英国新闻听力 沙地之下万桶石油（在线收听）

石油大热潮。直升机刚在阿尔伯达省广袤的荒野中停稳，我们的记者彼得·德就开始对这片储量惊人的加拿大油田进行报道--只有在现在这种全球能源价格持续上涨的非常时期，它才显示出巨大的价值。

There's Oil in Them Thar Sands

Announcer: And now it's time for IN BUSINESS. And this week the great oil rush: from a helicopter swooping over the huge wilderness of Alberta, Peter Day begins his report on the vast Canadian oil reserves which are only valuable now that global energy prices are on the rise.

Day: Well we've just lifted off from Fort McMurray Airport into the air. I want to see for myself the size of the new oil sands development in Alberta, which has catapulted Canada into the number two oil reserve base in the whole world, after Saudi Arabia.

Only a few years ago, this was empty wilderness; now the new oil operations stretch out for miles: vast, opencast mines of black sand, great ponds of stagnant water used to wash the oil out of the sand, huge industrial sites, processing plants whose lights glitter far below, illuminating a gloomy winter afternoon.

Down there it's called muskeg - swamp, trees, water, a terribly sinky surface going on for hundreds and hundreds of miles until the ice and snow of the real North. This isn't really territory for people; it's territory for animals - for bears, for caribou, for moose, for birds. There's enough oil down there to last for four hundred years - enough oil to supply, well, five percent of total global needs even in an expanding world. This is safe oil from a secure area, but of course it's in the great wilderness and getting out the oil means disrupting the wilderness.

(MUSIC)

Alberta is Prairie land in the middle of Canada in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains, best known for its huge wheat fields. They've been drilling for conventional oil and pumping it out of the ground here for decades, but what's happened now is quite new. For centuries, people have known about the oil locked up in the black Alberta tar sands (as they used to be called) in the north of the province. Even though it's on or near the surface, the problem is how to separate the oil from the sticky sand it's bound up in, a hugely expensive process. But now that the price of crude oil has been rising so far so fast, the decades long promise of oil in the Alberta sands is suddenly being explored, totalled up and exploited … and how! Greg Stringham of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers in Calgary told me more.

Stringham: In the last two years, ever since we got the recognition of a hundred and seventy-five billion barrels of reserves internationally - and just to put that in context, that is approximately four hundred years worth of reserves at today's level of production - from that perspective the oil sands has become the international story. It has really taken Canada from about ninth largest producer in the world. We're going to move up to fourth or fifth, which puts us very centrally on the global stage.

Day: People have known about the oil sands for generations though, of course, because they were right close to the surface, weren't they? You don't have to dig for these things.

Stringham: Well that's one thing about the oil sands. It's just a conventional oil reserve that was right down a river valley, where the Athabasca River goes …

Day: Against the Rockies.

Stringham: … against the Rockies. And the Athabasca River cut out a channel through there, so that actually some of this oil sand was visible from the surface. It's always been expensive to get the oil out of the sand because it's got a very unique characteristic. It's different than a lot of oil shales or heavy oil around the world. Here in these oil sands, because they were laid down in a river bed historically, you've got the grain of sand that's surrounded by water with the oil in the spaces and so you can shake it up just like salad dressing with a little bit of chemical and the sand and the water and the oil will separate: the sand falls to the bottom, the water in the middle and the oil floats to the top.

Day: That's the difficulty, isn't it - you have to heat the water with something to make this possible?

Stringham: That's exactly what it is. You've got to do something mechanical and mix it up and shake it like salad dressing to get it to do that with hot water. But the advantage of the oil sands is now that we're at prices that can make that kind of process economic is that there is no exploration risk. You cannot drill a dry hole in the oil sands because everyone knows where it is. It's that close to the surface.

Day: One of the multinational giants, which has got oil sands fever, is Royal Dutch Shell. Shell has a joint venture costing hundreds of millions of dollars on that environmentally sensitive Athabasca River. Based in Alberta's thriving commercial capital Calgary (a long way south of oil sands territory), Clive Mather is Shell Canada's president and chief executive.

Mather: We knew about Athabasca even when I started with Shell in 69, but it was uneconomic, and about twenty years ago, the first operators went into the oil sands and began to understand how you could manage this particular resource. Difficult, energy intensive, but they began to get a process together which worked and which delivered oil at about twenty dollars a barrel.

Day: You mean if the oil price was twenty dollars a barrel, there was a bit of profit in it?

Mather: You covered your cost, yes. So when the oil price began to shift ahead of twenty dollars, suddenly people saw this now not just as a prospect of delivering oil but delivering oil at a profit; and once we'd touched fifty, sixty dollars a barrel, then you can see now you're in handsome territory. It won't last, but right now of course it's great business.

Day: But it generates an oil rush, doesn't it? Sixty dollar a barrel of oil makes everybody think about the Alberta oil sands and, therefore, people come piling in.

Mather: They do and that is a concern, I will be honest. This is a very, very significant part of the world. It's an area that we have to treat with great care both environmentally, climatically in terms of the Aboriginal people and so on, and literally having dozens and dozens of projects in a sort of gold rush environment isn't necessarily a sustainable solution.

Day: Is this like anything else you've been involved with in Shell?

Mather: This is by far the biggest engineering project of Shell I've ever seen. Now I was involved in part in the North Sea and of course we were at the edge there, but the scale of this in engineering terms, the scale of this in capital required, this is the biggest I've ever seen.

Day: Whatever they say at headquarters, nothing prepares you for the scale of the oil sands operation. This is the Albian Sands mine on the Athabasca River reserves, the concession Shell and its partners are exploiting. It's a vast, black gulch in the ground; day and night, enormous excavators scrape up buckets of bituminous sand, cascading the stuff into the biggest trucks on earth for the trip to the processing plant that turns the sand into crude oil ready for refining. The trucks (as big as a house) are so vast that each of their six tyres costs fifty thousand dollars, ￡30,000. They have to last a year. Let's hitch a ride with a veteran driver, Wally.

Wally: We're going across the pit over to the hydraulic shovel.

Day: What's it like driving this?

Wally: Just like driving your pickup at home, your car. It takes a little while to get used to the size of it and then it's just like driving any other vehicle. This is the largest truck in the world and it's the smoothest truck.

