Canada’s oil sands are one of the world’s largest hydrocarbon resources. Oil sands are also known as tar sands and also bituminous (bitumen) sands. Oil sands are consolidated sandstone that is made up of mixtures of sand, clay, water, and bitumen which is saturated with a thick form of petroleum. About 40,000 years ago, bitumen was first used by Neanderthals. Bitumen was mainly used back in the days for construction of buildings and water proofing of reed boats. The largest sources of bitumen are in Alberta, known as Athabasca oil sands. The largest reserves in the world are in Canada, Kazakhstan, and Russia at an estimate of 249.67 billion barrels; 176.8 billion barrels in Canada alone.
Oil sands are beneficial towards the Canadian economy as it can help eliminate dependency on foreign oil. The reason being, Canada’s future energy supplies will begin to rely on oil sands for their future energy. Due to the deficiency of energy supplies that we are being provided with currently, and to the increase in technology. “… higher oil imports from Canada, almost all of which would come from the oil sands, could eliminate U.S. dependence on imports from foreign suppliers such as Nigeria, Russia, Venezuela and Libya by 2030” (Government of Canada, 2011), meaning that the dependency level on foreign oil is going to decrease rapidly which is a positive impact on Canada behalf. Oil sands will also benefit the community because there will be a significant amount of employment opportunities to come in the future in the oilfield. Only because of the fact that oil sands are the second largest oil spread in the country and because of the hazardous jobs, they’re going to pay their employees more and since the workers will get paid more money, a lot of people will be willing to work. “The estimates of the potential oil that can be brought up out of the ground here range from 20 billion barrels all the way up to 180 billion barrels of oil… Within the next decade there will be a need for 60,000 extra workers in the oil and natural gas industry in the oil sands area alone!” (Oil Jobs, 2008) Another advantage Canada has from oil sands is the profit they’re making out of the machinery and equipment they sell into the oil sands region. According to the CERI’s studies, Ontario is tending to benefit of more than an additional $100 billion for building the needed apparatus. “Canada’s Gross Domestic Product will be boosted by nearly $800 billion by as early as 2020 by the oilsands alone.” (Ethical Oils)
The dreadful things about oil sands are that the environment and health consequences. Due to the oil sands productions, fresh water is polluted. It has been reported that there’s an increase in unusual forms of cancer downstream as well. There has been a huge change to the continent, environmentally because of where the oil sands operations are being taken place. Along with the health issues, there’s also an environmental concern that the society is pointing out. After the tar sands project, it has been an inclusive global concern that the carbon dioxide has drastically increased. The project has negativity affected every human and non human on this planet due to the carbon footprint. “It takes up to four barrels of water to produce just one barrel of tar sands crude oil. Producing a barrel of tar sands oil releases three times more carbon than conventional oil.” (O My Opera, 2010) Tar Sand Mining is identified as the grimiest form of energy production anyone’s acknowledged. “This project instead puts us back another hundred years, if not more.” (Global Research, 2010) The bitumen extraction process is another inconvenience due to the expenses. To extract the oil from bitumen
