How the oil sands got to the Great Lakes Basin

Some of the most important energy resources in North America – perhaps the most important energy resources in the world, in this century, are concentrated in the Athabasca tar sands in Alberta, some 1,700 miles (2,735 kilometres) to the northwest, in an area roughly the size of Florida. [...] The pipeline from the tar sands to the Great Lakes promises to lead to a reversal of the tentative pollution control gains that have been made in the Great Lakes Basin since the 1970s. [...] This is a sector- wide expansion, based on the economics of ever-increasing oil prices (at the time of writing the price of crude was between $100-$140 U. S. per barrel), ever-increasing demand, little apparent political will to curb petroleum use…and the development of the infrastructure in Canada to drill, extract and ship the oil to the Great Lakes and beyond. [...] The tar sands to refinery, Fort McMurray to Great Lakes trail is the next phase of a supply chain that has already made Canada the world’s fifth largest exporter of oil and the number one supplier to the U. S. The oil from the tar sands supplies 50 per cent of the gasoline for Canadian vehicles and 10 per cent of U. S. demand. [...] Tar sands oil has become one of the driving forces of the Canadian economy, insulating much of, if not the entire, country from the downturn that has affected the United States and much of the rest of the world.