Government regulators in Canada are investigating a series of mysterious oil spills around tar sands operations in Alberta. Thick oil is gurgling up unexpectedly from the ground instead of flowing through the wells that were built to collect it.
The spills are raising questions about a technology that’s rapidly expanding to extract fossil fuels that could ultimately end up in the controversial Keystone XL pipeline.
The extent of the spills is small, compared with the huge open pits and slag pools that dot the tar sands area. But they come from a type of operation that is usually less damaging to the …read more
Source: NPR Science – ingested into KQED