Alberta Tar Sands: A North American Overview - Essay Example

The resulting oil is piped to refineries. This initial process of tar sand extraction is approximated to result in gasoline that carries at least five times more carbon dioxide than would usual crude oil production. According to the Canada National Energy Board, engineering advancements are predicted to decrease this extensive carbon dioxide emission. As shown in the graphic, the remaining 80 percent of the sands are too deep to be excavated, therefore, steam is injected into these deeper oil sands, loosening the bitumen and allowing producers to draw it upward.

The process was known as "steam-assisted gravity drainage." It is believed to be more efficient than the "truck and steam" method. Even though producers recycle much of their water, about one barrel of water is lost for each barrel of oil collected. Developers are required to repair and restore oil sand mining sites to at least the corresponding amount of their preceding biological efficiency, including revegetation and drainage restoration (Laumer). Alberta Energy supports the accountable improvement of these extensive deposits through planning and cooperation with government, industry, and communities to guarantee a viable royalty system that is attractive to investors, suitable regulations and ecological safeguards, and the administration of Crown rights to oil sands while considering several barriers such as higher industrial threat and higher investment expenditures, which are experienced by oil sands developers ("Oil Sands"). 

Alberta's oil sands industry is the product of multi-billion-dollar ventures in infrastructure and technology needed to expand the non-conventional resource. In 2006, by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), production outlay in Alberta's oil sands totaled more or less $14 billion. Yearly oil sand production is developing progressively as the industry matures. The output of marketable oil sand production raised to 1.126 million barrels per day (bbl/d) in 2006. Foreseeing in 2020, this level of production could reach 3 million barrels per day.

In the year 2030, it could be producing 5 million barrels per day. This scale of productivity would sustain the development of other major industries and witness Alberta become a Global Energy Leader ("Oil Sands"). Alberta's development of oil sands resources symbolizes a victory of industrial modernization. Through the years, the government and industry have worked jointly to discover innovative and profitable means to develop and mine oil sands. Extensive research on energy is more essential today than ever before.

Working through the Alberta Energy Research Institute, the Alberta government is dedicated to a mutual approach to encourage the latest technology and improvement programs that will decrease the impact of greenhouse gases and other emissions, and lessen the consumption of water and gas ("Oil Sands"). However, amidst all the benefits, risks eventually surfaced. Recently, the Environmental Defense released a new report on the Alberta Oil Sands, calling it "the most destructive project on Earth". 

Listed below are some facts:

-Oil sands mining is permitted to use two times the amount of freshwater which is almost equivalent to the water consumption of the entire city of Calgary.
-At least 90% of the freshwater used in the oil sands ends up in tailing ponds. These giant tailing ponds became polluted and poisoned, in fact, in April 2008, 500 ducks were found dead or dying in toxic tailings along a migratory route for hundreds of thousands of waterfowl.

-Processing the oil sands consumes enough natural gas in a day to heat 3 million homes.

-The contaminated tailing ponds are regarded as one of the leading human-made structures in the world.

-The ponds span 50 square kilometers and can be seen from space.
-The production of a single barrel of oil from the oil sands generates three times more greenhouse gas emissions than a barrel of the usual oil ( Alter).