negotiated supply costs and pursued technological strategies for the oil sands. In doing so, it argues that market prices and supply costs are not independent objects, but are underpinned by a malleable, contingent, and profoundly political process. As evidence, this thesis draws on national and international petroleum statistics, industry publications and public relations campaigns, as well as over 80 years of archived and more contemporary government documents, in order to show that substitution between two materially different resources is rarely an independently propelled or inevitable response.

The inadvertent ingestion of contaminated soil is the dominant exposure route of non-volatile and semi-volatile contaminants such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Quantitative mass balance soil ingestion studies have been used to determine soil ingestion rates for use in human health risk assessments (HHRA) that can be used to predict the likelihood of adverse effects in individuals exposed to hazardous contaminants such as PAHs in contaminated soil. The Cold Lake region of Alberta is one of the three major oil sands regions of Alberta, and PAH concentrations in this oil sand region may be elevated in the atmosphere and the soil, resulting in increased exposures to PAHs. The area is home to Cold Lake First Nation who practice traditional activities and lifestyles that may put them in greater contact with soil than previous soil ingestion studies suggest. The primary objective of this research was to assess the soil ingestion rate in a group of First Nations subjects inhabiting the Cold lake region, and assess the carcinogenic risk posed by exposures to PAHs in air and soil. The study employed a quantitative mass balance tracer approach to estimate soil ingestion rates, and followed 9 subjects over a 13 day period. Soil and air samples were simultaneously collected to assess PAH contamination. The mean soil ingestion rate using Al and Si elemental tracers was 52 mg d-1, with a 90th percentile of 220 mg d-1, and a median soil ingestion rate of 37 mg d-1. These values are greater than the soil ingestion rates for HHRA recommended by Health Canada. The mean increase in excess lifetime cancer risk posed by inadvertent ingestion of soil to a First Nations’ individuals following traditional activities was 0.02 cases per 100,000 people with a 95% risk level of 0.067 cases per 100,000 people. Exposure to PAHs through inhalation posed a maximum lifetime cancer risk below 0.1 cases per 100,000, people. Thus, this study found no appreciable increase in excess lifetime associated with PAH exposure of First Nations’ people in the Cold Lake region.

This thesis critically examines dominant conceptualizations of safety crimes – offences by corporations that seriously injure and kill workers – within the Alberta oil and gas industry. Using critical discourse analysis, and relying on and Foucaultian and Marxist literatures, the thesis critically examines the extent to which government fatality reports, workplace safety education campaigns and court decisions characterize safety crimes primarily as ‘accidents’ caused by ‘careless’ workers. Two main discourses were found: first, workers were responsibilized, effectively blamed for their own injury and death in the workplace while employers were characterized as largely good and law-abiding; second, serious injury and death was (re)conventionalized as the regrettable but largely unintentional and unavoidable side effect of capitalist production. In the process, the underlying causes of safety crimes, including weak and under-enforced laws and a socio-economic context that prioritizes profits over worker safety, remain untouched.

The inadvertent ingestion of contaminated soil is the dominant exposure route of non-volatile and semi-volatile contaminants such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Quantitative mass balance soil ingestion studies have been used to determine soil ingestion rates for use in human health risk assessments (HHRA) that can be used to predict the likelihood of adverse effects in individuals exposed to hazardous contaminants such as PAHs in contaminated soil. The Cold Lake region of Alberta is one of the three major oil sands regions of Alberta, and PAH concentrations in this oil sand region may be elevated in the atmosphere and the soil, resulting in increased exposures to PAHs. The area is home to Cold Lake First Nation who practice traditional activities and lifestyles that may put them in greater contact with soil than previous soil ingestion studies suggest. The primary objective of this research was to assess the soil ingestion rate in a group of First Nations subjects inhabiting the Cold lake region, and assess the carcinogenic risk posed by exposures to PAHs in air and soil. The study employed a quantitative mass balance tracer approach to estimate soil ingestion rates, and followed 9 subjects over a 13 day period. Soil and air samples were simultaneously collected to assess PAH contamination. The mean soil ingestion rate using Al and Si elemental tracers was 52 mg d-1, with a 90th percentile of 220 mg d-1, and a median soil ingestion rate of 37 mg d-1. These values are greater than the soil ingestion rates for HHRA recommended by Health Canada. The mean increase in excess lifetime cancer risk posed by inadvertent ingestion of soil to a First Nations’ individuals following traditional activities was 0.02 cases per 100,000 people with a 95% risk level of 0.067 cases per 100,000 people. Exposure to PAHs through inhalation posed a maximum lifetime cancer risk below 0.1 cases per 100,000, people. Thus, this study found no appreciable increase in excess lifetime associated with PAH exposure of First Nations’ people in the Cold Lake region.

The processing of bitumen in the Athabasca oil sands region (AOSR) produces extensive volumes of oil sands process-affected water (OSPW) and tailings, which are stored within tailings ponds and settling basins to promote the consolidation of solids and the recycling of water. Oil sands operators are actively investigating dry and wet reclamation strategies in order to reduce their inventory of tailings and return disturbed land back to its original state. An important component of the reclamation of tailings is understanding the environmental fate of naphthenic acids (NAs), which are considered the most toxic constituents of OSPW and tailings. However, since NAs exist as a complex mixture comprised of thousands of compounds from dozens of chemical classes, the characterization of NAs within environmental samples poses significant challenges to analytical chemists. This dissertation is focused on the characterization of naphthenic acids by comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC×GC/MS). GC×GC/MS offers unparalleled chromatographic separation and peak capacity and has been used in recent years to resolve individual constituents within complex mixtures, including structural isomers. Since the biodegradation and toxicity of NAs is structure-specific and can vary between structural isomers, the profiling of individual NAs by GC×GC/MS is expected to enhance the monitoring of NAs within environmental samples impacted by oil sands activity. In this thesis, GC×GC coupled with time-of-flight mass spectrometry (TOFMS) was used to structurally elucidate a number of ‘unknown’ classical and sulfur-containing naphthenic acids by interpretation of their electron ionization (EI) mass spectra and, if available, confirmed by comparison with the spectra of references standards. GC×GC/TOFMS was also utilized as a fingerprinting tool to assess the temporal and spatial variability at two reclamation sites in the AOSR: Syncrude’s Sandhill Fen reclamation site and Base Mine Lake. Lastly, a methodology was developed which coupled GC×GC with a high resolution quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometer (QTOFMS) for the improved profiling of NAs. GC×GC/QTOFMS is advantageous for the monitoring of NAs since it can provide useful fingerprints via isomer distributions, differentiate NAs from several chemical classes, and provide a global overview of the elemental compositions (assigned by mass accuracy) within NA mixtures. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)