Day: The great Alberta oil sands oil rush is taking place a long way from anywhere else - eight hours drive north of Calgary, around what used to be the tiny outpost of Fort McMurray.

(ACTUALITY - KYLE REEDMAN RADIO SHOW)

Day: Now Fort McMurray is a boomtown, and one of the incomers taking advantage of the boom is the DJ on Radio KYX, Kyx 98, Kyle Reedman. We met on a busy evening in the Tavern on Main Street.

Reedman: It's just a very strange place to be because there's not many people you meet in town who are from town. The town just keeps growing by leaps and bounds. It's grown I think about five thousand people a year and everyone in town has a job. Everything from the pubs like we're in to the oil sands are all looking for people to fill their jobs.

Day: What is so curious about this is for so many decades, I mean as long as I've been reporting on business, this oil sands deposit has been the next big thing in oil. And now suddenly it is and all your sort of scepticism is melted away, like the oil dripping out of the sand.

Reedman: Especially in town it has because when you're living the dream and you've got the big house and you've got all the toys - people have the quads and the snowmobiles here - you don't want to think about what's going to happen if that price of oil goes down back to sixteen, seventeen dollars a barrel.

Day: At Keyano College a few blocks away, new immigrants to Alberta are perfecting their English. Many of them are spouses of experienced oil workers from faraway places such as Venezuela, in demand as the oil sands plants rapidly expand. They're taught by Sandra Bessey, also a newcomer; in her case, a "Newfie", as they're called, from Newfoundland. The dwindling fishing on the Atlantic coast has sent floods of "Newfie" emigrants to settle here.

Bessey: The money that's here in Fort McMurray is a big draw even for people from other countries and certainly from other provinces in Canada.

Day: Just on the Newfoundland thing, there are a lot of you here, aren't there?

Bessey: An overwhelming number of Fort McMurray people are from Newfoundland. But Newfoundland has gone through a lot of economic crisis over the past twenty, thirty years.

Day: Fishing?

Bessey: Oh my Gosh, yes, and lots of government assistance and people without you know jobs. So Newfoundlanders, we have come to Fort McMurray for the same reason other people from other countries have come here: to provide a good living for ourselves and for our families.

Day: Yes the work is the main attraction. This is a distant, chilly place, months of sub-zero temperatures and the wonders of the Northern Lights as a principle entertainment. But that doesn't alarm the students here (whose English already seems pretty good), beginning with Marilyn Garcia, an oil industry engineer from Venezuela.

Garcia: Here you feel more comfortable, you can raise your children in a environment that is safe because in Venezuela there is a lot of crime now, additional to the political situation. So I think this is a very good place to live.

Stalamnazi: I am Abdul Stalamnazi. I am from Libya.

Day: Libya, another oil country? Are you an oil person?

Stalamnazi: I am mechanic engineer, but my experience is in different field. I hope I can get job here in oil.

Strott: My name is Kattic Strott. I am from Poland and I came here because my husband is working here. I am accountant.

Day: So you want to make money here or to get more experience or what?

Strott: To get money and to get more experience and to come back after two or three years.

Day: Now the people who live in Fort McMurray are pretty familiar with the process of extracting oil; but if you're not, there's a simple do it yourself demonstration available at the Fort McMurray Oil Sands Centre, from Annette Cake.

Cake: When I add some hot water, you can see that it's almost instantly starting to separate there, and when I stir it up you can see it separates and really starts to take off. Now you can probably start hearing that scratching and that's just a clue to how abrasive the sand is. Now I'm just going to stop stirring a minute and give you a chance to see how it's all settled up. There's a thin layer of black froth settling on top and that is the oil, so that's the bitumen, and the final product looks more like this. So this is room temperature bitumen, you know. You could actually try to poke your fingers in and you will not penetrate it. It's that thick, it's that heavy, and one of the reasons why is because it has a considerably higher carbon count compared to conventional crude. And because of that, it doesn't flow very quickly. In fact it only gets worse and at about eleven degrees Celsius it's the consistency of a hockey putt. So because of that, they need to take that bitumen through one more process so that it can be refined, and they take it through a process that will transform it to what's called synthetic crude oil or synthesised bitumen. Basically what they're doing is they're taking the long, complex molecule of bitumen and they're chopping it up and resorting it.

Day: After that you may understand the expensive problem that's prevented these vast reserves from being exploited until very recently. Oil sands oil has to be steamed out of the sand; so the huge plants here are using vast quantities of clean natural gas to create rather dirty crude oil that's then pumped hundreds of miles before it's refined. That's why this oil is so expensive to produce and why the global price has to be above fifteen dollars a barrel for it to be economic. But the vast size of the reserves and the high price of oil is attracting the attention of people with new ideas about how to get the oil sands oil out. Some oil sands are too deep to opencast mine, so pumping steam underground is one fairly new idea, says Greg Stringham of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

Stringham: There's two horizontal wells that go out about a mile - one on top of the other about three metres apart or about ten feet apart - and in the bottom one, they actually pull the oil out and the top one they inject steam, which heats up the oil above it and it drips down by gravity into the bottom well.

Day: What made that viable - the ability to drill sideways?

Stringham: Yes. They can put a GPS unit on the head of that well and they drill from the surface down probably four or five thousand feet and then turn the well and drill it out over a mile straight out. And what you're doing is instead of pulling the oil sands out and pulling the sand with it, you just heat up the oil and let the oil come out and leave the sand underneath the ground.

Day: An even newer process is still experimental and it sounds extraordinary: set fire to the oil sands deep underground with pumped compressed air, and sort of melt the oil out of the sand using its own heat to do so. One firm trying this weird-seeming technique is Petrobank Energy Resources in Calgary where Chris Bloomer explained things.

Bloomer: We're going to use existing technology, which is in situ combustion, to heat the oil underground and through that process also upgrade it.

Day: It sounds frighteningly out of control, doesn't it?

Bloomer: No, it's a very controlled process. It's not something that gets wildly out of control. When you inject air into a hydrocarbon reservoir, it does combust but it's not like a raging forest fire or your fireplace. It's more like blowing on a charcoal briquette.

Day: What about cost? Is there an economic cost of combusting underground? You're burning oil that you could otherwise in some way suck up.

