FORT McMURRAY, Alberta — For decades, the U.S. has vowed to
reduce its dependence on imported oil and to find a reliable
source to meet the nation's growing oil needs. Now, Canada
offers a solution. While oil supplies are dwindling in some
places, or disrupted by hurricanes, threatened by terrorist
attacks or controlled by hostile governments, Alberta's oil
sands — a patch of forest about the size of Florida with a sea
of oil beneath it — produce more crude than all the wells in
Texas or Alaska. With more than 170 billion barrels, the oil
sands are the second-largest proven reserves in the world after
Saudi Arabia. Because of the Alberta oil sands, Canada has
become the largest supplier of crude oil to the U.S. The oil
sands are booming, and production is expected to triple in a
little more than a decade. Also growing are the environmental
costs — higher greenhouse gas emissions than conventional oil
and long-term destruction of a swath of deep forest. In the past
few months, Alberta officials have announced