I live in Alberta. Thankfully, 800 kms south of this stuff. There is a huge drug problem in Ft. Mac as well.

Here is an interesting documentary that was produced by my friend's brother. It is called "Downstream" and speaks about the Aboriginal community of Fort Chipewyan that lives near the Athabasca River that flows through the Tar Sands. The entire thing is on Youtube if this site is region blocked or whatever.

http://intercontinentalcry.org/tar-sands-documentary-downstream/

We enjoy an advantage in Alberta for having such vast proven reserves. Some new technology that refines the sands "in situ" using steam-assisted gravity drainage with special catalysts looks promising, like at the Suncor Firebag site. I used to work for Suncor, and am happy to not anymore.

WhyatI never understand is why we have high gas prices here just like everyone else. You'd think since we make the stuff, we would give ourselves a little break at the pumps.

The giant trucks and huge scoops up there is quite interesting. Brobdingnagian.

I went horseback riding once at a small ranch alongside the Athabasca River during a visit to Alberta back in 2005. As we passed along the trail I looked down the steep cliff to the river below, it was blue, so blue, like it was dyed that way. When I asked our guide about it, she explained that the River was already this polluted because of the papermills upstreatm This was still in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, far closer to that source of the River than the mouth at Lake Athabasca, considered to be the twentieth largest lake in the world. The cool Rocky Mountain waters had not yet reached the Oilsands projects, but were already undrinkable.

>> ^Skeeve:
She's hot, but she's also full of crap. There is an estimated 1.75 trillion barrels of conventional oil worldwide (mostly in Saudi Arabia). If we continue to use about 30 billion barrels of oil per year we would run out in 58 years. The Athabasca Oil Sands of Alberta, Canada has at least 1.7 trillion barrels of oil, doubling that rough estimate to 116 years. There is a further 235 billion barrels in the tar sands of Venezuela.
She says tar sands (among other energy sources) wont make up for a fraction of the oil we use but she should have checked the numbers - tar sands make up about 2/3 of the world's oil.
I totally agree that we should reduce our dependence on oil and work towards more efficient and more environmentally friendly sources of energy, but using the same inaccurate scare tactics that people have been using for decades is not the right way to do it.


The main reason the "scare tactics" aren't effective is because there's always a fleet of people who want to come out and say "That's not true! Everything's fine, we've got decades to worry about it! Why do anything until it's all gone?" People choose to believe the rosier picture. I guess that's human nature.

The reason she says tar sands won't make up the difference is because it's a lot harder to extract.

Case in point, from the Wikipedia page on the Athabasca Oil Sands of Alberta, it says that only 10% is able to be economically retrieved. That estimate is out of date, since that's based on an oil price of $69/barrel, and it's ~$125 right now. So, more oil will be extractable, but only because of the higher price.

You're also assuming fixed demand, but in reality demand is going up, and is expected to rise exponentially as nations like China and India start buying cars en masse.

The only reason we won't actually run out of oil is because we use a free market to distribute it. Given a diminishing supply, and rising demand, price will grow rapidly. People will have to curtail their use of oil, simply because they won't be able to afford to use it anymore.

If there's no comparably cheap alternative, there's going to be a global economic crash the likes of which we've never experienced. Cheap alternatives, if they can be found, will take years to develop, and decades to implement.

We knew all this in the 1970's, but decided not to invest in developing an alternative. Mostly because a bunch of people, backed by the oil industry, came out and made an argument essentially saying "eh, we've got a long time to worry about it, don't develop alternatives!"

Telling people the truth (a "scare tactic" of the worst kind) hasn't worked. She figured maybe men will listen if she does a sexy dance while speaking the truth.

Guess she'll have to try something else.

She's hot, but she's also full of crap. There is an estimated 1.75 trillion barrels of conventional oil worldwide (mostly in Saudi Arabia). If we continue to use about 30 billion barrels of oil per year we would run out in 58 years. The Athabasca Oil Sands of Alberta, Canada has at least 1.7 trillion barrels of oil, doubling that rough estimate to 116 years. There is a further 235 billion barrels in the tar sands of Venezuela.

She says tar sands (among other energy sources) wont make up for a fraction of the oil we use but she should have checked the numbers - tar sands make up about 2/3 of the world's oil.

I totally agree that we should reduce our dependence on oil and work towards more efficient and more environmentally friendly sources of energy, but using the same inaccurate scare tactics that people have been using for decades is not the right way to do it.