Tar sands: More oil than Saudi Arabia

Canada’s tar sands, which have become a major and secure supplier of oil to the United States, have also been singled out as a major target for American and Canadian environmentalists. Issuing press releases against them, however, is one thing. Going without the increasing flood of oil they are pouring into the American market would be quite another.

Two American environmental groups have declared war on the tar sands. One is the Freedom from Oil Coalition whose San Francisco-based director is formerly of Alberta, the province where almost all the tar sands are located. He was in Alberta last week organizing a training camp for protesters bent on civil disobedience against the tar sands projects.
Last week a small circle of protesters at Rimbey in central Alberta, several under the age of 12, all with their mouths symbolically taped to protect them from “emissions,” demonstrated against a new pipeline project. It was a symbolic gesture and a seemingly pointless exercise, but it was a start. Rimbey, however, is more than 300 miles away from the tar sands.

The other environmental group is the much more powerful Natural Resources Defense Council. On Monday it issued a report warning the American and Canadian governments against oil produced from the tar-sogged lands around Fort McMurray, Alberta, about 200 miles north of Edmonton. These lands contain (it is said) more oil than exists in Saudi Arabia. However, it is mined, not pumped, and the extraction costs are much higher.

So are the costs of the process by which the sand is turned into heavy oil by heating it with natural gas, a product in which Alberta abounds.

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