TAR SANDS

^{Photo: Washington Post}

Tar sands represent 40% of Canada’s oil production. But the process of extracting and refining the actual oil from the sand requires much more water and energy than mining the old-fashioned way.

TAR-RY GOOEY GROSSNESS

Tar sands (or oil sands) are found right here. You bet. Alberta is Canada’s tar sand central. The spots are in the northeast corner of the province, and amount to an area larger than Florida. All this is causing quite the stir! Fort McMurray is being touted as Canada’s buried treasure, and lore has it that our oil sands could supply the world’s energy needs for the next century.

WHAT'S A TAR SANDS?

Not a dumb question. It’s clay, sand and oil all jumbled up with some bitumen (which is a thick, sticky form of oil). And since it’s oil in there, you can bet your bottom dollar that there are a bunch of people (Petro-Canada, Exxon subsidiaries, Shell…) out there trying to make a buck off it. But they just didn’t think it through. To get tar sand oil to a usable state, the bitumen has to be extracted from all that other gunk and then refined. This is a complex and difficult process.

Most people don’t know that most of the world’s oil exists in the form of oil sand. What’s more is that Canada has the highest concentration of tar sands. Next is Venezuela. But silly Canada! Tar sands represent 40% of Canada’s oil production. Most countries don’t use their oil sands on such a commercial level. Canada’s the only place doing so. All this extra work of extracting and refining is using far more water and energy than regular old oil mining.

In fact, since steam is an integral part of the bitumen extracting process, the oil sand-ers in Fort McMurray are using more than twice the volume of water required to meet the city of Calgary’s domestic water needs! And all that adds up to global warming and greenhouse gas emissions, disturbance of mined land, impacts on wildlife and air and water quality. What a sorry shame. It all floats back to politics and business. Oil sand extraction in Alberta is already providing a steady increase in employment.

And oh, money… oil companies provide some of the highest salaries in North America. On the political front, Alberta beckons as a friendly source of nearby crude oil. A welcome option amid Middle East turbulence.