Where can I get a non-biased explanation of the Tar/Oil Sands Project in Alberta, Canada?

I'm looking for an article to explain the Tar Sands (or Oil Sands) project in Canada, but all I've found are blog entries criticizing how environmentally harmful it is. (A personal explanation is okay, but something from a reliable source would be great!)Where can I get a non-biased explanation of the Tar/Oil Sands Project in Alberta, Canada?
The big question I've heard raised about Tar Sands is will the price support it. It's really expensive. If oil goes back up in price it may be financially viable. If it stays depressed, it won't be able to compete regular oil drilling.





One thing to remember whenever you are talking about whether or not to get oil from someplace environmentally sensitive is to follow the money. The noise will get a lot louder when prices go up, even more than you think it might.





Think of it this way... you have a garden in your back yard. Under that garden you have one barrel of oil. If the price of that barrel of oil is $20, and it would cost you $15 to dig it up, the value of the oil is really only $5 to you. If the cost of oil goes up to $40 a barrel the value of the oil to you hasn't doubled, it's increased 5 fold ($40-$15=$25), so relatively small increases in the price of oil will send lobbyists scrambling to drill for oil in places that you might not want dug up. The same thing happens again at each level in the supply chain.





Tar Sand takes a lot of energy to harvest a relatively small amount of oil, so it's not one of the better options. You have to dig up the ground and smoosh the oil out. That's the same problem with biodiesel too. It takes a whole lot of energy to produce.





Tar Sands actually have something in common with solar and wind too. They only get a lot of investment when the price of oil goes through the roof. A sudden price drop can bankrupt all of them. If I was in charge of OPEC I would flood the market with oil every couple of years just to kill off all the solar and wind farms then jack the price up. Tar sands aren't as likely to benefit from technological innovation as solar or wind to drive down the price, so the question becomes, do you want to tear up the ground and mess with the environment for something that is just a stop-gap measure.Where can I get a non-biased explanation of the Tar/Oil Sands Project in Alberta, Canada?
If you're looking for methods on HOW they extract oil, you can find them often on company websites. for environmental impacts, go to primary literature (e.g. peer reviewed sources), many of which can be found on google scholar or through a university library; they often have fantastic online databases that you can search.