Canada's oil industry seeks game-changing technology

Washington

HARBIR Chhina helped develop the game-changing steam technology that allowed companies to tap the world's third-largest reserves in Canada's oil sands. It was a moonshot that paid off.

Now the oil-sands industry, still recovering from last month's wildfires, needs another one. Without a technological breakthrough like steam injection three decades ago, the flows that transformed the country's economy could slow to a trickle.

In a world that has plenty of cheap crude, and increasingly demands cleaner energy, the oil sands look dirty, as well as expensive.

The search for cleaner and cheaper techniques may be less urgent than fighting the blaze, which knocked out …