Description
Book SynopsisAlberta's oil sands represent a vast and untapped oil reserve that could reasonably supply all of Canada's energy needs for the next 475 years. With an estimated 300 billion barrels of recoverable oil at stake, the quest to develop this natural resource has been undertaken by many powerful actors, both nationally and internationally.
Using research that integrates the economic, political, scientific, and business factors that have been influential in discovering and developing the sands, this book provides a comprehensive history of the oil sands project and a window on the nature of the complex relationships between industry, government, and transnational players. This book is the first comprehensive volume to examine the origins and development of the oil sands industry over the last century.
Trade ReviewA valuable and easily accessible narrative of the sands' development . . . It deserves a place on the bookshelf of academics and the curious public interested in economic development, Canadian politics, and the petroleum industry. Erik Lizee, Historie social/Social History
Developing Alberta's Oil Sands is a well-researched, well-written, tightly argued book . . . As oil sands development intensifies, the story will continue. For now, though, this is the definitive study. Bonar A. Gow, The Canadian Historical Review
Table of Contents
- List of Tables
- List of Maps
- List of Abbreviations
- Acknowledgments
- Introductions
- Part 1: 1920-45
- Early History of the Oil Sands in Alberta
- Abasand and the Federal-Provincial Conflict
- Picking up the Pieces: Reclaiming a Provincial Resource
- Part 2: Since 1945
- From Scientific Project to Commercial Endeavour
- "Within Reach" and "Beyond Reach" Markets: The Reluctant Expansion of the Oil Sands, 1960-69
- Flexibility and Paralysis: The Oil Shocks, Government Policy and Intervention, 1970-77
- Lost Decade: The National Energy Program and the Collapse of World Oil Prices
- Competition's "Cold Shoer": Remaking the Oil Sands Industry in the Era of Globalization and Free Trade, 1984-2000
- Green Patch? Oil Sands Development in Post-Kyoto Canada
- Afterward
- Bibliography
- Notes
- Index
