Air pollution caused by crude-oil extraction from Canadian oil sands is comparable to that measured over mid-sized cities or in the vicinity of large coal-burning power plants.
Chris McLinden of Environment Canada in Toronto and his colleagues used satellite observations to determine how the mining and processing of oil sands (pictured) affect air quality in Alberta — home to the world's second-largest crude-oil reserve. The authors measured greatly increased atmospheric levels of two major pollutants, nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide, over a 30-by-50-kilometre area of intense surface mining. They also noted that nitrogen dioxide pollution in the area had risen steadily since 2005.
Geophys. Res. Lett. http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2011GL050273 (2012)
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Oil-sands pollution quantified. Nature 483, 126 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/483126c
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/483126c
