800px-Syncrude_mildred_lake_plantThe Athabasca Sands (also known colloquially as the although there is no actual tar) are large deposits of bitumen, or extremely heavy crude , located in northeastern , – roughly centered around the boomtown of . These sands, hosted in the McMurray Formation, consist of a mixture of crude bitumen (a semi-solid form of crude ), silica sand, clay minerals, and water. The Athabasca deposit is the largest reservoir of crude bitumen in the world and the largest of three major sands deposits in , along with the nearby Peace River and Cold Lake deposits. Together, these sand deposits lie under 141,000 square kilometres (54,000 sq mi) of sparsely populated boreal forest and muskeg (peat bogs) and contain about 1.7 trillion barrels of bitumen in-place, comparable in magnitude to the world’s total proven reserves of conventional petroleum.

With modern non-conventional production technology, at least 10% of these deposits, or about 170 billion barrels were considered to be economically recoverable at 2006 prices, making ’s total reserves the second largest in the world, after Saudi Arabia’s. The Athabasca deposit is the only large sands reservoir in the world which is suitable for large-scale surface , although most of it can only be produced using more recently developed in-situ technology.

Environmental Impact:

Critics contend that government and industry measures taken to minimize environmental and health risks posed by large-scale operations are inadequate, causing damage to the natural environment. Objective discussion of the environmental impacts has often been clouded by polarized arguments from industry and from advocacy groups.

Land

Approximately 20% of ’s sands are recoverable through open-pit and 80% require in situ extraction technologies (largely because of their depth). Open pit destroys the Boreal forest of and muskeg. The government requires companies to restore the land to “equivalent land capability”. This means that the ability of the land to support various land uses after reclamation is similar to what existed, but that the individual land uses may not necessarily be identical. In some particular circumstances the government considers agricultural land to be equivalent to forest land, sands companies have reclaimed mined land to use as pasture for endangered bison instead of restoring it to the original boreal forest and muskeg.

Water

A Pembina Institute report stated “To produce one cubic metre (m3) of synthetic crude (SCO) (upgraded bitumen) in a operation requires about 2–4.5 m3 of water (net figures). Approved sands operations are currently licensed to divert 359 million m3 from the Athabasca River, or more than twice the volume of water required to meet the annual municipal needs of the City of Calgary.” and went on to say “…the net water requirement to produce a cubic metre of with in situ (emphasis added) production may be as little as .2 m3, depending on how much is recycled”. Jeffrey Simpson of the Globe and Mail paraphrased this report, saying: “A cubic metre of , mined from the tar sands, needs two to 4.5 cubic metres of water.

The Athabasca River runs 1,231 kilometres from the Athabasca Glacier in west-central to Lake Athabasca in northeastern . The average annual flow just downstream of is 633 cubic metres per second with its highest daily average measuring 1,200 cubic metres per second.

Water license allocations total about 1% of the Athabasca river average annual flow. Actual use in 2006 was about .4%. In addition, the government sets strict limits on how much water sands companies can remove from the Athabasca River. According to the Water Management Framework for the Lower Athabasca River, during periods of low river flow water consumption from the Athabasca River is limited to 1.3% of annual average flow. The province of is also looking into cooperative withdrawal agreements between sands operators.

Natural gas use and greenhouse gases

The processing of bitumen into synthetic crude requires energy, and currently this energy is generated by burning natural gas, which releases carbon dioxide. In 2007, the sands used around 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day, around 40% of ’s total usage. Based on gas purchases, natural gas requirements are given by the Canadian Energy Resource Institute as 2.14 GJ (2.04 mcf) per barrel for cyclic steam stimulation projects, 1.08 GJ (1.03 mcf) per barrel for SAGD projects, .55 GJ (.52 mcf) per barrel for bitumen extraction in operations not including upgrading or 1.54 GJ (1.47 mcf) per barrel for extraction and upgrading in operations.

For every barrel of synthetic produced in , more than 80 kg[citation needed] of greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere and between 2,000 and 4,000 barrels (640 m3) of water are dumped into tailing ponds that have replaced about 130 km2 of forest. The forecast growth in synthetic production in also threatens ’s international commitments. In ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, agreed to reduce, by 2012, its greenhouse gas emissions by 6% with respect to 1990. In 2002, ’s total greenhouse gas emissions had increased by 24% since 1990. Sands production contributed 3.4% of ’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2003.

Ranked as the world’s eighth largest emitter of greenhouse gases, is a relatively large emitter given its population and is missing its Kyoto targets. A major Canadian called the Integrated CO2 Network (ICO2N) has proposed a system for the large scale capture, transport and storage of carbon dioxide (CO2). ICO2N members represent a group of industry participants providing a framework for carbon capture and storage development in , initially using it to enhance recovery. Nuclear power has also been proposed as a means of generating the required energy without releasing green house gases.

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