A Quick Primer Cap and Trade, Carbon Tax, Intensity Targets: What Does It All Mean? What is at Stake for Canada and the Planet? ⇒ By Council of Canadians; posted Sat 08-Nov-2008.
Please note that the oil-industry prefers to use the term oil sands
versus tar sands.
The former is a nice euphemism to diminish the financial, capital and environmental expense entailed by the processing required to draw crude oil from bitumen. The latter is closer in denoting the truly dirty
aspect of bitumen in higher fidelity.
FACTBOX: Five facts about Canada's oil sands
- Canada's oil sands, located mostly in the north of the province of Alberta, have the largest oil reserves outside the Middle East, with an estimated 173 billion barrels of tar-like bitumen recoverable using current technologies.
- Bitumen is stripped from the oil sands using hot water and chemicals but must be upgraded at purpose-built facilities or at refineries that have specialized equipment before it is useful. Oil sands upgraders convert the bitumen into synthetic light oil that is shipped to refineries in Canada and the U.S.
- There are two main methods for producing bitumen from the oil sands. Mining projects are large-scale operations that use huge shovels and trucks that carry the sands to a plant where the bitumen is stripped out. Thermal projects pump steam into the oil sands reserves to liquefy the bitumen so it can flow to the surface.
- Production from the oil sands in 2007, the most recent year for statistics, averaged 545,000 barrels a day from integrated mining projects and 654,000 bpd from projects without upgraders, according to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. A host of other projects backed by Canadian and international oil companies were planned for the region, but C$90 billion of projects have been deferred, delayed or canceled outright as oil prices plunged because of the financial crisis.
- Production from the oil sands is energy intensive and emits large amounts of carbon-dioxide as part of the production process, a concern for environmental groups. As well, the mining projects strip away large tracts of northern Alberta's boreal forest, reducing habitat for wildlife. Tailings ponds at the oil sands projects contain toxic waste water and chemicals, which many consider a threat to the region's watershed and wildlife. Indeed, last year 500 ducks died after landing on a tailings pond at Syncrude Canada Ltd's oil sand mine site, sparking an international outcry for more rigorous environmental standards.