Alberta's Oil Sands

The Worldwatch Institute recently posted an interesting article on the development of Alberta, Canada's 'tar sands'. In a world with the exponential population growth of 6.5 billion people, a process "requiring between two and four barrels of water for each barrel of oil produced" does not seem like a sustainable way to obtain fuel. Here is the beginning of the article by Alana Herro entitled 'Oil Sands: The Costs of Alberta's 'Black Gold':

During a June 28 visit to Washington, D.C., Ralph Klein, the premier of Canada’s western province of Alberta, spoke about the vast energy potential in his region and reassured U.S. government officials that Alberta’s oil reserves are secure. The following day, two leading North American environmental organizations, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Canada’s Pembina Institute, hosted a panel discussion in Washington to provide what they considered to be a more complete picture of Albertan oil development. Panelists spoke about the environmental, social, and cultural costs of extracting the fossil resource, which occurs in the region primarily in the form of tar-like “oil sands.”

According to the Oil and Gas Journal, Canada’s 179 billion barrels of oil reserves rank it second only to Saudi Arabia in petroleum resources. Although Albertan oil sands extraction was not officially recognized as economically viable until 2003, production in the province more than doubled between 1995 and 2004, to 1.1 million barrels a day. This growth has rocketed Alberta’s oil resources to international acclaim, earning the oil sands the nickname of “black gold.” The region is predicted to produce five million or more barrels per day by 2030.

Oil sands were historically known as “tar sands” because the oil occurs naturally in a tar-like form mixed with sand. “Fundamentally, it’s a different type of oil” than that found in conventional oil sources, explains Dan Woynillowicz of the Pembina Institute. But this also makes it more difficult—and possibly more environmentally damaging—to extract and produce, he notes. Woynillowicz offers a simplistic but effective image of the oil sands purification process: “Get a bucket of tar that you use to patch your roof, go out to the sand box, [and] dump it in there,” he suggests. Then “pour…hot water in, mix it, and try to get that tar to separate from the sand as much as you can.”

The water-based extraction process uses enormous water inputs, requiring between two and four barrels of water for each barrel of oil produced, according to Woynillowicz. The oil sands industry also uses large quantities of energy and produces massive amounts of waste water, known as “tailings.” Already, two toxic tailings dumps from Canadian oil sands mines are said to be visible from space with the naked eye.