The Opposite of Mining: Tar Sands Steam Extraction Lessens Footprint, but Environmental Costs Remain

CONKLIN, Alberta--The challenge of pulling oil from sand near here has typically required scraping away the boreal forest and underlying peat to expose the tar sand deposits below. The thickened sand is scooped out, then boiled to separate out the bitumen, with the leftover contaminated water and muck dumped in vast holding ponds the size of small lakes. From orbit the enormous strip mines and tailings lakes created by this process stand out, like a spreading sore--a scar on the planet evidencing the American thirst for oil. But the future of this Canadian province's oil sands leaves less of a visible mark, as can be seen near this town that is not so much a community as an intersection of roads that lead to camps for oil sands workers. That means fewer strip mines , tailings lakes and even giant trucks , but it also means more of the invisible greenhouse gas carbon dioxide accumulating in the atmosphere and warming the planet. [More]