In the vast, untapped oil sands of Alberta, Canada, Syncrude’s upgrader looks like an industrial Martian base as it sucks oil out of the shale. There’s are no spouts of black gold here — just bitumen, a viscous substance that has to be heated or diluted before it becomes liquid. The upgrader sits in an oil sand field that’s almost half the size of Colorado in northern Alberta. Oil sand will probably become a huge source of energy for the world if those factory farms full of corn for Ethanol don’t work out. AP Photo by Jeff McIntosh.
