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The third largest source of oil in the world is the Canadian oil sands and
the United States already imports more of it from there than from anywhere else. With oil prices on the rise, the controversial oil sands are likely to become even more economically viable, despite experts’ warnings about environmental risks [and the political and environmental gamesmanship to block the Keystone pipeline project from there to refining facilities in the U.S.]. Below are 11 incredible facts about the oil sands. Words: 408
So says Dina Spector (www.businessinsider.com) in edited excerpts from the original article*.
Lorimer Wilson, editor of www.munKNEE.com (Your Key to Making Money!), has edited the article below for length and clarity – see Editor’s Note at the bottom of the page. This paragraph must be included in any article re-posting to avoid copyright infringement.
Here are the facts, with pictures and a chart:
- Of Canada’s 175 billion barrels of oil that can be recovered, 170 billion barrels come from the oil sands in the Alberta region. [See photo here.]
- Canada has about 9 times as much proven oil reserves as the United States (around 22 billion barrels). [See photo here.]
- The country has enough oil to fuel its own oil demand for about 266 years (if they stopped exporting their oil). [See photo here.]
- New oil sands development is expected to generate $84 billion per year — enough to feed more than 90% of Canadian households for one year. [See photo here.]
- Canada supplies 25% of U.S. crude oil imports, more than double that of Saudi Arabia. [See chart here.]
- The oil sands cover 54,826 square miles, an area bigger than England and almost the size of Florida. [See photo here.]
- It takes about two tons of mined oil sands to produce one barrel of crude oil. One operating mine in Alberta has excavated more soil than the Great Pyramid of Cheops, the Great Wall of China, the Suez Canal and the world’s 10 biggest dams combined. [See photo here.]
- The total size of the lakes made from oil extraction is bigger than Vancouver. [See photo here.]
- Producing a barrel of tar sand oil emits three times more greenhouse gases than producing a barrel of conventional oil. [See photo here.]
- Oil sands production uses enough natural gas in a day to heat 3 million homes in Canada. [See photo here.]
- The world’s oil sands production went up 225% in the last decade. [See photo here.]
Editor’s Note: The above article may have been edited ([ ]), abridged (…), and reformatted (including the title, some sub-titles and bold/italics emphases) for the sake of clarity and brevity to ensure a fast and easy read. The article’s views and conclusions are unaltered and no personal comments have been included to maintain the integrity of the original article.
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