Hello Tunza Readers!

Today I will be talking to an issue pertaining to my country, Canada — the Canadian oil sands. The oil sands are located mostly in Alberta with 175 billion barrels of recoverable bitumen (a black viscous mixture of hydrocarbons) underlying the province. The area this covers is roughly the size of the state of Florida! The mining and extraction of the oil sands leads along a strew of environmental issues.

The production process of producing crude oil from oil sands results in greenhouse gas emissions of around 62 to 164 kilograms of CO2 per barrel. The result of processing the oil sands to crude oil is 3.2 to 4.5 times as intensive per barrel compared to the conventional crude oil produced in North America.

Producing oil requires a large amount of water and companies in Canada are currently licensed to withdraw over 590,000,000 cubic metres of water per year this is approximately the amount of water a city of 3 million people would require. The water is pumped from the Athabasca River, and the withdrawing of water during low flow periods has the potential of harming the aquatic ecosystems in the river. Furthermore, the water can?t be returned to the river system as it becomes toxic after going through the extraction process.

The liquid tailings produced by the oil sands mining process contain toxic substances such as naphthenic acids, hydrocarbons and trace metals which make it toxic to aquatic organisms and mammals. Currently, there are over 720 billion litres of toxic tailings in the Athabasca oil sands area — these ponds cover an area of more than 130 square kilometres. Estimates conclude that these tailings are expected to occupy 310 square kilometres by 2040.

The oil sands bring in the question of where we divide the line between the environment and capital gain. The oil sands are no doubt a huge source of revenue for Canada — with a $30 billion per year capital investment to expand the flow of crude. On the other hand, the negative environmental impacts are extremely pressing. Hopefully a compromise or decision is made before it?s too late.