The technology, actually, in the old sense, in the extraction of the oil sands, made major strides up to the late 1990s, before the prices of everything went down.
You could produce better oil for about $8 or $9. This is for production. Now it is close to $40, and it has nothing to do with technology. It has to do with the cost of the steel, as Mr. Stringer said, and the cost of labour, and so on.
If we go back to the tailings technology, at any time you can buy brute force. You could solve this problem today through brute force.