It is hard to know where to start with this one. The attached photo is an actual man-made machine that is used to mine tar sands in Canada. It apparently can move form location to location. It is so rude it is almost impossible for me to imagine and one has to wonder if it is for real.
Can you imagine this thing coming to your property, a place where a big corporation owns the mineral rights? Can you imagine it just crossing your property?
Is there something wrong about this? Does the earth need to be attacked by this monster? The sad part of it is that the digging done by this elephantine pile of man's ingenuity is only part of the destruction. The processing of the tar sands uses some 100 gallons of water to process a barrel synfuel and believe me when the water is passed through the sand it ain't exactly going to be pristine when it comes out.
In addition, unbelievable amounts of natural gas has to be burned in the process. Now if you were a Canadian and knew that almost all of this synfuel was going to the USA, how would you feel? I guess they like the money. But oddly enough, the project is not really profitable and has to be subsidized by the government.
The word out there says this thing is not really efficient because every time a tooth breaks the repair Job is daunting. Please go away.
If size does not matter, it sure gets attention. That is one big piece of iron. It harks back to the beginning of the industrial revolution. Since it is modern, it brings us to our current state of affairs in harnessing mother nature. I think it helps us to determine what is "use" and what is "exploitation". I have a feeling that changing teeth on that sucker will not be a big problem when oil goes to $500 a barrel.
ReplyDeleteThanks for finding this.