The tar sands are leading to increased demand for natural gas in order to power steam assisted gravity drilling (SAGD) projects. Not only has the world run out of light crude, but we are actually running out of surface level heavy crude in Canada and most of what is left to develop in the tar sands is deep under ground, requiring non-traditional wells that involve pumping steam underground to melt the bitumen. The natural gas required to facilitate this process is also now increasingly coming from non-traditional sources. A toxic process called hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” is being used to access gas in shale in the Horn River basin in BC and elsewhere. A tremendous amount of water and energy is required for both fracking and SAGD, making the overall footprint of every barrel of oil that much larger.