They have worked out how to squeeze oil from the tar sands of Alberta.
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Tar sands take lots of energy to process, and therefore entail copious emissions of greenhouse gases.
That makes the downturn in the tar sands less a collapse than a pause for breath.
And my question for you today is in reference to the Canadian tar sands.
Suncor expects to continue to pull tar sands out of it for the next twenty-five years.
There must be solutions with less severe tradeoffs than shale gas and tar sands oil.
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The second way is to look beyond conventional reserves to unconventional ones, like the tar sands.
GTL, tar sands, ethanol and other alternatives will become more economic by the day (see chart 2).
"Canadians must give up their tar sands and go back to making beer or whatever, " he said.
If completed, it would transport tar sands mined in Canada to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast.
The arguments for developing the tar sands are strong, but the opponents cannot be simply shrugged aside.
Investment is pouring into the tar sands, but potential oil exports will outstrip pipeline capacity by 2015.
He has called for a balanced approach to developing the tar sands, taking more note of environmental worries.
The report says Canadian tar sands are likely to be developed, regardless of whether the US approves the pipeline.
Environmentalists dislike the project chiefly because it would increase America's imports of oil from the tar sands of Alberta.
The technology for removing bitumen from the tar sands is probably still best described as a work in progress.
The hottest dig on earth is taking place in the Athabasca tar sands, with 57 projects in the works.
For the most part, the tar sands consist of quartzite, clay, and water.
Oil shale and tar sands are other sources of liquid fuel that are harder on the environment than petroleum.
But most of the tar sands lie too deep to be mined profitably.
High oil prices already have sparked a boom in Canada's tar sands business.
Production of oil from tar sands bitumen produces between three and five times the greenhouse gas pollution of conventional oil production.
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The campaign is organized by the Bhopal Medical Appeal, London Mining Network and UK Tar Sands Network, among other groups.
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The foreign company behind the pipeline, TransCanada, itself admits that the pipeline is key to getting tar sands to the world market.
Light sweet crude is depleting quickly, and now the industry is going after heavy crude and tar sands and thermally enhanced oil.
Extracting oil from tar sands causes more carbon emissions than traditional drilling.
Crude from the tar sands and other unconventional sources could keep oil flowing well into the middle of the century, and perhaps beyond.
For every barrel of synthetic crude that Suncor eventually produces, forty-five hundred pounds of tar sands have to be dug up and separated.
New technologies allow for the vast development of the Athabasca tar sands in Alberta, helping make Canada's oil reserves the world's second largest.
So even if the credit crunch eases and the oil price steadies, Canada's tar sands may face tougher scrutiny from their main customer.
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