Bloomer: Well the beauty of this process is that you're really burning the worst part of the barrel. What we're doing is essentially in situ coking. When the hot air hits - and it's very hot, it's three hundred to six hundred degrees C - hits the cold oil, it causes the bottom of the barrel to coke off on the sand greens??. And that's the fuel and the lighter portion of the oil moves forward and is produced in the horizontal well. Now the other technology that's out there is to inject steam in the ground to do the same thing, but the issue of that is it takes a tremendous amount of natural gas to get that oil out of the ground.

Day: So you're using nice, clean, natural gas to produce dirty old oil?

Bloomer: And also you're using a water resource. You have to make the steam to inject in the ground.

Day: And all this is happening, remember, in a vast wilderness, a landscape of scrub and marshland out of which are suddenly rising some of the biggest industrial processing plants on earth. The environmental impact is huge: virgin landscape scraped away, great lakes where the hot water is pumped so the oil sand deposits can settle on the bottom, big carbon emissions as natural gas is burnt to make steam. All this is happening in what ecologists call boreal forest: the huge hitherto untouched nature that spreads out all around the North Pole on several continents. Dan Woynillowicz is environmental policy analyst at the Alberta environment campaigners, the Pembina Institute.

Woynillowicz: It's a very important forest ecologically and globally as a major carbon sink, and also, as often people say about the Amazon, it's one of the other lungs of the earth. It's an incredibly important area for migratory birds. Most of the migratory birds that travel from South America, right up to the North, use the boreal as a nesting and often a breeding area. The industry has made some strides in reducing the impact of its operations on a project-by-project basis - so, for example, the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that are produced per barrel or the amount of water that must be withdrawn from the Athabasca River to produce a barrel of oil. But because of the sheer pace of new development and the growth, we're seeing a constant increase in the overall environmental footprint of the oil sands industry. It's at a scale that can be seen from space with the naked eye. It's one of the world's largest environmental experiments. You know when you're on the ground there, it's really like a moonscape. It's hard to imagine, I daresay almost impossible to imagine, how that complex eco system that existed before could through the hand of man be recreated on that landscape.

Day: How does the oil industry react to these concerns? Back to Clive Mather, top man at Shell Canada.

Mather: We have set our own targets at Shell Canada to actually reduce the emission of greenhouse gases - that's the energy we need to bring this bitumen to market - to make sure it's in line with equivalent oil supplies; in other words importing crude oil from other parts of the world. That's the target we've set ourselves by the end of this decade and one of the projects we have here in Athabasca is to take CO2, which is produced when we make the bitumen, and re-inject that into the ground in traditional oil reservoirs to help bring crude oil back to the surface. That sequesters the CO2, that disposes of the CO2 in geological time, and also gives an economic benefit in terms of enhanced oil recovery.

Day: A lot of people, laypeople, listeners are ever so sceptical about that process. This idea of sequestering gas just sounds preposterous.

Mather: It's been going on all of my career. In America, for example, they actually look for CO2 fields which occur quite naturally, reservoirs of CO2. Why do they want it? Because they can re-inject that into old oil fields and increase the production of oil from those fields.

Day: What do you say to the people who say you are wrecking a natural wilderness by digging for oil on the surface? This is a dirty business in Alberta.

Mather: The Athabasca region itself is not a pristine wilderness. This is scrubland. But our commitment has been to put this back at least as well as we found it. In fact in some cases, we could almost argue that we can improve it because we plant many more trees and shrubs than we would find that.

Day: But there's still anxiety in Albert. The oil sands development is taking place on land used, hunted and fished by native Canadian Indians, the people from what Canadians call first nations. Back in Fort McMurray, Melody Lepine is director of Mikisew Cree First Nation Industry Relations.

Lepine: We are trying to understand these changes that are occurring as a result of the oil sands - how it impacts our way of life, how it impacts the environment, our health. And there's economic changes, there's social changes. Not everybody wants to go hunting and trapping any more when you can go and work in the oil sands industry, so there's a whole variety of change.

Day: You say trying to understand. That means you're not against the development altogether.

Lepine: No, we're not against the development. I really cannot say that is our position. However, we encourage sustainable development and for the Mikisew people to be given the capacity to grow along with it, so that we can adapt to the changes that are occurring so quickly.

Day: When companies mine for oil or take the oil sands away and process them, this is disruption of a primeval landscape.

Lepine: Absolutely. I mean all of them are wetlands that they're removing. There's no technology yet to reclaim that. They say return to equivalent or better capability. How do you define that? Whose definition is that? Is that the industry's definition, the government's? I mean we have our own standards of how we see the land. I mean are they incorporating our standards? So show some of the questions we're asking and how their land is going to be returned.

Day: And they say we can make it better?

Lepine: Well they're starting not to say that now. They used to because now they're starting to see the challenges in removing you know townships of material and just not being able to put it all back. I mean not one piece of land has been given back to the government yet, as reclaimed and certified, and it's been, what, thirty years of oil sands activity. So I mean that's kind of worrying in our case, like can they even put it back? I know the price of oil is very high and you want to get it all out as quickly as possible, but do it a little slower where you're going to still protect you know the integrity of the land and the water.

Day: And at Shell's Albian Sands project close to Fort McMurray, Darrell Martindale is the manager of environmental and regulatory compliance. He's charged with reclaiming the land and putting it back to its original condition when the work is eventually over.

Day: You can't replace a wilderness, can you?

Martindale: No, no you can't replace a wilderness.

Day: So what are you going to do at the end of it?

Martindale: Well we're going to try to reclaim it as close to what it was before. We'll be working with wildlife people to assess what are critical components for moose, which are a key species here for our local people. We work closely with elders from Fort McKay to establish what those landscape features might be.

Day: Right on top of this, the stuff you scraped off to get the oil sands, the first layer of oil sands, there was a very delicate balance of spongy, boggy, scrubby trees and things, which you can't replace or which will take centuries or aeons to replace, won't it?

Martindale: We've got technology right now where we are getting very rapid replacement of exactly that. The top ten to twenty-five centimetres contains all your roots, your micro……..??, the bacteria, all the stuff for the seeds to recreate, so when we have an area ready for reclamation, we scrape that twenty-five centimetres from the area that you're going to mine next. The stuff that you remove in front of you, you put behind you.

Day: So the eventual objective is when this place stops producing, the whole place will look as though nobody had been here. That's the target.

