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One energy expert has said, 'to assume that high energy prices mean we'll switch to wind or solar or other renewables is simply unrealistic'
Instead, as fossil fuel prices rise, the option of exploiting resources previously considered uneconomic becomes more attractive
It is now possible to pull carbon out of the ground in forms that were once too expensive or too technically difficult to compete with cheap oil and gas
Governments around the world have re-examined their energy supplies, looking particularly at possible indigenous sources of 'unconventional oil'
China is moving aggressively to find sources of energy imports, potentially setting up a confrontation with the USA over the dwindling resources of the middle east and Africa
As oil and gas supplies become scarcer and more expensive, the hunt for new reserves is creating political alliances and the danger of fresh conflicts
Turning oil-shale and sands into oil
1. Oil-sands are thick slurry composed of sand, water and a hydrocarbon tar called bitumen
2. Oil-shale is a sedimentary rock containing oil
3. Deposits of shale and oil sands have been known about for a long time, but until now have not been developed
4. Oil price rises and technological advances have now made their working feasible
5. Oil-sands can be refined into something very similar to the petroleum being pumped out of the Saudi Arabian desert but this is only viable if the oil price is above US$50 a barrel
6. Geologists estimate that oil-sands in the province of Alberta contain up to 2.5 trillion barrels of oil
7. A few hundred billion of these barrels are reckoned to be recoverable using current technology
8. Oil-shale buried deep in the western USA is estimated to contain 2 trillion barrels of oil
9. North America would seem to be the hotspot, but other countries are known to possess deposits
10. Environmentalists see the exploitation of oil-shale and sands as a disaster in the making
11. The oil in the shale is not easily separated out, and the immense amount of heat required to do this is usually generated by burning natural gas
  1. This give the oil-sands industry a greenhouse gas footprint much larger than that of traditional oil
12. Using one fuel to create another does not necessarily add up
13. The process also uses enormous amounts of water: one study found that every barrel of oil required up to four barrels of water
14. During the process, the water becomes polluted. It is then returned to the drainage system, damaging ecosystems and ground water supplies
15. There is also the problem of disposing of the shale once the oil has been extracted
Environmental Costs
1. Canada's oil-sands seem to offer a vast energy resource, but it can only be exploited at considerable cost to the environment
2. This is not only local issues
3. Huge amounts of energy are consumed in heating the sands to extract the oil
4. The same is true of previously untapped reserves of oil
  1. For example, the largest onshore oil reserves yet found in North America are in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northern Alaska
    1. The refuge is a huge area of wilderness inhabited by 45 species of land and marine mammals, ranging from the pygmy shrew to the bowhead whale

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	Created by Jodie Goodacre over 10 years ago