Oil Sands - Very Dirty

Over the last few years I have often heard how expensive extracting oil from the Alberta oil sands was both in terms of dollars and energy use.  An article in the April issue of GEO magazine really hit the point home for me.  I had never spent the time to read about what was happening in northern Alberta and, now that I have, I just do not understand why we are allowing this work to go on.

Some numbers:

-The boreal forest that has been zoned for the work is one quarter the size of France.
-To get to the oily sand you need to dig an average of 50 metres below the surface.
-So you need to deforest 141,000 square kilometres.
-It costs $25-$35 to produce a barrel of oil here.  On the North Sea and in Saudi Arabia the costs per barrel are $15 and $5 respectively.
-Between 2 and 4 tons of sands are required to produce a single barrel.
-It takes the equivalent of two barrels of conventional oil to produce one barrel of oil sands oil.
-It takes 300,000 cubic metres of natural gas (the average daily consumption of one European household) to produce one barrel.
-150 kilos of greenhouse gases are emitted to produce a barrel here compared to 30 kilos for conventional oil.
-Between 2 and 6 barrels of water are needed for one barrel of this oil.
-The water needs of the industrial complex in the oil sands is equivalent to the water usage of a city of two million citizens.

Haven't heard enough yet?  Fish are disappearing, forests are being ravaged, cancer rates and respiratory illness in humans are increasing.  Amidst all of this the corporations have the gall to state that the entire area will be returned to its natural state once processing is completed.  What unbelievable arrogance!

Knowing what I know now my conclusion is that there are two reasons why this dirty oil is being sought out - none of them any good.

1) So that the western world can reduce its dependence on oil from questionable political allies.  Bad idea.  Rather than try and resolve the political differences (very hard admittedly) the easy route is to turn to friendly sources.  I would ask that governments not take the easy route on this issue.
2) Job creation.  Tens of thousands of very high paying jobs are being created in northern Alberta.  People from all over the world are flocking there in a modern day gold rush.  If the real reason was due to dwindling supplies do you think we would be consuming two barrels of oil to produce one?  This is costing us oil and reducing our reserves - not increasing them.  Why not employ these tens of thousands on projects that will try and solve our dependence on oil by looking at renewable sources?

Short-term job creation and politics.  Bad management, asinine economics and stupid politics have once again come together to destroy this planet of ours.



Let me know what you think about what you have just read. Please and thanks!