Sand power

I've been a fan of Jazz Shaw ever since he posted on the Moderate Voice. He has just written an excellent post about the oil sands in northern Alberta. This is oil embedded in sand, clay, and water. I guess I fall into the "all of the above" theory of energy policy (I thought I was the only one), so I find this an encouraging development, especially regarding the environmental considerations that are involved. It's part 1 of a series, so I'll update this post as more entries are posted. See also The Man Made Miracle of Oil from Sand by Ron Bailey.

And while we're on alternative energy, Robert Zubrin has issued a challenge to make ten $10,000 bets that he can make his car more economically efficient running on methanol rather than gasoline. Bear in mind that methanol can be made out of just about anything, so it doesn't involve food crops like ethanol often does.

Update (15 Aug): Here's part 2 and part 3 of Jazz Shaw's posts. He also links to an approving article about Canadian oil sands at the Washington Post. And here's part 2 of Bailey's: Conflict Oil or Canadian Oil?