Greenpeace tars and feathers energy giant BP
Greenpeace launched an yesterday to raise awareness about the fact that BP is toying with the idea (it won't decide for sure until 2010) of making oil from Canada's .
Surprisingly - and rather disconcertingly - both campaigners and oil tycoons alike consider the practice to have adverse side effects on the environment.
Sticky as peanut butter, tar sands buried deep in the ground beneath Canada's forests need to be blasted with steam heated to 305° Celsius, pumped to the surface and refined heavily before they're ready to use.
In fact, making oil out of tar sands is so energy-intensive that a barrel produced in this way creates than a barrel of conventional oil, according to the campaign group Environmental Defence.
Greenpeace, the climate activism organisation, calls it the '' in history. And with a straight face too.
Even Shell Canada's Senior Vice President Neil Camarta admits that his tar sand project 'has a big footprint ... and we don't hide that - a big environmental and a big social imprint.' (',' he adds helpfully.)
On the bright side, the technology appears to be evolving rapidly. , claims that it in the first four years of operation.
Related blogs: BP changes brand value from 'green' to 'responsible'
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