“ The Canadian Oil Boom: Scraping Bottom”

“ Once considered too expensive as well as too damaging Exploitation of Alberta’s Oil Sands is now a gamble worth billions

Extent Three main oil sand deposits contain 175 billion barrels Canada is in second place behind Saudi Arabia in oil reserves 8x those of the entire US 300 billion barrels may be recoverable Cover an area the size of North Carolina

Oil Sands: To extract a barrel of oil 1st cut down the forest Remove Dirt from the layers above the sand Remove two tons of the sand itself Heat barrels of water to strip the bitumen from the sand Discharge contaminated water into tailings pond

First, buy several dozen 797B Caterpillar heavy hauler mining trucks First, buy several dozen 797B Caterpillar heavy hauler mining trucks. Each of these machines can carry up to 400 tons of sand, which can produce 200 barrels of oil

Each tire is 15ft high, costs $50,000 and weighs as much as five cars Each tire is 15ft high, costs $50,000 and weighs as much as five cars. The tires last about 6,000-9,000 hours. In winter the temperatures can reach minus 40C and bits drop off the machines

Get six Bucyrus 495HF mining shovels Get six Bucyrus 495HF mining shovels. These cost $20m each and stand seven stories high. The waiting list is several years. They can dig out 100 tons of sand and oil with one shovelful. Four shovel loads fill one 797B truck. One shovel bucket weighs 85 tons. It takes a team of mechanics many months to assemble the machines which arrive on site in parts

Cut down tens of thousands of trees on your plot and start digging Cut down tens of thousands of trees on your plot and start digging. The sands with the most accessible oil are up to 300ft deep and cover roughly 3,000 km sq of northern Alberta. If you pick up a handful of the oil sand, your hand will be black. Oil makes up about 11%-15% of the composition.

Every load of oil sand must be carted to a crusher and then washed with water from the Athabasca river. What remains is diluted bitumen, which is pumped to an “upgrader” with added air. There the bitumen is heated up and skimmed off and processed into lighter synthetic crude oils. Only then can it be sent to a conventional refinery.

Toxic waste water, or tailings, is sent to giant ponds where the heavy metals take up to 20 years to settle. These will cover lakes that are so large they can be seen from space. Don't think of the carbon emissions. Three times as much energy - and hence carbon dioxide emissions - is needed to produce oil from tar sands as from conventional sources.

Formation Athabasca River eroded billions of cubic yards of sediment to reach of shovels At room temperature like molasses: under 50 degrees hard as a hockey puck Oil pushed Northeast by rise of Rockies: Migrate upward reached depths shallow enough for bacteria to thrive change oil to bitumen

Issues Extracting a barrel of crude from oil sands Emits 3x more CO2 gush from ground Giant shovels are needed Dump truck burn 50 gallons of diesel fuel an hour 200,000 tons of water must be heated to wash out gluey bitumen: at upgraders heated again Energy to heat water comes from burning natural gas: wasting cleanest fuel to make dirtiest

The Oil Sand Crude: Bitumen

Issues Forest dissected by roads and pipelines Endangers Caribou and other animals Mines dump wastewater in ponds: may have toxic chemicals: fear that it could reach the river

Pros Benefits Fort McKay First Nation groups Brought in $87 million Unemployment under 5 % New Health clinic, youth center and three bedroom homes Each barrel of crude contains 5x more energy than natural gas used to make it