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Reliance on oil sands grows despite risks
News Articles Featured | New York Times | Clifford Krauss and Elisabeth Rosenthal | May 18, 2010
Read the full article on the originating site
The below excerpt of a lengthy New York Times story on oil sands is one part of three Times’ posting on oil sands. The other two:
- Slideshow: Pulling oil from the sands in Canada
- Blog: Industry Strives for Cleaner Oil From Oil Sands
Excerpt:
There is no chance of a rig blowout here, or a deepwater oil spill like the one from the BP well that is now fouling the Gulf of Mexico. But the oil extracted from Canada’s oil sands poses other environmental challenges, like toxic sludge ponds, greenhouse gas emissions and the destruction of boreal forests.
In addition, critics warn that American regulators have waived a longstanding safety standard for the pipelines that deliver the synthetic crude oil from Canada to refineries in the United States and have not required any specific emergency plans to deal with a spill, which even regulators acknowledge is a possibility.
Oil sands are now getting more scrutiny as the Obama administration reviews a Canadian company’s request to build a new 2,000-mile underground pipeline that would run from Alberta to the Texas Gulf Coast and would significantly increase America’s access to the oil. In making the decision, due this fall, federal officials are weighing the environmental concerns against the need to secure a reliable supply of oil to help satisfy the nation’s insatiable thirst.
Senator Jon Tester, Democrat of Montana, said the whole situation was alarmingly reminiscent of the permit waivers that were routinely granted to offshore oil wells, including the BP well leaking in the gulf. “I think it is incumbent on myself as a policy maker to say ‘hold it,’ ” Mr. Tester said.
Tagged with: keystone xl, pipeline, oil demand, new york times
