Sharky:

As a Marketing Manager, I always used to accentuate the saying "strive for perfection but, accept results". Meaning in this context, make the bitumen extraction as environmentally friendly as possible consistent with the reality of cost constraints, market pricing acceptability and environmental mandates. It is up to government and the national culture to assure that the mandates are not so onerous as to prevent technology from solving the critical issues. If we strive to make the requirements in environmental terms so onerous that they cannot be met, then we will only pay a price which I am not at all sure society is ready to accept. The choice between loss of mobility or, a price which none can afford for fuel. Perhaps the neadrethals represented by the environmental whackos are comfortable with such a choice. But, I doubt the general population is!

Brian