Development of tar sands may have resulted in some of the biggest energy and capital investment projects, but these are constantly increasing the global warming crisis. Imagine areas, the size of a small country being turned into a landscape of pipe lines, open pit mines and toxic lakes. Tar sands are one of the largest oil deposits left in the world but sadly the uncontrolled emission of greenhouse gases and usage of fossil fuel is adding up to climate change.In an attempt to disapprove the effects of tar sands on the environment, Canadian oil sands mine was recently forced to halt its production by Greenpeace activists. Industry experts are of view that the unprecedented rise in demand for oil will be supporting the development of tar sands by more than three folds by 2020. The dirty oil from Alberta tar sands in Canada has been considered one of the most carbon intensive fuels in the world.
The danger seems to prevail as the development of tar sands is also being tapped as a financial and technological tool to develop more sources of unconventional oil. Not just Canada, almost every state owned or multinational oil firm has invested in such energy projects. With 1.3 million barrels of heavy oil produced daily, tar sands supply oil to various countries including US and China. Even though lobbyist and US agencies have asked tar sands to lower GHG emissions, it will be interesting to see how, US, the largest oil consumer in the world takes initiative to solve this problem.
0 comments:
Post a Comment