Here is what the Oil Dispensationalists on DU are trumpeting --

[Leopolds Ghost]

You know -- the folks who insist that the reason Cheney and Enron's
energy policy is so evil is because it drove up the cost of gas, and
if it had done as Dems supposedly wished and kept the cost of gas cheap
like it was in the high-entropy, energy-wasting, high-inequality era of
the Clinton economic boom, all would be right with the world.

Here is what the cheap-oil-being-denied-us theorists are promoting:

The World's Largest Strip Mine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncrude

Description

This is a picture of en:Syncrude's base mine. The yellow structures are the bases of
pyramids made of sulphur - it is not economical for Syncrude to sell the sulphur
so it stockpiles it instead. Behind that is the tailings pond, held in by what
is recognized as the largest dam in the world. The extraction plant is just to
the right of this photograph and most of the mine is to the left.



(The mine itself is by far the world's largest strip mine, and all the sands
are in a single spread-out layer, so the total area to be mined is the size of England,
all of it in forested taiga expropriated from local natives.)

The mineable area (as currently defined by the Alberta government)
includes 37 townships covering about 3,400 square kilometres (1,300 sq mi) ...

Between them they (total deposits which are only mineable at higher world oil prices)
cover over 140,000 square kilometres (54,000 sq mi) - an area larger than England -
and hold proven reserves of 1.75 trillion barrels (280×109 m3) of bitumen in place.

About ten percent of this, or 173 billion barrels (27.5×109 m3), is
estimated by the government of Alberta to be recoverable at current
prices using current technology, which amounts to 97% of Canadian oil
reserves and three-quarters of total North American petroleum reserves.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_sands

This is the alternative cornucopia that will lead us to endless and
bountiful domestic oil resources allowing "us" to sever our economic
dependance on the survival of the worlds sweatshop poor, giving us
limitless amounts of time to "transition" to other sources of energy
that are apparently incapable of feeding 9 billion people who would
exceed the solar carrying capacity of Earth + other species... apparently.

[The Magistrate]

1. Not a Pretty Picture, Sir, Is It?

[Leopolds Ghost]

2. No sirrah, I reckon it ain't.

[frog92969]

3. What a waste.

That really is despicable.
We've had the technology to abandon this for a long time now, but it's been forcibly held to a snail's pace.

[hunter]

4. No signs of intelligent life in that photo...

Don't need to beam anyone up, because there was no reason to beam down.

[Eurobabe]

5. Awful, and not worth it

we need to transition away from oil totally. I have no answers.

[1Hippiechick]

6. Link to Bitumen in Wikipedia for understanding of what bitumen is (for those of us who don't know)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitumen

[Hannah Bell]

7. Funny. I thought the high price was what made the tar sands profitable.

But you say it's low prices.

I'm confused.

You seem to think that if one disbelieves in the "excessive demand/low supply" explanation for present prices, that means one wishes to exploit the tar sands, drill offshore, etc.

That's sloppy thinking, sir.

[The Magistrate]

9. The Material Near The Surface, Ma'am, That Can Be Got At By Strip Mining

Is profitable to extract and process in a price range of thirty to forty dollars a barrel.

[tama]

8. Any case

Demand destruction through the "invisible hand" is better than no demand destruction at all - of course there could be better ways but that is what we have to deal and live with. But anyone claiming otherwise, that demand destruction should be avoided at any cost, is lethally insane.