Here’s what Canada’s tar sands oil production looks like

clipped from www.treehugger.com Before and after: the Alberta tar sands in the March 2009 issue of National Geographic (Photo: Peter Essick) Oil sands represent a decision point for North America and the world,” says Simon Dyer of the Pembina Institute, a moderate and widely respected Canadian environmental group. “Are we going to get serious about alternative energy, or are we going to go down the unconventional-oil track? The fact that we’re willing to move four tons of earth for a single barrel really shows that the world is running out of easy oil.

Good point.

[h/t Deb2012]

---

Tags: tar+sands, oil+sands, energy, oil, drill, Canadian+oil, Monte Asbury

Stimulus bill includes hi-speed rail! But where?

Not to Iowa, unfortunately (reasonably, though, since Iowa has no multi-million-person population centers). But just imagine the tens of millions of people who could be served! Compared to auto or air, it’s a huge environmental savings.

And on weekends, think of, say, the football traffic on the Chicago Hub Network.

clipped from www.huffingtonpost.com High-speed rail corridors After much clamoring by energy hawks, who knows what it was that finally brought high-speed rail to the stimulus — perhaps a little nudge from ol’ Amtrak Joe? — but it got in, to the tune of $8 billion. And now the question is, where will the expansion be? the areas that will get a leg up should be the Federal Railroad Administration’s officially designated high-speed rail corridors

What possibilities do you see?

---

Tags: high-speed+rail, transportation, energy, Amtrak, stimulus, railroad+travel, Monte Asbury

Related articles by Zemanta

• High Speed Rail Poised for Vast Expansion (takepart.com)