It makes more sense to develop renewable sources of energy. Canada has a large enough land base to satisfy all of its energy requirements from biomass energy. The recipe is 1 acre of wetland grows 12 tonnes of biomass which can be converted into 40 bbl of oil. The cost is about $60/bbl (US Dept of Energy estimate), which is quite competitive with oil sands development. About half of the revenue flows to biomass producers and the other half flows to refiners. I Canada, First Nations will be major producers. Why spoil the environment when we can do it cleanly? The current focus on oil sands has more to do with choosing who benefits from energy production than choosing the best means of energy production.

@Rainbow: I thought you were in the US. Is Idle down there too?

Edit: @Jim, Your opposition is understandable. There are fewer jobs for geologists and more jobs for biologists in the green option. Perhaps you should start taking a few courses in biology. Natural gas can be made from biomass too. It is a better option than oil because the energy conversion factor is 72% vs 30%. I used oil as an example because most of the current vehicles and infrastructure use oil. Making methane is quite simple: dig a pit, add biomass, water and microbes, cover the pit with a membrane and keep it warm. I held a research grant pertaining to the keeping it warm part in 2009-11. I used solar energy to keep the pit warm in winter. The key factor is choosing the right microbes, which varies with feedstock. I have a collaborator that works on the microbiology part. Researchers at the National Research Council (Canada) achieved a yield of 2.98 moles of CH4 per mole of glucose equivalent with a four species mixture of bacteria and fungi. This is very close to the theoretical value of 3.00. About 10% of the energy is lost on cleanup to commercial pipeline purity. The cost of the process is a bit more than the current wellhead price for natural gas. However, once transport costs are factored in, natural gas produced from biomass is cheaper in regions that do not produce fossil natural gas. If companies that produce natural gas by fracking paid for cleanup and compensation where irreparable damage is done to local water supplies, the renewable methane would have an absolute cost advantage.

We’re already seeing a significant change in the way that fossil fuel companies extract reserves. They’re now revisiting deposits that were previously rejected as being uneconomical and hence we’re now seeing the expansion of alternative techniques such as fracking and oil sand extraction.

Whilst oil sands are relatively easy to extract, the refinement, as you’ve already noted, is a lengthy, costly and unsustainable process. All the water you mentioned becomes contaminated with all sorts of chemicals including lead, arsenic and mercury. Most of the water isn’t treated but is pumped into lagoons or tailing ponds where it will remain indefinitely. This poses the potential danger of what happens when the tailings dams burst, as has already happened.

Because we’re forced to explore ever more remote and inaccessible regions and are becoming increasingly reliant on refinement intensive sources then costs inevitably have to rise. Partially this has been offset by way of the subsidies that are paid to the fossil fuel industries.

In terms of direct subsidies the US pays more than $10 billion a year (source: OECD). When you add in subsidies paid when constructing rigs, pipelines etc and the costs of protecting installations then it could become as much as $52 billion a year (source: Earth Track). On top of that there’s the $120 billion a year in health related costs (source: NAS).

The subsidies and health-costs alone mean it’s not economical. These indirect costs equate to a bill of about $1,500 every year for every household in the US. We could completely eradicate all manmade global warming for a fraction of this cost.

Unfortunately the fossil fuel industry is a dirty and dangerous one. Millions of people have died extracting coal, oil and gas, millions more have gone on to develop serious health problems. At one time, if you were a miner you had more chance of dying in an accident at work than from any other cause including old age.

In the US alone, more than 100,000 miners died in the last century and according to the Bureau of Labour Statistics it’s still the second most dangerous occupation. In many parts of the world the health and safety standards fall way below those of the US.

Not only does it come with an ever increasing financial cost, but there’s a very high human cost as well.

With an ever increasing population and each person utilising more and more resources then we’ve already passed the point where it became uneconomical. If all the money that’s been poured into the fossil fuel industry over the last few decades had gone into alternative fuels and nuclear then the odds are that we would now be in a position of energy independence, clean energy and substantially lower fuel bills.

The amount of reserves declared in the past is less than the amount that has been drilled up. I predict we will end up drilling more oil then the declared total reserves today.

Developing cleaner energy is valuable, but it must be cheaper than existing energy if it is to have an impact on global warming. If the hydrocarbons are running out as you say then the prices will rise, making renewable energy cheaper. Indeed this will happen faster the faster you drill out the remaining reserves.

Yes, unfortunately... but if all of the current fossil fuel reserves are removed and used we will suffer a fate worse than economic collapse. Continued CO2 and Methane greenhouse gas release will continue the heating of the Planet and will bring on mass extinctions with humans not surviving. It will ocean acidification that kill off people faster than climate change. This is the part of the equation that many are still in denial about or simply don't want to understand or acknowledge the consequences.

I stand with the Idle No More Movement- Hoka Hey!