Alberta Energy
Alberta’s extensive pipeline infrastructure is made up of 332,464 kilometers of pipeline.

In 2006-2007, Alberta oil and gas royalty revenues amounted to $12.75 billion – over 30% of the Government of Alberta’s total revenue.
 
According to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers in 2006 over 275,000 people were directly or indirectly employed in Alberta's energy sector. 

Currently one in six Albertans are directly or indirectly employed in the energy sector.
 
Alberta companies pioneered the development of many innovative technologies -- from high-capacity pipelines to horizontal wells, large heavy-oil crackers and pipelines that transport super-heavy crudes.
 
Since 1999, Alberta oil and gas companies have implemented over 300 projects that have reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
 
The energy sector provides benefits to communities through employment opportunities, community infrastructure development, and economic prosperity.

Aboriginal Relations
Alberta is entirely covered by Treaties: Treaty 6 (1876), Treaty 7 (1877), Treaty 8 (1899) and small portions of Treaty 4 (1894) and Treaty 10 (1906). There are no Alberta Indian Reserves located within Treaties 4 and 10.
 
Alberta is the only province in Canada that has a recognized Metis land base. There are eight Metis Settlements in Alberta: Buffalo Lake, East Prairie, Elizabeth, Fishing Lake, Gift Lake, Kikino, Paddle Prairie and Peavine.
 
The most commonly spoken First Nations’ languages are (alphabetically): Blackfoot, Cree, Chipewyan, Dene, Sarcee, and Stoney (Nakoda Sioux).
 
The total population of First Nations in Alberta is 92,060.
 
The largest Alberta First Nation is the Blood Tribe, with a population of 9,505.
 
The smallest Alberta First Nation is the Duncan’s First Nation, with a population of 205.
 
Bioenergy
40,000 head of cattle can produce enough manure feedstock to generate 5 MW of electricity through biogas.

Ethanol has a higher octane rating than normal gasoline.

Biodiesel can be made with waste oil from restaurant deep fryers.

The main byproduct of biodiesel is glycerine which has over 1,500 applications including food, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals.

Ethanol has been used as a motor fuel in North America since the early 1900s. Ethanol gas blends were used in several states during the Second World War.

Coal
Coal has been mined in Alberta since the late 1800s. Over 1800 mines have operated in Alberta since then.
 
Coal prospectors were once a familiar sight around Alberta. Often seeking new deposits for the railways, these prospectors were a big part of exploring and mapping some of Alberta’s remote foothills and mountain regions.
 
Every two weeks Alberta produces enough coal to fill the Sky Dome in Toronto.
 
Coal is a low-cost fuel for electricity generation and plays a major role in keeping power prices at reasonable levels. Alberta uses over 25 million tonnes of coal annually to generate more electricity.
 
Alberta has vast coal resources and 70 per cent of Canada's coal reserves are right here in this province. This amounts to 33.6 Gigatonnes.
 
The Government of Alberta supports the coal industry, while requiring the best possible environmental protections, including our new clean-air requirements.
 
Electricity
One compact fluorescent bulb will last as long as 13 incandescent light bulbs.
 
Almost half of Alberta’s electricity capacity is generated with coal and almost 40 percent from natural gas. Alberta also uses water, wind and biomass as forms of electricity generation.
 
If you traveled as fast as electricity, (about 300,000 kilometres per second – the speed of light), you could go around the world 8 times in the time it takes to turn on a light switch.
 
With 200 megawatts of wind power capacity, enough to supply 200,000 homes with electricity for an entire year, Alberta is now Canada’s number one in wind power capacity.
 
Compared to other Canadian provinces, Alberta is ranked among the most affordable places to own a home, when mortgage payments, property taxes AND UTILITIES are taken into account.
 
The Alberta government has a contract to purchase 90 per cent of its electricity requirements from green power starting in 2005.
 
The Alberta legislature building has a solar power system that can provide enough power to light 70 compact fluorescent light bulbs for approximately 5 hours/day, or almost half the power used by an average household in a year.
 
Much of the electrical terminology used today comes from the names of the scientists who made electric breakthroughs, such as: James Watt, Allessandro Volta, Andre Marie Ampere, and James Joule.
 
If you had a light bulb on the moon connected to a switch in your bedroom, it would take only 1.26 seconds for that bulb to light up, 384,403 kilometres (238,857 miles) away.
 
Minerals
The Banff Springs Hotel exterior is Rundle stone, a brown sandstone, still quarried near Canmore for use in construction and landscaping.
 
Paskapoo sandstone from the Glenbow quarry near Calgary was used in construction on the top four stories of the Alberta Legislature Building, which began in 1907 and finished in 1912.
 
Salt is produced in Alberta by injecting water into salt formations and recovering the brine, known as solution mining.
 
Alberta is the leading producer of cement in Western Canada.
 
The biggest diamond found to date in the Ashton K14 complex, at Buffalo Hills, north of Edmonton is 1.3 carats. The diamond is a single crystal, of silvery grey appearance with many dark inclusions making it an industrial grade diamond.
 
In 1958, the first diamond in Alberta was reportedly found in fluvial gravels near Evansburg, east of Edson. In 1995, at least 23 diamonds were discovered about 65 km north of Hinton in stream sediment in the Wildhay River.
 
The two largest diamonds recovered in the Ashton K14 complex at the Buffalo Hills in north-central Alberta weigh 1.31 carats and 0.32 carat. The largest diamonds previously reported were 0.60, 0.30, 0.28, 0.21, and 0.18 carat.
 
