Andrew Nikiforuk 
Tar Sands 
Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent, Revised and Updated Edition

Tar Sands critically examines the frenzied development in the Canadian tar sands and the far-reaching implications for all of North America. Bitumen, the sticky stuff that ancients used to glue the Tower of Babel together, is the world’s most expensive hydrocarbon. This difficult-to-find resource has made Canada the number-one supplier of oil to the United States, and every major oil company now owns a lease in the Alberta tar sands. The region has become a global Deadwood, complete with rapturous engineers, cut-throat cocaine dealers, Muslim extremists, and a huge population of homeless individuals.



In this award-winning book, a Canadian bestseller, journalist
Andrew Nikiforuk exposes the disastrous environmental, social, and political costs of the tar sands, arguing forcefully for change. This updated edition includes new chapters on the most energy-inefficient tar sands projects (the steam plants), as well as new material on the controversial carbon cemeteries and nuclear proposals to accelerate bitumen production.

Table of Content

Declaration of a Political Emergency 1

1 Canada’s Great Reserve 6

2 It Ain’t Oil 11

3 The Vision of Herman Kahn 18

4 Highway to Hell 38

5 The Water Barons 60

6 The Ponds 82

7 The Fiction of Reclamation 102

8 Dragons and Pipelines 112

9 Carbon: A Wedding and a Funeral 127

10 Nukes for Oil! 146

11 The Money 157

12 The First Law of Petropolitics 171

13 Eighth Wonder of the World 187

14 Tar Age Ahead 192

Twelve Steps to Energy Sanity 200

Afterword 206

Sources and Further Information 220

Appendix i: North American Oil Pipelines 244

Appendix ii: ghg Emissions frm U.S. Diesel Fuel Production 246

Appendix iii: The Problem with Steam Plants 247

Acknowledgements 257

Index 259

About the author

Andrew Nikiforuk is an award-winning journalist who has written about education, economics, and the environment for the last two decades. His books include
Pandemonium,
Saboteurs: Wiebo Ludwig’s War Against Oil, which won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction, and
The Fourth Horseman: A Short History of Plagues, Scourges and Emerging Viruses, which won critical raves in England, Canada and the United States. His work has appeared in
Saturday Night,
Maclean’s,
Report on Business,
Harrowsmith,
The National Post, and in
The Globe and Mail.