Living on Canada's Oil

Must we really choose between energy security and a climate disaster?

Deep in northern Alberta, under the cover of 50,000 square miles of boreal forest, lie spectacular reserves of what the Canadians call “oil sands”

In other words, U.S. policymakers are now faced with an awkward problem: How do you balance improvements in energy security with worsening climate change, especially when dealing with a resource that isn’t yours? It’s a live issue for the administration and Congress. President Obama was forced to address the matter when he visited with his Canadian counterpart in February. Energy Secretary Steven Chu brought it up in a meeting with Alberta premier Ed Stelmach this week. Meanwhile, lawmakers must decide what to do with several laws that could end up restricting oil-sands consumption in the United States. This is an issue that isn’t going away soon.

Several months ago I decided to take a careful look at the oil sands (sometimes called “tar sands”) to see how the security benefits of extracting oil there might be reconciled with the risks posed to the climate. After interviewing scientists, policymakers, industry insiders, and environmentalists, scouring reams of studies, and doing some of my own calculations, I concluded that both the security upsides and climate downsides of oil-sands exploitation have been overblown. Ramping up oil-sands production would indeed make it easier to live with our addiction to oil, even as we work to break ourselves of it. It would also be worse for the climate than exploiting most other sources of crude. But there’s no need to make this a stark choice between the safety of the United States and the salvation of the planet.

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