Return of the oil sands?

UBS Securities reports this week that Alberta’s oil sands may soon become economical thanks to diminishing capital costs, healthier oil prices and a series of mergers among Alberta oil patch outfits that has reduced competition. Still, John Lorinc, writing on the Green Inc. blog at the New York Times, notes analysts continue to be spooked by the Obama administration’s push for cap and trade, as well as everyone else’s efforts in the ramp up to December’s Copenhagen environmental talks. "It is not difficult to foresee an emergence of greensmanship ahead of this conference in which governments completely abandon logic to ‘out-green’ each other,” warns Andrew Potter, of UBS.

The New York Times