Originally Posted by bunabayashi
One small factoid of interest: there is more petroleum within the Athabasca Tar Sands than in all of the rest of the world combined. It's only a matter of time before production techniques will make refining it profitable.
--- Yes, it's only a matter of time before production techniques will catch up, but it looks like it will be too far into the future to avoid the energy crisis. To quote from Chevron Oil:
"Fossil fuels also exist in unconventional forms—hydrocarbons contained in oil-sands, and even shale are believed to have more energy content than all the oil in Saudi Arabia. The catch is that it may currently take more energy and may cost more to extract and produce oil from some of these unconventional forms than would be gained."
If the tar sands were an effective source of petroleum, the oil companies would have used that factoid to refute the crisis.