The following is a guest post by Simon Dyer, of Canada's Pembina Institute. The Pembina Institute believes that while oil sands extraction has many issues, it can be done in an environmentally sustainable way. In the end, they advocate a moratorium on new project approvals until 2011, new regional environmental groups and some additional environmental controls, as described in their publication Taking the Wheel. Increased CO2 emissions might be handled through purchase of carbon emissions credits and through improvements in production efficiency. While the oil sands aren't great, with some adjustments, they may still be an acceptable solution. The comments to this post are helpful in understanding the complex situation. Don't miss them!

By Simon Dyer, Oil Sands Program Director,
The Pembina Institute

The oil sands are an issue of global importance. As conventional sources of crude oil are depleted, unconventional sources of oil, such as the bitumen found in oil sands, play a larger role in offsetting declining conventional production. The Canadian oil sands are the second largest proven oil reserve after Saudi Arabia.¹