Ms. Buckley may very well have things she wants to add because she's a little bit closer to the actual work that we're doing at Natural Resources Canada, but I just want to comment in a general kind of a way.
There has been huge technological progress in the oil sands since Suncor started up 30 or 40 years ago. The original cost to produce a barrel of oil was something in the order of $40 and now it's down to around $20. A large part of that has come through being more energy efficient. This is kind of a continual improvement, and we have seen ongoing efficiency improvements in the oil sands.
I think there are some exciting prospects coming up. Some of the companies planning new plants, for example, are planning to not use natural gas, which is one of those non-renewable resources that Mr. Cardin was referring to; they're going to gasify the junk that's left over. That's really quite exciting as a way of expanding our available supply of energy.
I think it's fair to say that we in Natural Resources Canada, and people in industry, all see carbon dioxide capture and storage as an absolutely essential technology. We'll need to develop this over the years to come if we're going to make the exploitation of the oil sands environmentally sustainable. We're not there yet. You can capture CO2, but it's quite costly to do it. I think bringing that cost down should be a real priority for us.