An interesting program was on the other night. It discussed the Tar Sands ssue and in relation to the catastrophic pollution to come from the Tar Sands development it was presented that it costs 36 dollars to produce a barrel of oil. from that the revenues are easily 90 to 100+. The calculated cost to make the tar sands carbon/pollution zero is 2-3 dollars per barrel. It is already fast becoming the largest environmental nightmare and portends to be the largest single producer of pollution in North America owing to it's consumption in the US which receives more than 90% and funds the majority of development with welcoming assistance from Harper and Alberta. A interview with Mr. Baird, the environment minister was honestly embarrassing to Canadians. There is not an active push for test data on the environmental implications according to the nonresponse the minister gave which was meaningless and actually said nothing. It will matter little if we shut down our coal plants since oil ssands produced 14000 tons of pollution in 2007 and will climb. I don't imagine that business and the coal industry will move any quicker in the US to mitigate pollution and will falsely claim that capture technology is costly and not cost effective as well as a huge capital outlay in a short time. We should all remember that government and industry work on 20-100 year forecast models and corporations can amortise cost. The environment has no luxury to amortise the effect in any other terms than a negative change of the ecosystem
Sim
Quote:
Originally Posted by katharina
This is very important, yes. I remember using coal to heat the house when I was a little girl and the strongest memory I have is of the dirtiness and fumes of it. (Dirtiness in the house from it, I mean... I was too little to think about what it may have been putting into the air.)
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