Martindale: That's the target.

Day: By when?

Martindale: That would be as close to the end of mining life as possible, so if mining finishes in 2040, probably by 2045 the landforms would be in place and then the vegetation would follow shortly after that.

Day: What do you say to the environmental campaigners who say slow down, this is going much too fast; it's time to slow down and make a much more measured approach to this rather than the oil rush we've seen in the last two or three years?

Martindale: I think we are working hard to know what the impacts are. Slowing down doesn't solve the problems. Doing something about it solves the problem. Working with the local people and working on the scientific components will solve the problem, our issues.

Day: Not many locals have seen so much change in Fort McMurray as Bill and Nancy Woodward; they've known the town for more than seventy years; then it was a 19th century frontier existence; in the summer they were hobos, riding the railcars looking for work. They've lived in their lakeside cabin, surrounded by dogs and rabbits, since he came back from the war, so I drove out there to see them.

B. Woodward: I was in McMurray since 1928 back and forth.

Day: What did you do?

B. Woodward: Anything that was available. You had to do snaring rabbits or work or whatever. I hoboed all over. I used to catch the train looking for work.

Day: Hoboed?

B. Woodward: Yeah. Do you know what that is?

Day: Yeah, riding the rails without paying.

B. Woodward: Yes, without paying, that's it.

N. Woodward: I did too.

Day: You did? I didn't realise women hoboed. What was it like?

N. Woodward: (Laughing) It was fun actually and a little scary. But the train men were really good, you know. They'd look the other way. They know, you know, that you're poor and you don't have any way to get around.

Day: But if you had been fifty years younger, you'd have come here and ridden that wave of prosperity, would you? Do you feel you missed out then?

N. Woodward: I don't feel we've missed out on anything.

Day: Because you've had a hard life.

N. Woodward: We had a hard life, but it was a good life.

Day: Now the Woodwards are Metis, descended from an Indian first nation woman and a European man. Proud of this native heritage, their son Rowland had this observation about the great Alberta oil rush and what the early explorer Peter Pond had noticed three centuries before.

R. Woodward: They were here fourteen thousand years. Three hundred years ago when Peter Pond came through, he said on the banks of the Athabasca and clear water rivers, the local Indians, the Crees, would take these bitumen sands and put them in a pot of water and skim the bitumen off the top, and they'd mix it with pitch and they'd use that to fix their canoes. Well three hundred years later, we're still using the hot water obstruction method and we're still using it for transportation, you know, so what's changed?

Day: And that had been going on for generations before?

R. Woodward: Generations before, yuh.

Day: So nothing much changes in other words?

R. Woodward: No, no.

(MUSIC)

Day: Yes, there's oil, lots of it, in them thar sands. (MUSIC UP)

Announcer: Peter Day. The music for IN BUSINESS was played by the band East Coast Connection of Fort McMurray and the producers were Paul O'Keefe and Richard Berenger.

沙地之下万桶原油

播音员：这里是商业新闻。本周报道：石油大热潮。直升机刚在阿尔伯达省广袤的荒野中停稳，我们的记者彼得·德就开始对这片储量惊人的加拿大油田进行报道--只有在现在这种全球能源价格持续上涨的非常时期，它才显示出巨大的价值。

德：现在我们刚从福麦木瑞机场起飞。我想亲眼见到在阿尔伯达省中新建起来的这片油砂产业，亲身感受到它的规模--它使加拿大一跃成为世界第二大石油储备国，仅次于沙特阿拉伯。

就在几年前，这里还是一片空旷的原野；现在，新的石油开发现场绵延几英里：露天开采出的黑色沙石堆高高耸立着，几个大型池塘中死水沉沉，要用来将石油从沙子中洗出，巨大的工业基地，作业中的工厂灯火通明，即使在远处也遥遥可见，照亮了阴沉沉的冬季午后。

在这片土地的尽头，有着大片大片的青苔沼泽--沼泽、树木、水，还有恐怖的可以将一切事物淹没的水面--它们占据了数百英里的土地，一直延伸到冰雪覆盖的极北之地。这里并不是人类真正的领土，这里是动物们的领地--熊、驯鹿、驼鹿、鸟类，它们才是这里的主人。但是，这片土地的下方有着足够开采四百年的石油--即使在石油需求量极度膨胀的当今世界里，这些石油仍然可以满足5％的全球总需求量。这些石油来自于安全的地区，所以安全有保障。但是，它掩埋在广袤的原野中，开采这些石油就意味着要破坏这片原野的自然状况。

（音乐）

阿尔伯达省地处加拿大中部的洛矶山脚下，属草原地带，素以广阔的稻田闻名。他们在此处开采传统石油已有数十载，就是用钻井开采出石油后用抽油泵把石油抽出地面。但是现在，他们使用的是一种全新的方法。几个世纪以来，人们早已知道在阿尔伯达省北部，丰富的石油被锁在乌黑的阿尔伯达沥青砂（他们过去的名字）里不见天日。虽然这些石油极其接近地表，甚至就在土地表层，但一个难题就使人们望而却步：如何将石油从这些黏稠的沙子中分离出来--这是一项浩大的工程，且耗资巨大。但是现在，世界原油价格急剧飙升，于是人们突然想起了阿尔伯达沙石里这些被期盼了几十年的石油，开始对它们进行勘探、估计总量、开采……但是，究竟应该如何开采？！卡尔加里市加拿大石油生产协会的格雷格·斯特林厄姆向我介绍了一些情况。

斯特林厄姆：在过去的两年间，全世界都认识到，我们的石油储量高达一千七百五十亿桶--如果以当前的石油生产水平来计算，约为四百年的生产量--意识到这一点后，这些油砂就变成了世界性的传奇故事。过去，加拿大只是世界第九大产油国，但这些沙子可以使加拿大的排名上升到第四名或者第五名，从而把加拿大推到了世界舞台的中心。

