Canadian Sand better than Mid-Eastern Sand for U.S. Energy

This comment caught my attention from a recent article in the New York Times:

Canadian oil sands are expected to become America’s top source of imported oil this year, surpassing conventional Canadian oil imports and roughly equaling the combined imports from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, according to IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a consulting firm.

It used to be that access to such oil sands was cost prohibitive, but that is obviously not the case anymore. It seems like a very good national security move for the U.S. as well, because someday the mid-east will erupt in turmoil, and the U.S. could then ride-out the energy decline if it has access to Canadian oil. No doubt market prices would go crazy for a while, but at least there would, in fact, be oil available.

O.

REFERENCES

[image] New York Times

[ * ] Canada put-out a 20 minute, two-part science documentary on how the sand is processed and then the oil extracted. I thought it was nifty. It's here.

[ * ] Two years ago, Sept. 28th, 60 minutes did a segment on the Alberta Oil Sands.   People were saying it had two trillion worth of oil, 8-times more than Saudi Arabia has.  I guess they were right.  Short & sweet, six-minute overview.