Canadian Oil Sands
Once considered too expensive, as well as too damaging to the land, exploitation of Alberta's oil sands is now a gamble worth billions.
Nowhere on Earth is more earth being moved these days than in the Athabasca Valley. To extract each barrel of oil from a surface mine, the industry must first cut down the forest, then remove an average of two tons of peat and dirt that lie above the oil sands layer, then two tons of the sand itself. It must heat several barrels of water to strip the bitumen from the sand and upgrade it, and afterward it discharges contaminated water into tailings ponds ... Full Story »
Posted by Kaizar Campwala
Alberta needs a 1 Gigawatt "power plug" from Space Based Solar Power (SBSP) and US Solar Power from New Mexico and other southwestern states. GW forward energy from SBSP provides a zero carbon zero anthropogenic greenhouse gas energy source. Using brackish water from underground solves both the river pollution and water use problems for underground extraction of the oil from the sand. The fact is if underground extraction is used the total oil field of 1.7Trillion barrels is available rather than only 170 billion barrels available from the business and environmental disaster of a 5 mile wide 200 meter deep open pit mine. The best power source for Alberta sand Oil Extraction and North American power in general is Space Based Solar Power. Alberta oil sand provide a 1.7 Trillion barrel incentive to SBSP systems where at $70 per barrel supported price Alberta gains $191 Trillion in NEW revenue they can not have with an open pit mine. The free market should also make the prudent environmental choice.