America’s Oil / Tar Sands decision
Over the last decade there has been huge growth in the extraction of oil from tar sands. Most notably this has been seen in Canada, now it is up to Obama as to whether America will follow suit. With the relatively high cost of oil, the threat from Iran and the fall out from BP, western nations are now more than ever looking at domestic energy security. The downside is that extraction, transportation and production can be costly and damaging to the environment.
The oil sands concentrated in Eastern Utah have an estimated $32 billion barrels of oil in 8 major deposits. New extraction techniques have been developed over the past decade, the current worry is that large amount of water will be required in the extraction which could affect the local environment.
President Obama has a tough choice on his hands, raise his green credentials, or, boost the domestic oil industry and reduce energy dependency. The Guardian has recently reported that analysis of oil industry contributions to Congress have been significant. There is an ongoing threat to Obama that if he does allow more development in Utah then the Oil companies are likely to increase their fire power. Read the full Guardian article here:
