Saildog

Hidden Risk for Canadian Oil Sands: Environmentalism

With and EROI of 3 at maximum oil from tar is not really a viable source of energy. It is dependent on conventional oil (supporting the economy more generally) and gas directly. If these two commodities are ever revalued the tar sands industry will die. In the mean time the environmental cost is horrific.

Some of the posters above equate environmentalism with anti-capitalism. No doubt the there are some environmentalists who are socialists. But environmentalists care about the environment, they are not usually arguing against the economy per se. They argue that just because something hasn't been monetized that it means that it is free. If the environmental costs of the oil from tar sands operations were fully internalized it is very doubtful that the operation would exist at all. No capitalist can argue that costs shouldn't be internalized; and the costs can be determined reasonably accurately using techniques such as contingent valuation. They just aren't being counted right now.