'America's energy security blanket' (Canadian Tar Sands)

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/e27386fc-0737-11dc-93e1-000b5df10621.html

The scene of the exploitation of the developed's world's biggest oil resource is like some dystopian fantasy. Vast pits are carved out of the forest, where machines toil day and night taking hundred-tonne bites out of the earth. Mist rises from sluggish lakes of polluted water and great columns of steam rise into the air.

The process of turning Canada into an energy superpower is an awe-inspiring, but disturbing, sight.

In recent months there has been a renewed surge of interest in the oil sands by international companies. But campaigners are raising the alarm about the environmental damage being caused and they hope to get the issue on to the agenda of the summit of the Group of 8 leaders in Germany next month.

The resource potential of the oil sands is enormous; with 174bn barrels thought to be recoverable using existing technology, the known reserves are exceeded only by Saudi Arabia. The companies operating there have investment plans that imply a rapid increase in the rate at which that potential is realised.

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"The process of turning Canada into an energy superpower is an awe-inspiring, but disturbing, sight."

Talk about understatement. Here's a country with incredible natural resources. The kind that celebrate nature. Not those hidden away that can only be "enjoyed" via a systematic rape of the earth.

So this is what it all comes down to. No amount of pollution and destruction is too much if it means gathering fuel that we (primarily) can piss away into the atmosphere. It sure is worth it to destroy vast sections of the country so lazy slobs can drive their cars to the park during lunch and sit there idling so the a/c can run while the owner naps.

WTF is wrong with Canadians? This makes drilling in Alaska seem trivial.

> So this is what it all comes down to.
> No amount of pollution and destruction is too much if it means
> gathering fuel that we (primarily) can piss away into the atmosphere.
> It sure is worth it to destroy vast sections of the country so
> lazy slobs can drive their cars to the park during lunch and
> sit there idling so the a/c can run while the owner naps.

Sickening ... and so damn true.
:-(

that rely on natural gas- which they need to heat their homes- but which is also necessary to exploit the tar sands.

Truly 'addicted to oil'. That may be the one true thing Bush said in 8 years.

A psychological crutch that offers no actual security. Eventually discarded by most healthy developing children as they abandon magical thinking and come to terms with the reality-based world.

aside from the process being a colossal environmental disaster in the making, the "extraction" process will run out of water long before it ever becomes a "security blanket" besides, it requires way to much energy to pull significant quantities for it to be useful. Wait about a million years then perhaps it will be easier to remove.