Unaware of Impact on Canada & Tar Sands, Obama Opposition to Offshore Drilling May Have Been Fatal Error (Part 1 of 3)
Submitted by EnergyTechStocks.com
With oil quickly shaping up as the number one issue in the U.S. presidential election, Democratic candidate Barack Obama may have made a fatal mistake last week when he denounced President Bush’s plan to open up the United States to offshore oil drilling. If Republican candidate John McCain connects the dots, he will be able to make a case that Obama’s stance shows his disregard, not his concern, for the environment. McCain will further be able to press his case that Obama isn’t seasoned enough to be president because he doesn’t understand how Washington needs to deal with its friends, in this case Canada.
As of yet, few Americans realize just how important the tar sands region of Canada is to the U.S. economy and energy security. Located in the province of Alberta, the Canadian tar sands contain an estimated 173 billion barrels of oil recoverable with today’s technology. The U.S. currently imports about 1.4 million barrels per day of this super-thick tar sands oil – called bitumen – but with U.S. imports of crude from Mexico and key foreign sources other than Canada expected to stagnate or decline, experts say the U.S. will need 3.5 million barrels a day, maybe five million, within 10 years or less.
Obama has called for sweeping initiatives to develop plug-in electric vehicles and advanced biofuels, but neither is expected to significantly reduce the U.S.’s oil thirst for at least five to 10 years, making Canada’s tar sands oil absolutely essential to the future of the U.S. economy and energy security. But tar sands oil must be dug up – strip-mined – and then heated to separate the thick oil from the sand, a process that causes immense damage to the environment – water, land and air – far more than the environmental damage caused by offshore oil drilling. “The tar sands project is the most destructive project on Earth. (It gives off) three times the greenhouse gas emissions to produce oil when compared with conventional crude,” according to Matt Price of Alberta/BC Energy and Climate, a leading Canadian environmental group.
By opposing drilling for crude off the coasts of the U.S., without understanding that the U.S. must pray that Canadians are willing to make far greater environmental sacrifices in order to quench not theirs but the U.S.’s oil thirst, Obama has left himself wide open to charges by McCain that the Democratic candidate for president, the so-called “green” candidate, doesn’t care about the environment when it’s someone else’s, and that he doesn’t understand the complex nature of international relations.