The biggest gem quality diamond found in Alberta to date is 0.76 carats, recovered from Buffalo Head Hills north of Edmonton.
 
The first diamond in Alberta was found near Evansburg by farm worker Einar Opdahl in 1958.
 
Natural Gas
Natural gas is one of the cleanest burning fossil fuels.

Natural gas can form over time from almost any organic material. It is generally located deep underground in porous rock or trapped between more solid rock formations.

The first natural gas well was drilled in 1883 in a field near Medicine Hat, Alberta.

A gigajoule, a unit for measuring natural gas, is the energy equivalent of about 30 litres of gasoline.

The average Albertan household uses 135 gigajoules of natural gas a year.

Alberta produces about five trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of natural gas per year. This is enough natural gas to heat every home in Alberta for about 35 years.

Over 80 per cent of Canada’s natural gas production is from Alberta.

In 2007, Alberta consumed 1.51 Tcf of natural gas. The rest was exported across Canada and to the United States.

Royalties to Alberta from natural gas and its byproducts are larger than royalties from crude oil and bitumen.

In 2006-07, the $12.26 billion in non-renewable resource revenue accounted for over 30 per cent of government revenue. In 2006-07, natural gas and by-product revenue was $5.99 billion, or approximately 16 per cent of government revenue.

In 2007, there were 9,971 successful natural gas wells drilled in Alberta: 9,220 conventional gas wells and 751 coalbed methane wells.

Oil
Conventional crude oil production in Alberta averaged 525 thousand barrels a day (bbls/d) in 2007. 

Alberta exported over 1.3 million bbls/d of oil to US markets in 2007, similar to the levels in 2006 and an increase of 40% over 2000. 

There are about 3,000 "petroleum products" or products made from crude oil including gasoline, ink, crayons, bubble gum, dishwashing liquids, deodorant, eyeglasses, records, tires, ammonia, and heart valves. 

All crude oil is not the same. Crude oil is called "sweet" when it contains only a small amount of sulphur and "sour" if it contains a lot of sulphur.

There are 159 litres (42 US gallons) in a barrel of oil.  During the early development of the petroleum industry, 42 US gallons was deemed to equal a barrel of oil.  The only barrels guaranteed to be 42 US gallons were the blue barrels manufactured for and used by Standard Oil.  Thus the standard measure for oil became the 42 US gallon blue barrel or "bbl". 

In 2007, Alberta produced more crude oil from non-conventional resources (Oil Sands) than from conventional sources. 

At the year end 2007, the world crude oil reserves were estimated at close to 1.23 trillion barrels, of which the 13 OPEC Member Countries held about 76 per cent. 
   
Oil Sands
Canada ranks second largest in terms of global proven crude oil reserves (15% of world reserves), after Saudi Arabia. The majority of these reserves are found in Alberta’s oil sands – over 173 billion barrels.

Oil sands production of more than 1.2 millon barrels a day (bbls/d) in 2006 now account for approximately 42 per cent of Canada’s total crude output.

Alberta's oil sands underlie 140, 200 square kilometers (54,132 square miles) of primarily northern Alberta; an area larger than the state of Florida.

It takes about two tonnes of oil sand to produce a barrel of oil.

Oil sands producers move enough overburden and oil sands every two days to fill Toronto’s Skydome or New York’s Yankee Stadium.
 
Petrochemicals
Alberta is Canada’s leading producer of petrochemicals with a production capacity of 8.6 billion pounds of ethylene per year.
 
Petrochemicals are made by processing and reprocessing natural gas and oil.
 
Products made from petrochemicals include hard hats, skateboard wheels, camera film, computer keys, detergents, moulding and chewing gum.
 
Resource Land Access
The Alberta government works with a broad range of stakeholders to develop provincial recovery plans for four species at risk: woodland caribou, grizzly bear, trumpeter swan and sage grouse.
 
About 13% of the province's land area is off-limits to energy development - environmentally sensitive areas including some parks and recreation areas.
 
The average width of oil and gas industry seismic lines has been reduced over the past twenty years from over 6 meters to 2.8 meters. In environmentally sensitive areas, seismic lines are very often less than 1 meter wide and where helicopter-assisted seismic programs are used lines may be undetectable.
 
Albertans own 81 per cent of the province's oil, natural gas and other mineral resources. The Department of Energy manages the sustained development of these resources in a responsible manner that maximizes long-term benefits to the province.
 
Tenure
The highest bonus amount collected by the Department of Energy for petroleum and natural gas rights was $1.827 billion in 2005.
 
The most money paid for one parcel of petroleum and natural gas rights was $46 million on January 25, 2006.
 
The most money collected by the Department of Energy in one public offering of petroleum and natural gas rights was $475 million on December 14, 2005.
 
The Department of Energy collects freehold mineral tax on production derived from freehold oil and gas properties. In 2006, $327 million in tax was levied.
 
Albertans owns the mineral rights for 53.7 million hectares of land. That's about 81 per cent of Alberta's total land area. The remaining 19 per cent are freehold mineral rights owned by private individuals and companies or minerals owned by the federal government (National Parks, Indian Reserves).
 
In 2006, $1.472 billion in bonus revenue was collected from the public offering of petroleum and natural gas rights. This is the second highest total amount ever collected in one year.
 
On a yearly basis, the Department of Energy holds an average of 24 land auctions and issues between 8,000 and 9,000 petroleum and natural gas agreements.