德：人们知道这些沙子中有石油已经有数百年了吧，是因为它们离地表非常近的原因吗？所以你甚至不需要去挖掘这些东西。

斯特林厄姆：嗯，这些油砂是这样一个情况：其实它原本只是传统的石油储备，就埋藏在一个河谷下方，而那里正好有阿萨巴斯卡河流过……

德：从洛矶山流出。

斯特林厄姆：……从洛矶山流出。阿萨巴斯卡河通过那里时将一条河道截断了，所以实际上在地表就可以看见其中一些油砂。但是，要将石油从沙子中提取出来，代价极其昂贵，因为这里的石油有一个非常独特的特征，它与世界上其他许多油页岩或重油不同。这里的石油混在这些油砂里，因为它们长久地被埋在河床之下，所以现在我们得到的沙子外层都包了水，而石油就在水和沙子之间的空隙里，你只要像摇沙拉酱一样，给沙子加点化学物质然后再摇一摇，沙子、水和石油就会分离开了：沙子沉到底部，水留在中间，石油就浮到表面。

德：正是这点非常困难，是吗？因为你必须用某种方法将水加热，然后才可以进行这个步骤。

斯特林厄姆：正是如此。你必须用某种机械使它们混合到一起，然后像摇沙拉酱一样摇晃，但要达到这一步必须使用热水。现在油砂的优势就在于当前的高油价使得这个过程较为经济，而且油砂的开采没有勘探风险。你根本不可能会在油砂中钻出一个没有石油的洞，因为所有人都知道哪儿有石油--它是如此的接近地表。

德：有一个巨型跨国组织对油砂的开采极其狂热--这个组织就是皇家荷兰壳牌公司。迄今为止，壳牌已经向环境极其脆弱的阿萨巴斯卡河流地区投入了数亿美元的资金。壳牌加拿大公司的总部设在阿尔伯达省经贸发达的首都卡尔加里市（在油砂地区南部较远的地区），克莱夫·马特斯任公司总裁和首席执行官。

马斯特：早在我69年接手壳牌时，我们就已经知道了阿萨巴斯卡地区的油砂，但它的开采太不经济了。大约二十年前，第一批工作人员进入了油砂田，开始了解该如何掌握这种特殊的资源。虽然整个过程困难重重，但在投入了大量的精力之后，他们已经摸索出一条可行的途径，可以使石油的开采成本降低到每桶二十美元左右。

德：你的意思是，当油价在每桶二十美元时，就只有很少的利润？

马斯特：是的，正好与成本持平。所以当油价开始涨到二十美元以上时，人们就突然将目光放到了这块地方，不是因为它丰富的储备量，良好的开采前景，而是因为在这里开采石油有利可图。油价曾一度飙升到每桶五、六十美元，那时你会觉得这个领域如此美妙--当然，油价不可能一直保持这个水平，但至少现在它还是一项相当盈利的业务。

德：但它引起了一场石油热，不是吗？六十美元一桶的石油让所有人都开始打阿尔伯达油砂的主意，于是人们蜂拥而入，参与这项业务。

马斯特：人们确实在这么做，老实说，这也成了一个问题。这是世界上一个非常、非常重要的地区，我们必须从土著居民和当地人的角度考虑，万分小心地处理环境、气候方面的问题；如果像掘金热潮一样，一群又一群的项目蜂拥上马，那可不是个长久之计。

德：在壳牌，你还参与过其他规模如此宏大的项目吗？

马斯特：这是迄今为止，我所见过的壳牌最大的工程项目。我也曾经参与过北海油田的项目，当然那次项目的规模也是相当惊人的，但这次的项目无论是在工程技术方面，还是在资金投入方面，都是我所见过的最大的项目。

德：虽然他们在总部说的冠冕堂皇，但现在仍然没有任何证据证明此次油砂开采的实际规模。在阿萨巴斯卡河流这片油砂储备区，已获得开采权的壳牌公司和它的合作者们正在开采阿尔必阶的油砂矿。这是一个巨大的、漆黑的峡谷；巨型挖掘机正夜以继日地铲着一桶又一桶的沥青砂，将它们倒进世界上最大的卡车里，这些卡车把油砂运送到加工厂，沙子在那里会变成待炼制的原油。这些卡车（一辆卡车就和一座房子一样大）如此庞大，它们的六个轮胎每个都价值五万美元，合三万英镑。这些卡车必须可以使用至少一年。我们现在来搭个车，司机威利可是个老手了。

威利：我们现在要穿过矿区，去液压挖掘机那里。

德：驾驶这家伙感觉如何？

威利：和在家驾驶小货车、小汽车的感觉一样，就是要花一阵时间适应这个庞然大物，然后就和驾驶其他车感觉一样。这是世界上最大的卡车，也是最平稳的卡车。

德：就是在遥远的其他地方，阿尔伯达油砂引起的石油大狂热也仍然在持续--我们从卡尔加里市往北驾车八小时就来到了福麦木瑞，这里原来只是一个巴掌大的小村庄。

（现场--凯尔·李德曼无线电通信报道）

德：现在福麦木瑞已经成为了一个新兴城市，KYX电台KYX98节目的主持人凯尔·李德曼就是由于这场狂热而受益的外来者之一。在一个忙碌的黄昏，我们在大街上一个酒馆里见了面。

李德曼：这是个非常奇怪的地方，因为你在城里遇到的大部分人都不是本地人，这个城镇正在不断跳跃地发展着。我想大约是以每年五千人的速度在增长，而且城里的每一个人都有工作。所有地方--从我们现在正坐着的这种酒店到油砂产地，到处都在招人填补空缺。

德：这股热潮中令我感兴趣的是，几十年来，我是指自从我开始商业报道以来，油砂层的开发一直都是石油史上第二大事件。而现在，它突然之间变成了事实，人们所有的怀疑也都像石油从沙中蒸发出来一样，消失不见了。

李德曼：是的，而且特别是在城镇里会发生这种情况，因为当你觉得像是活在梦里，已经有了大房子和所有想要的玩具--在这里，人们有了带院子的小楼和雪上汽车--你就会拒绝去考虑，如果油价重新跌回每桶十六、十七美元的价位，情况会变得怎样。

德：在离这里几个路口远的克亚诺学院，一批新到阿尔伯达的移民正在提高他们的英语水平。他们中的许多人都是有经验的石油工人夫妇，来自于委内瑞拉那样遥远的地区，现在由于这里的油砂工厂飞速发展而来填补空缺。他们的老师是桑德拉·贝西，她也是个外来者；像她这种纽芬兰人，当地人都称他们为"Newfie"。由于大西洋海岸的捕鱼业不断萎缩，大量的"Newfie"移民都来到这里定居。

贝西：金钱是吸引人们从其他国家和加拿大其他省份来到福麦木瑞的重要原因。

德：就纽芬兰来说，有许多和你一样的人来到这里，是吗？

贝西：在福麦木瑞，纽芬兰人占了绝大多数。但是，纽芬兰在过去的二、三十年间经历了多次经济危机。

德：捕鱼业？

贝西：哦上帝，是的，政府给了许多援助，可是许多人没有工作。所以我们这些纽芬兰人来到福麦木瑞的原因与来自于其他国家的人们一样：为了给我们自己和我们的家人提供良好的生活。

德：是的，工作是吸引人们来此的主要原因。这是个偏远、寒冷的地方，数月温度都低于零度，主要的娱乐就是奇妙的北极光。但这些都没有对这里的学生们产生影响（他们的英语其实已经相当好了），最先发表意见的是玛里琳·加西亚，她是来自于委内瑞拉的一个工业工程师。

加西亚：这里的感觉更舒适，你可以在安全的环境中抚养孩子，而在委内瑞拉，犯罪率居高不下，政治形势也很紧张。所以我认为这里是个非常适合居住的地方。

斯塔拉玛那兹：我是阿布杜勒·斯塔拉玛那兹，来自于利比亚。

德：利比亚？另一个石油大国？你是个石油工人吗？

斯塔拉玛那兹：我是个机械工程师，但我过去的工作并不是在石油工业。我希望能在这里的油田找到一份工作。

史查特：我叫卡提克·史查特。我来自波兰，我来到这里是因为我丈夫在这里工作。我是个会计。

德：那你是想在这里挣钱还是累计经验，还是别的什么？

史查特：要挣钱，也要积累经验，然后两、三年后再回去。

德：现在福麦木瑞的居民已经相当熟悉提取石油的过程了；如果你还不知道，你可以去福麦木瑞油砂中心，在那里你可以自己做简单的现场展示，示范者是安妮特·凯克。

凯克：当我加入一些热水后你能看见，它们几乎立刻就开始分离了，现在我搅拌一下，你会见到它们分开了，而且确实开始分层。现在你可能可以开始听到低低的抓挠声，由此可见这些沙子是多么的粗糙。从现在开始，我会停止搅拌一分钟，这样你们就有机会看到它们是如何分层的。在最上层有一层薄薄的黑色泡沫就是石油，也就是我们平常说的沥青，而最后的成品看起来差不多是这样。所以这是室温下的沥青。你可以把手指伸到这里来亲身感受一下，但你是无法穿透它的。你可以看到，它又厚又重，原因就在于与传统原油相比，它的成分中碳的成分要高出许多。由于这个原因，它的流动性很差。实际上，它在十一摄氏度的时候流动性会更差，黏稠得经得起曲棍球的一击。正因为如此，他们就需要让这些沥青再经过一道加工，这样才适合提炼。经过这道工序后，沥青就转变成了合成原油，或者叫合成沥青。基本上他们的工作就是把沥青复杂的长链分子弄断后再进行重新组合，形成新的分子。

德：现在，你可能可以了解油砂开采成本昂贵的原因了，正是如此，才使人们直到近期才开始开采这片巨大的油砂储备。油砂所产的石油必须从沙中用蒸汽分离出来，所以当地的巨型工厂正在使用大量无污染的天然气来生产出这些黑乎乎的原油，然后在提炼前通过几百英里的管道把它抽出来。所以，这种石油的高成本阻止了它的生产，只有全球油价高于每桶十五美金才会有利可图。但如此大的储备量和如此高的油价也不断吸引着人们想出新的方法，将石油从油砂中分离出来。一些油砂埋在地底深处，无法露天开采，所以加拿大石油生产协会的格雷格·斯特林厄姆告诉我，有人提出了一个全新的想法，用地下的水蒸气把石油蒸发出来。

斯特林厄姆：这个方法中有两个约一英里长的水平井，一个在上一个在下，上下间隔约三米或者十英尺。在下面这个井里，他们真正把石油分离出来；他们往上面这个井里注入蒸汽，这样就在石油上方进行加热，然后水蒸气由于重力就滴到下面的井里。

德：那么该如何从侧面钻井呢？有什么技术可以支持它吗？

斯特林厄姆：是的，他们使用全球定位系统来确定钻井的方向。从地表往下约四、五千英尺后，钻井就开始变成水平方向，然后继续向前钻一英里。这样，你就不再需要把油砂挖出，然后再把沙子提取出来，而只要加热石油，让石油自己分离出来，沙子就留在了地下。

德：还有一种更新的方法仍然处于实验阶段--它听起来更是非比寻常：往地底下深处的油砂泵入压缩空气后点火，然后用石油自己的热能使石油熔化后从沙子中分离出来。卡尔加里市的石油银行能源资源公司正在试验这种听起来匪夷所思的技术，克里斯·布鲁墨向我进一步解释了这项技术。

布鲁墨：我们打算使用现有的火烧油层的技术对地下的石油进行加热，同时通过这个过程改进这项技术。

德：它怎么听起来挺吓人的，好像会随时失控？

布鲁墨：不，这个过程完全在我们的掌握之中，并不会像脱缰的野马那样失控。当你将空气注入地下的碳水化合物类物质储备带时，虽然会燃烧，但这种燃烧并不像熊熊的森林大火，也不像你家中壁炉的那种火焰。它更加温和，就像木炭煤球燃烧的火焰一样。

德：那它的成本有多高？地下燃烧的成本是否经济？你现在燃烧的石油原本是可以用其他方法抽取出来的。

布鲁墨：是的，这种方法的妙处就在于它烧的正是每桶石油中最差的那一部分。我们所做的工作实际上就是原地炼焦。当高温的空气--这个温度非常高，高达三百至六百摄氏度--遇到冰冷的石油时，就会使沙地空洞内每桶石油底层的部分焦化。而这就是燃烧的燃料，随后，石油中较轻的部分就会往上浮，在水平井中生产出来。现在的油田使用的是另外一种技术，就是向地底注入蒸汽以达到同样的目的，但这种方法的问题在于，需要使用巨大数目的天然气才能将石油从地下开采出来。

