Heavy-duty oil extraction projects are turning Fort McMurray, Alberta into the first great oil boomtown of the 21st century. Canada’s oil sands contain at least 174 billion barrels of recoverable heavy oil, roughly equivalent to 5 year’s supply for the planet.

These deposits were once dismissed as unrecoverable, andthat could not be recovered economically. As oil prices rise, every Western oil company and their Chinese & Indian brethren have put their stakes in the (welcoming) Alberta soil, and are planning to spend more than US$70 billion in the next decade unlocking the oil from the sand.

greenhouse gases
Recovering crude from the oil sands costs more to produce and takes more energy to turn into gasoline than traditional light oil. Recovering and processing heavy crude releases up to three times as many greenhouse gases as drilling for light crude. By 2015, Fort McMurray, population 61,000, is expected to emit more greenhouse gases than Denmark, a country of 5.4 million people. This partially accounts for our current energy policy of dig-it-up and sell it, quick!

resources
What are the Oil Sands?
What are the Oil Sands and Heavy Oil?
Oil Sands Facts
Oil Sands Statistics
Talk about Oil Sands
CBC report