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As traditional petroleum supplies dwindled and prices soared over the past few years, oil companies have shifted their attention to oil sands, a mix of sand, water, and a heavy, viscous hydrocarbon called bitumen that can be converted to oil. With the plunge in oil prices in fall 2008, many producers began canceling or postponing plans to expand oil sands development projects, but this turn of events could yet reverse, as Canadas vast oil sands deposits are lauded as a secure source of imported oil for the United States. At the same time, however, oil sands present troubling questions in terms of the environmental health effects associated with their development.
Raw Resource
Oil sands are found in about 70 countries. Alberta, Canada, is home to the largest known oil sands deposits, underlying about 140,000 square kilometers of boreal forest In the 2006 report Alberta's Energy Reserves 2005 and Supply Outlook 2006-2015, the entity then known as the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board estimated the amount of recoverable oil in Canadas oil sands at 175 billion barrels, second only to Saudi Arabia's reserves (which consist largely of conventional oil).
Other major deposits are located in Venezuela and Utah. According to figures cited by Argon ne National Laboratory, the Utah deposits, if developed, could yield 12-19 billion barrels of oil. However, says Philip Smith, a professor of chemical engi- neering and director of the Institute for Clean and Secure Energy at the Univer- sity of Utah, the Utah bitumen cannot be recovered using the water-intensive technologies pursued elsewhere for one simple reason: "In Utah, we just do not have that kind of water."
Over the past five years, production at Canada's oil sands has reached about 1.3 million barrels per day, more than 1% of global oil production, according to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP). This constitutes the bulk of the 1.9 million barrels Canada exported to the United States each day in 2008, an amount equal to 12% of U.S. total petroleum consumption, says Greg Stringham, vice president for oil sands at CAPP. In North American Oil Sands: History of Development, Prospects for the Future, a report last updated in January 2008, the Congressional Research Service estimated production would soar to 2.8 million...