德：所以你们现在使用的是安全、无污染的天然气来生产黑乎乎的、古老的石油？

布鲁墨：而且同时还要使用水资源。你必须把蒸汽注入到地下。

德：请记住，以下所有的事情正在发生：在一片广袤的原野中，灌木与沼泽地突然间被拔地而起的世界上最大的工业加工厂所代替。它给环境带来的影响是巨大的：原始的风景被毫不留情的抹煞，宽阔的湖泊被抽干了水，加热的湖水被泵入地下，使得油砂的开采在地下就能完成，燃烧的天然气被用来制造水蒸气，同时产生大量的一氧化碳、二氧化碳类气体：所有这些都在被生态学家们称为北部森林的地区上演--这片广阔的迄今为止从未被人染指过的自然土地覆盖了多个大陆的北极点。下面我们有请环境政策分析家丹·沃尼洛韦兹，他是加拿大彭比纳学会阿尔伯达省环境保护运动成员。

沃尼洛韦兹：这片森林无论是从生态学角度还是从全球化角度来看，都有重大意义，因为它是一片主要的碳沉积地；但同时，就像人们提起亚马逊河就经常想到的那样，它也是地球的一个肺。它对迁徙的鸟类有着非比寻常的意义--大部分迁徙的鸟类从南美长途跋涉来到北方，在北部森林搭巢，而且经常有鸟类在此繁殖后代。随着一个又一个项目的兴起，新建立的工业已经大大减弱了这一地区的这种影响力--例如，每生产一桶石油所释放出的温室气体数量，每生产一桶石油所消耗的阿萨巴斯卡河的水量，它们都在一点一点地让这片森林失去它原有的功能。但是，由于这些工业正在以惊人的速度发展，我们可以看到油砂产业给总体环境带来的影响正在持续增长，我们甚至可以从太空用肉眼看到这些印迹。这是世界上最大的环境试验之一。如果你站在那片土地上，你会觉得自己正站在月球上--地面上寸草不生，到处都是空洞。很难想象，可以说几乎无法想象，人类的双手如何能够重建这片土地上原来那个复杂的生态系统。

德：那石油工业对这些问题有什么回应呢？让我们再来听听壳牌加拿大的最高层人士克莱夫·马斯特的说法。

马斯特：我们壳牌加拿大公司已经确立了我们自己的目标，要确实地减少温室气体的排放量--我们要将这些沥青投入到市场，就必须在这方面下功夫--以确保它们的排放量与对应的石油供应量相符；换句话说，我们会从世界其他地区进口原油。这是我们所设定的2010年之前要达到的目标，而我们现在在阿萨巴斯卡河流地区进行的一个项目就是将生产沥青时产生的二氧化碳回收，重新注入到地下传统的石油储备层，帮助原油回到地表。这个方法隔离了二氧化碳，让二氧化碳在漫长的地质时间中被缓慢地处理掉，同时也增加了石油的产量，提高了经济利益。

德：许多人--许多非专业人士的听众都对这个方法表示怀疑。这个隔离二氧化碳的想法听起来相当荒谬。

马斯特：其实在我整个职业生涯过程中，这种事情不停地发生。比如说，美国就在寻找二氧化碳田、二氧化碳的储备带，这种事情非常自然。美国为什么要找它们呢？因为他们可以把二氧化碳重新注入到旧油田中，增加这些油田的产油量。

德：人们说你为了得到石油在地表进行挖掘，破坏了自然的野生环境，对此你有什么看法吗？他们还说这是阿尔伯达省一个肮脏的行业。

马斯特：阿萨巴斯卡地区本身其实并不是原始的野生环境，它是一片灌木林地。但我们的承诺是，至少将它恢复到我们发现它时的状态。实际上在某些情况下，我们甚至可以说我们有能力把它变得更好，因为我们种下的树木和灌木丛的数量甚至超过了我们发现它时的数量。

德：但阿尔伯达的人们还是会担心。油砂工业就建立在本土的加拿大印第安人原本居住、捕猎、捉鱼的地方，加拿大人称这些印第安人为原住民。让我们回到福麦木瑞，麦乐迪·乐平是Mikisew Cree原住民工业关系协会的主席。

乐平：我们正在试图了解这些油砂开采所带来的变化--它们是如何影响了我们的生活方式，影响了我们的环境，我们的健康。另外还有经济的变化和社会变化。当你有机会在油砂工业里工作时，并不是所有人都还愿意继续过整日在山林中设陷井、追捕猎物的生活，所以这是全方位、多方面的变化。

德：你说会试图去了解，所以你其实并不反对这些进步。

乐平：我们并不反对进步。当然，我并不能说这就是我们的立场。但是，我们更鼓励可持续发展，对Mikisew人民来说，应该可以让他们继续在这片土地上生活下去，这样我们才可以适应如此迅速的变化。

德：当各个公司在这里开采石油，或者挖出油砂进行加工时，其实是在打扰这片原始的土地。

乐平：确实如此。我是说，这片土地上所有的沼泽地都在他们的手中消失，但目前还没有任何技术可以进行恢复。他们说会还给我们同样的甚至更好的环境，但这个的标准是什么？是谁订下的标准？是工业上的标准，还是政府给的标准？我的意思是，我们看这片土地时，都有自己的标准。他们的标准中是否也包括我们的标准？所以就产生了我们要问的一些问题，还有该如何使他们破坏的土地恢复到原来的状态。

德：而他们说可以把它变得更好？

乐平：嗯，现在他们开始不这么说了，不过他们以前这么说过。因为现在他们开始看到，大片大片的东西消失之后这片地区所产生的变化，而且他们根本无法把它恢复回原样。我是说，到现在为止，还没有一寸土地经过恢复和鉴定，完整地被归还给政府，而它们已经经过了三十年的油砂开采。所以我要说，我们十分担心，他们是否有可能做到至少使这片土地的环境恢复到原样？我知道现在的油价非常高，你们想尽快把所有的石油都开采出来，但请你们手下留情，稍微放慢脚步，这样同时还可以保护这片土地和水源的完整。

