Jim Devine wrote: > The Gulf of Mexico isn't the only place where such so-called tough oil > is to be found in North America. The environmental hazards of drilling > in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge are so obvious that even the > Bush-era Congress and White House wouldn't go there. Analysts have > enthused about the rapid development of the Alberta tar sands in > Canada—friendly, nearby, democratic, non-terrorist-promoting Canada. > An Alberta government Web site notes that the oil sands are "the > second largest source of oil in the world after Saudi Arabia." The > reserves there—171.8 billion barrels—amount to 13 percent of the > global total and are about what Iraq and Russia combined have. But the > gunk in the tar sands isn't really oil. It's bitumen. And it has to be > ripped out of the earth, or pushed to the surface in a process that > itself consumes a lot of water and natural gas. Producing a barrel of > oil from tar sands creates more than twice as many emissions than > old-school oil drilling. >
This article reinforces the true meaning of peak oil, which is not a formula for the disappearance of oil but instead a recognition that the costs of extracting it grow greater both economically and as a risk to the overall environment. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
