It’s a dirty business — the new gold rush that is blackening Canada’s nameclipped by: JICWyllie
BP and Shell are among dozens of oil companies preparing to raise production from 1.3 million barrels a day at present to 2.5 million by 2015 and 6 million by 2030.
The sands contain 174 billion barrels of proven reserves, the world’s second-largest reserves after Saudi Arabia. With improved techniques, Canada hopes to extract between 315 billion and 1.7 trillion barrels.
A Co-operative Bank study calculated that, even if all other carbon dioxide emissions stopped, fully exploiting the tar sands would still tip the world into catastrophic climate change by raising global temperatures more than 2C above pre-industrial levels. Extracting each barrel of crude from the sticky mass of sand, clay and bitumen produces two to three times as much CO2 as drilling for a barrel of conventional oil.
Alberta’s latest proposal to rid tar sands of their dirty image is a C$2 billion subsidy for carbon capture and storage (CCS) facilities.
Tags: 1-climate change, 1-ecocide, 1-policy, 1-profits, 2-increase, 2-risks, 3-forecast, 3-reported, 4-canada
clipper's remarks: A picture of man-made hell where pristine carbon reducing forest thrived only a few years ago. People choose both to create and to live in it. And Canadian governments subsidise the process.
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