Intriguing...

It seems that although Alberta's 'fat, dumb and happy' politicians think that they are set for the time being with revenues from the Oilsands, consumers of that product aren't so thrilled.

The issues around extracting viable (read: refinable) crude out of Alberta's "Tar Sands" projects have been getting a lot of publicity lately, and it's even taking root in the minds of US municipal politicians.

To be perfectly frank, I don't think it's a bad thing at all if we end up having to slow down a bit on development in northern Alberta, and start to solve some of the very real secondary issues that processing tar sands into crude actually entails. This may be the very "tacit" economic pressure that will force the industry to address these issues instead of fighting it every step of the way, or worse telling the public that they are "already dealing with it" and presenting some bunch of greenwash.

Whether "Steady Eddie" up in Edmonton has recognized this for what it is remains to be seen, but at least the anticipated consumers of this product are starting to make noise. My money is on Stelmach doing nothing until government royalty revenues mysteriously start to dry up.