Fueling America – Oil’s Dirty Future

These oil sands are the world’s most expensive, most polluting source of oil under large-scale production. Wringing four barrels of crude oil from the sands requires burning the equivalent of a fifth barrel. The mines and refineries release huge amounts of greenhouse gases — the equivalent each day to more than a third of California’s daily car emissions.

Yet Alberta’s oil sands are destined to be the main supply of foreign oil to the United States for at least the next century. The sands hold proven reserves of 175 billion barrels, second only to Saudi Arabia’s 262 billion, and far more than the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s estimated 10 billion.

If Americans want to keep filling their gasoline tanks at a reasonable cost, they will need the oil sands industry to push ahead on its expected path of doubling, tripling and even quadrupling production in coming years.

Nowhere else is the conflict between energy use and ecological cost so stark.
San Francisco Chronicle