Is it time to start worrying about Canadian oil dependence?
Andrew Leonard Feb. 07, 2006 | Environmentalists get a kick out of high oil prices because they make renewable energy technologies economically attractive. (Not to mention that they also give peak-oil doomsayers that special thrill of imminent Armageddon.) But high oil prices aren’t just good for solar- or wind-power enthusiasts. They also give a boost to the profit-making potential of fossil fuel deposits that may once have been too costly or technically difficult to extract. And that’s not necessarily a good thing at all. Exhibit A: Canada’s massive oil-sands deposits. These vast mixtures of sand and bitumen used to be known by the more accurate name of “tar sands” until the provincial government decided that moniker was too dirty. But whatever you call them, they are huge: There are proven reserves of some 174 billion barrels of oil in the province of Alberta, giving Canada oil reserves second only to Saudi Arabia. Even before President Bush’s State of the Union address calling for
