Oil sands are excavated at Suncor's mine in Alberta, Canada. A new study examines the air pollution above the region. CREDIT: Suncor Energy, Inc. It takes a lot of energy to extract heavy, viscous and valuable bitumen from Canada’s oil sands and refine it into gasoline and oil. Companies mine some of the sands with multi-story excavators, separate out the bitumen, and process it further to ease the flow of the crude oil down pipelines. About 1.8 million barrels of oil per day in 2010 were produced from the bitumen of the Canadian oil sands – and the production of those fossil fuels requires the burning of fossil fuels. In the first look at the overall effect of air pollution from the excavation of oil sands, also called tar sands, in Alberta, Canada, scientists used satellites to measure nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide emitted from the industry. In an area 30 kilometers (19 miles)by 50 kilometers (31 miles) around the mines, they found elevated levels of these pollutants.
