Why are tar sands worse than conventional oil extraction?
It takes immense quantities of water, and huge amounts of dirty energy to create the steam needed to get oil out of tar sands, and processing the bitumen requires the use of even more dirty energy. But exploiting the tar sands goes farther than simply using up water, electricity, coal and natural gas. The air is polluted with nitrogen oxides and sulphur dioxide, water is contaminated with toxic chemicals, and millions of hectares of wilderness are being destroyed.
