by TheDude » Wed 12 Dec 2007, 15:24:59
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Dezakin', 'T')he biggest obsticle to tar sands production is capital and labor being locked away in other, more productive ventures. If conventional oil goes into terminal decline overnight, where do you think the capital and labor will flow?
I'm betting capital and labor wont go into terminal decline nearly as soon as the continual predictions here.
Forgetting NG declines for the moment -
The Oilsands' Insatiable Thirst$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')everal oilsands developments are poised to launch in the coming years -- about $100 billion of investment clamouring to join Canada's great oilsands rush.
All need vast amounts of water.
Petroleum producers already use as much of the province's
water as every resident, business and industry in Calgary and Edmonton combined. And they have rights to triple that amount.
"The scale of development needs the world's attention," said Don van Hout, who led a canoe expedition this summer from the Athabasca's headwaters to its final destination in Lake Athabasca.
"It needs the world's help."
Once considered in abundance in the northern half of the province, water -- a key ingredient in oil and gas extraction -- is becoming a precious resource.
Some believe the water issue could eventually force Alberta to make a stark choice: water or oil.
"Water is clearly a limitation to development and a serious environmental concern," former Alberta Environment deputy minister Doug Radke wrote in a landmark report for the province last December.
Former premier Peter Lougheed has also weighed in, saying that without significant changes, "the issue of the water supply will become even more intense" if uncontrolled oilsands development swamps the Athabasca region.
As Suncor Energy itself cautioned in a sustainability report this year: "As an industry, we have gone from an era when water was abundant to one of potentially significant constraint."
The issue is quickly coming to a head.
Across Alberta, as the population grows and industrialization expands, the struggle for water is becoming a major concern: who has it, who doesn't, and do we have enough supply for the future?