The oil sand industry first moved into Alberta in 1963. Syncrude is Canada’s largest oil producer. There are 6 mines of different companies in a 20-mile radius, and they produce three quarters of a million barrels of oil a day. In one April around 500 migrating ducks landed in one of the tailing ponds thinking it was a lake, and died. Greenpeace then broke into the Syncrude facility and hung a banner of a skull and a sign that read “World’s Dirtiest Oil: Stop the Tar Sands” over the pipe discharging tailings. There’s always someone to protest things that go wrong in the world.

The United States of America imports more oil from Canada than any other country, and half of that comes from the oil sands. To move the sand from the oil sand mines, they use the largest dump trucks that can be made, towering 3 stories high. Some believe that producing oil from oil sand is just the tip of the ice burg, and that soon people will start making oil from oil shale and coal, which would greatly affect the atmosphere/cause global warming. The Alberta government believes that there is an estimated 173 billion barrels of oil that can be extracted with the tools of today.

If they could get most of the oil out then there would be a total of 1.7 trillion barrels of oil available for use. They aren’t planning on slowing down with the oil sand industry either because it has been gold for its economy.    The dump trucks used burn 50 gallons of diesel fuel an hour. It takes a stupendous amount of energy to create the hydrocarbons we use to fuel our gas tanks. One man who works for Alberta Environment says that the tailings ponds are his number one priority. The mines are somehow supposed to reclaim these ponds, but they have not fully reclaimed one to this day. The oil companies are trying to balance the needs of today and tomorrow but have been forgetting about tomorrow and just thinking about today.