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Keywords
Aerial view
Boreal forests
Climate (campaign title)
Deforestation
Energy
Forests (campaign title)
Industrial landscapes
Industries
KWCI (GPI)
Oil (fossil fuel)
Oil exploration
Outdoors
Tar sands
Syncrude Plant in Alberta Tar Sands
Aerial view of Syncrude Aurora tar sands mine in the Boreal forest north of Fort McMurray, northern Alberta. The tar sand deposits lie under 141,000 square kilometres of sparsely populated Boreal forest and muskeg and contain about 1.7 trillion barrels of bitumen in-place, comparable in magnitude to the world's total proven reserves of conventional petroleum. Current projections state that production will grow from 1.2 million barrels per day in 2008 to 3.3 million barrels per day in 2020 which would place Canada among the four or five largest oil-producing countries in the world. The industry has brought wealth and an economic boom to the region but also created an environmental disaster downstream from the Athabasca river, polluting the lakes where water and fish are contaminated. The Mikisew, Cree, Dene indigenous communities and other smaller First Nations are seeing their natural habitat destroyed and are largely powerless to stop or slow down the rapid expansion of the oil sands development, Canada's number one economic driver.
Unique identifier:
GP04U5A
Type:
Image
Shoot date:
20/07/2009
Locations:
Alberta
,
Canada
,
Fort McMurray
,
North America
Credit line:
© Jiri Rezac / Greenpeace
Size:
4255px × 2756px 1MB
Ranking:
★★★★★ (C)
Containers
Shoot:
Tar Sands & Boreal Forest - Alberta (2 of 3)
Buried below the Boreal Forest of northern Alberta is 3rd largest proven reserve of oil known as the tar sands. Deposits of tar sands are spread out over 138 000 km2 of land (an area the size of Florida) and including 4.3 million hectares of the Boreal Forest. Tar sands are solid at room temperature so it requires more energy and water to extract this oil, making them one of the dirtiest oils on the planet.
Related Collections:
Pipeline Fights in North America (All Photographers)
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