From: Jerry Levy (Gerald_A_Levy@MSN.COM)
Date: Thu Jan 26 2006 - 09:47:41 EST
<http://www.usnews.com/usnews/biztech/articles/031013/13canada_2.htm> Hi Paul C, Thanks for the reference. The title of this article, though, is: "Sand Dollars: New technology makes it easier to tap Canada's oil reserves" A number of articles that I read online also point to the environmental consequences of mining and refining the oil sands which you highlighted, but it seems to me that, unless there is the emergence of a mass movement in Canada to challenge this mining, these likely environmental consequences alone are not going to stop the mining. And let's not forget that a new conservative prime minister was just elected in Canada. Since the oil sands are a substitute means towards obtaining additional supply of oil, what seems to be really pushing this alternative forward is the increasing price of petroleum on world markets. So long as the price of oil from conventional sources goes up (unless there is the development of less expensive alternative energy technologies, e.g. unless there are technological breakthroughs in solar power, etc.) there will be additional economic incentive to mine the oil sands more extensively. In solidarity, Jerry
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Jan 27 2006 - 00:00:01 EST