Posted on 05/21/2007 6:43:26 AM PDT by Daralundy
The world’s largest untapped oil reserves – in northern Canada – have become the new front line in the battle between environmentalists and the energy industry.
Shell, a self-styled “green” energy company, is to invest billions of pounds in exploiting the Athabasca tar sands.
Environmentalists say the tar sands are the world’s dirtiest oil deposits and that refining them generates three to four times more CO2 than normal oil extraction.
However, Clive Mather, chief executive of Shell Canada, said rising demand and surging oil prices could not be resisted. “The deposits are huge, potentially even greater than in Saudi Arabia,” he said. “The time is right to exploit them.”
The Athabasca tar sands are named after the river that runs through them. They contain about 1.7 trillion barrels of oil, of which 175 billion can be reached with existing technologies and another 135 billion could be tapped with technologies under development.
The total of 310 billion barrels would give Canada the world’s largest oil reserves – bigger than Saudi Arabia’s 264 billion.
For western countries, especially America, Canada’s oil is a chance to cut dependence on the Middle East, but the environmental costs could be huge.
This is because tar sands comprise viscous bitumen and sand, a mixture that can currently only be extracted by digging it out, destroying the overlying forests.
The Athabasca region has already been scarred with huge pits, some hundreds of feet deep. Alongside them lie vast ponds that hold the contaminated sands and other residues left after the oil is removed.
Shell, along with Suncor and Syncrude, the other main oil companies in the area, are developing a second extraction method where superheated steam is pumped into the ground to melt the oil so that it can be sucked out as a liquid.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
“Environmentalists say the tar sands are the world’s dirtiest oil deposits and that refining them generates three to four times more CO2 than normal oil extraction.”
The environmentalists have only themselves to blame. If they had not blocked drilling in virtually every other place, we would not be talking about exploiting this resource.
Dirty oil?.....as opposed to “clean” oil I suppose?.........Strange how the enviro-whackos will negate one end of their argument with an attack on the other end........
They want us to live in caves.
Empty ballparks for awhile??? There’s an Ox fit for “Goring”.
Oh no, we cannot live in caves. They are sacred holy places for native American tribal cultures. We must all stand naked in the sun..............
I'm sure the environmentalists will come to appreciate Shell's massive clean up of this huge natural oil spill.
/sarcasm
Well, if cleaner drilling is blocked, then oil sand extraction is a necessary alternative. Environmentallists only have themselves to blame for making industry choose something less efficent and environmentally worse.
Shell needs to market this as a “clean up” operation.
Just imagine all that icky oil tar sand fouling the environment.
Shell, doing the jobs Canadians won’t do.
AND, no killing animals to use their hides for clothes or shelter, no cutting trees for fuel or shelter, etc. The main intent of greenies seems to be the extinction of humans, since they say that every thing we do is un-natural in a natural world, totally forgetting that every thing we do is natural, since we are an integral part of nature.
The reporter needs to check his facts. Mining is economic only where the resource is close to the surface. Deeper tar sands are currently being produced (and have been for many, many years) by the injection of high temperature steam into wells.
“...overlying forests.” There’s not a tree within 500 miles.
Yah. Trees?? What bloody trees? It’s taiga, f’Heaven’s sake!
And liberals would love sand explorations out of concern that there ever might be drilling or refining capacity expanded within the U.S.
Liberals want to use but not produce.
Leave such to foreigners.
Medical staff at Fort Chi-pewyan, on the shores of the lake, have reported a surge in rare cancers.
Journalists...what a waste of stem cells.
Great Point!!!
Drill ANWR, Save the Environment!
About 80% of the oil sands in Alberta are buried too deep below the surface for open pit mining. This oil must be recovered by in situ techniques. Using drilling technology, steam is injected into the deposit to heat the oil sand lowering the viscosity of the bitumen. The hot bitumen migrates towards producing wells, bringing it to the surface, while the sand is left in place ("in situ" is Latin for "in place").
Casey Wong: On the international scene the Amazon nuclear facility has blown it’s stack irradiating the worlds largest rainforest. Environmentalists are calling it a disaster.
Jess Perkins: But don’t they always.
RoboCop
Yeah, but how annoying will the quasi-French to our north get after realizing that THEY now have some real bargaining positions on the world stage. The Middle East bred religious suicide-bombers. What hath Canada wrought?
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