德：壳牌公司的阿尔必阶油砂项目就紧挨着福麦木瑞正在进行，达雷尔·马尔戴丁是环境与法规遵循部门的经理。他负责土地恢复工作，就是在这项工作最终结束时将土地恢复原貌。

德：但是你无法归还一个野生的环境，是吗？

马尔戴丁：不不，你根本无法归还一个野生的环境。

德：那这些结束之后，你们准备怎么做？

马尔戴丁：嗯，我们准备尽全力将它恢复到尽量接近原来的状态。我们会和野生生物专家们一起合作，确定哪些是驼鹿这些动植物必需的生存要素，哪些又是我们当地居民的重要物种。我们会与福麦木瑞的老人们紧密合作，可能可以建立起原来的那些地形特征。

德：另外还有一点，你们为了采到这些油砂，会把地表的第一层油砂挖去，而这一层松软多孔易吸水，包括了沼泽、灌木丛、树木和其他物质，它们形成了一个微妙的平衡，但你根本无法替代这种平衡，或者需要几个世纪甚至永远才能恢复这种平衡，是这样吗？

马尔戴丁：我们现在已经掌握了一种技术，可以非常迅速地将它还原成一模一样的状态。最上层的十至二十五厘米包含了所有的根系、微……呃，细菌，也就是重建时所需的所有东西的种子。所以当我们准备好要对一个地区进行恢复时，我们就挖去我们下一个开采地的地表二十五厘米填补到这个地区。这样，你前面移掉的东西就在后面补上。

德：所以你们的最终目的是当这个地区停止生产时，整个地区看起来就好像从没有人来过这里。这就是你们的目标。

马尔戴丁：这就是我们的目标。

德：到什么时候为止呢？

马尔戴丁：会尽可能接近开采结束的时间，所以如果开采在2040年完成，可能到2045年就能整好地形，然后短期内种上植被。

德：环境保护者们说你们的行动应该慢一点，现在进行得太快了，你怎么认为呢？现在是否应该放慢脚步，找一些更合适的方法，而不是像我们过去的两、三年内看到的掀起一股石油热潮？

马尔戴丁：我想我们现在正在努力找出环境的哪些方面受到了影响。放慢脚步并不能解决问题，只有对它做点什么才能解决问题。与当地居民在科学方面进行合作才能解决问题，我们的问题。

德：很少福麦木瑞的当地人会比比尔·伍德沃和南西·伍德沃看到的变化更多了：他们在这里居住的时间已经超过七十年了，19世纪时这里还只是一个边境小村庄。他们夏天的时候就成了无业游民，搭着有轨列车到处寻找工作。自从比尔从战场上归来之后，他们就住在湖边的小屋里，屋外养着一群狗和兔子，所以我驾车来到湖边见到了他们。

比尔·伍德沃：我大约是1928年左右来到福麦木瑞的。

德：你当时是做什么工作？

比尔·伍德沃：只要有工作我就做。当时，你要不去设陷井捕兔子，要不工作，要不就是其他什么乱七八糟的东西。我一直在四处流浪，还曾搭火车到别处找过工作。

德：流浪？

比尔·伍德沃：是的。你知道那是什么意思吗？

德：是的，就是不花钱坐火车。

比尔·伍德沃：对，不花钱，这是重点。

南西·伍德沃：我也流浪过。

德：你也流浪过？我以前从来不知道女人也到处流浪。感觉怎么样？

南西·伍德沃：（笑）那真的很好玩，也有点令人害怕。但火车上的男人们真的很好。他们从另一种角度看问题。他们知道你很穷，实在没有方法到别的地方去了。

德：但如果你现在年轻五十岁，你也会来到这里，亲身体会这股繁荣的浪潮，是吗？你是否觉得错过了黄金时代？

南西·伍德沃：我并不认为我们错过了任何东西。

德：因为你们曾过得相当艰难。

南西·伍德沃：我们的生活是很艰难，但也十分美好。

德：现在的伍德沃一家是混血儿，他们是一个印第安原住民女性和一个欧洲男性的子孙。他们为自己身上流着当地人的血感到自豪--他们的儿子罗兰对阿尔伯达这股石油大热潮的观察结果正好是三个世纪以前，早期的探险者彼得·庞德就已经注意到的。

罗兰·伍德沃：他们已经在这片土地上住了一万四千年。三百年前，彼得·庞德来到这里时，他站在阿萨巴斯卡河岸边，对着清澈的河流说到：本地的印第安人，克里人，会把这些沥青砂放进一个水罐里，刮出最上层的沥青，然后把它们与焦油混合，用来修理他们的独木舟。现在，三百年过去了，我们仍然在用热水分离石油，它们的用途也仍然是在交通方面，你看，到底有什么变化呢？

德：这早在几百年前就已经开始进行了？

罗兰·伍德沃：是的，几百年前。

德：换句话说，几乎没什么变化？

罗兰·伍德沃：不，没有变化。

（音乐）

德：是的，这里有石油，有许许多多的石油，就在地下的沙砾中。（音乐起）

播音员：彼得·德。本期商业新闻的音乐伴奏是福麦木瑞的东海岸连接乐队，本期节目由保罗·欧奇夫和理查德·贝伦杰制作。 

注释：

1.catapult n. 弹弓，飞机弹射器

2.stagnant adj. 停滞的，迟钝的

3.muskeg n. [地]泥岩沼泽，厚苔泽，[植]苔藓

4.caribou n. 北美产驯鹿

5.moose n. [动] 驼鹿

6.shale n. [地]页岩，泥板岩

7.albian n. [地质]阿尔必阶

8.gulch n. <美>干谷峡谷，冲沟（尤指产金地的急流峡谷）

9.excavator n. 开凿者，打洞机，开凿机，电铲

10.bituminous adj. 含沥青的

11.cascade vi. 成瀑布落下

12.skepticism n. 怀疑论

13.froth n. 泡，泡沫，废物

14.combustion n. 燃烧

15.charcoal n. 木炭

16.briquette n. 煤饼，煤球

17.marsh adj. 沼泽的，多沼泽的，湿软的

18.boreal adj. 北的

19.hitherto adv. 迄今，至今

20.wreck vt. 破坏，拆毁

21.pristine adj. 质朴的

22.incorporate vt. 合并，使组成公司，具体表现

23.spongy adj. 像海绵的，柔软，多孔而有弹性的

24.boggy adj. 沼泽多的

25.aeon n. 永世，万古

26.snare v. 诱捕

27.hobo v. 过流浪生活

28.canoe n. 独木舟，轻舟