About ten years ago there was a corporate rebranding of the Athabasca tar sands. Apparently we're now supposed to call it the "oil sands" or oilfields or something. But I grew up in BC and we always called them the tar sands, as this souvenir attests. After my grandfather died I was emptying his house and I found this tar sands memento in his office.
Look at this stuff, then try to imagine how much solvent you'd have to add to it to make it flow through a pipeline. Once solvent's added the mixture is called "diluted bitumen" or "dilbit" and it's extremely toxic. This is what we call "dirty oil."
I've put this into Creative Commons - just attribute please! Thanks.
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