Tar sand oil.... no peak oil?

[Mirza]

I read that there's quite a bit of oil in the tar sands - on the scale of lasting at least 200 years. It doesn't make things any better, however... more energy to extract = more $/barrel = unfathomable $$$ left for oil companies left to dictate energy and foreign policy.

[Marlin]

All we need is a little Global Warming and we'll have plenty more oil.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE("Business Day Article")</div>

In an irony that will infuriate environmentalists, oil companies are also likely to benefit from global warming. The US Geological Survey estimates that 25% of the world's known oil and gas reserves are in the Arctic Circle. As the ice melts, they become easier to exploit.[/b]

Global warming blows hot and cold

[Mirza]

Hyperbole. I think we all knew that Russia is going to have a lot of fossil fuel resources unlocked from permafrost melting. Got something better to do with your free time?

[tripp]

It also takes an enormous amount of water. Look at it this way. Canada currently produces about 1.0 mbd (million barrels a day) from various and sundry tar sand operations. Those operations account for 47% of the countries GHG emissions. They are ramping up production, targeting 3.0 mbd by 2015! The length of time that the resource will last really isn't that important. What really counts is how fast it can be produced. The EROI on tar sands is poor compared to oil (duh) so developing it on a massive scale will drive up the price of the other forms of energy required to produce more oil from tar sands. Natural gas is used in the process and it's an increasingly constrained resource. There will still be a peak, however. Tar sand production might be able to affect the shape of the production curve and the slope of the decline, but probably not by much and it certainly won't affect the price of oil in any meaningful way.

There's also coal to liquids (CTL) and oil shale. All of these things are energy intensive and I've heard vauge references to their poor scalability but I've got nothing to back it up.

I dug this up. http://www.energybulletin.net/22442.html.

I nicked this excerpt, about Tar sands and other unconventional sources of oil, from the article:

Unconventional petroleum resources (Canada’s tar sands, Venezuela’s bitumen and U.S. oil shales) are very large and very misunderstood. All oil is not created equal. Although they total trillions of barrels in the aggregate, expanding unconventional production is expensive, technically arduous and slow. Because these resources can not be produced at high rates, they can do little to postpone the peak in global production.

For example, at forecast 2015 rates of production, it will take more than a century to produce Canada’s 175 billion barrels of tar sand reserves. (A financial analogy: Imagine having $100,000,000 in your IRA, but being forbidden to withdraw more than $100,000 per year. You are rich, sort of.) With tens of billions of investment, Venezuela could expand its bitumen production, but Chavez is in no rush to do so, nor are the importing countries showing any indication of the investments in refinery modifications which would be required to deal with the increased proportion of very heavy oil.

As for oil shale, global production has never exceeded 25,000 barrels a day, has fallen by half since 1990, and now provides just 1/10,000th of global energy. Typical oil shales have the energy density of a baked potato. (In Colorado, Shell hopes to pull the sword from the stone using electricity: a dedicated 1,200 MW powerplant will be needed to produce 100,000 b/d, making this the world’s largest electricity consumer.) Other oft-heralded types of unconventional liquids, such as gas-to-liquids and coal-to-liquids, are very capital intensive and offer abysmal energy returns.

Biofuels, particularly Brazilian ethanol, will make an important contribution but only regionally. A breakthrough in the production of cellulosic ethanol would be welcome, but is unlikely to occur before oil production peaks.[/b]

[Darwood]

Yeah, good stuff up in the sands. I takes more energy in natural gas usage to get the oil out of the sand. Nevermind that to get to the sand, you need to stripmine the entire area. The energy return vs the energy expended is very questionable.
Oil used to gush out of the the ground. After that, we had to expend 1 barrel of energy to pump out 30 or more. Then we had to dig deeper and get 10 barrels for every one used. Tomorrow's sources (sand/heavy or sour, shale, bio) all require almost as much energy to produce as it actually creates. This actually increases the demand for the stuff itself. Someday, the pie chart of oil usage is going to change dramatically as more and more energy goes into....producing energy. At some point you're treading water and it makes no sense.

[KMO]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mirza @ Apr 20 2007, 04:14 PM) [snapback]426729[/snapback]</div>

I read that there's quite a bit of oil in the tar sands - on the scale of lasting at least 200 years.[/b]

Read the small print. That's 200 years at current consumption rates.

But in case you hadn't noticed, our consumption is doubling every 30 years, and shows no signs of slowing. Which, by my calculations, if that 200 years was correct, that would translate to 75 years at current consumption growth. And even that's debatable, given the EROI problems mentioned above.

Exponential growth is a real problem. In the next thirty years (2007-2037), we'll use as much oil as we have used in the whole of history up to today.

[burritos]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(KMO @ Apr 20 2007, 11:55 AM) [snapback]426811[/snapback]</div>

Read the small print. That's 200 years at current consumption rates.

But in case you hadn't noticed, our consumption is doubling every 30 years, and shows no signs of slowing. Which, by my calculations, if that 200 years was correct, that would translate to 75 years at current consumption growth. And even that's debatable, given the EROI problems mentioned above.

Exponential growth is a real problem. In the next thirty years (2007-2037), we'll use as much oil as we have used in the whole of history up to today.
[/b]

Good. Let's use it up since it's inevitable. Then we can get on with it. And if "getting on with it" means that we will have to resort to eating our neighbors' dogs', well let's hope they taste like chicken.

[F8L]

No one has mentioned the social justice issues involved with tar sand oil and natural gas extraction, transport, and refining. The vast majority of this oil will be extracted on, transported through and refined in First Nation peoples of them are not to happy about it.

IEN

Clayton Thomas-Mueller at a Bioneers conference

[skruse]

http://www.oilendgame.com/

The solution is efficiency and sustainability, not extraction. These include:

• Quadruple the efficiency of using oil.
• Apply creative business models and public policies to speed the profitable adoption of superefficient light vehicles, heavy trucks, and airplanes.
• Provide another one-fourth of U.S. oil needs by a major domestic biofuels industry.
• Use well established, highly profitable efficiency techniques to save half the projected 2025 use of natural gas, making it again abundant and affordable, then substitute part of the saved gas for oil.

Any other approach is "least cost, first use" (short-term) thinking. A more profitable path is "least cost, end use (long-term) sustainable thinking.

[hyo silver]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tripp @ Apr 20 2007, 12:00 PM) [snapback]426766[/snapback]</div>

It also takes an enormous amount of water...Those operations account for 47% of the countries GHG emissions...
[/b]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Darwood @ Apr 20 2007, 12:10 PM) [snapback]426775[/snapback]</div>

...takes more energy in natural gas usage to get the oil out of the sand. Nevermind that to get to the sand, you need to stripmine the entire area. The energy return vs the energy expended is very questionable... At some point you're treading water and it makes no sense.
[/b]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(F8L @ Apr 22 2007, 12:41 PM) [snapback]427807[/snapback]</div>

No one has mentioned the social justice issues involved with tar sand oil and natural gas extraction, transport, and refining...
[/b]

For many very good reasons, making oil from tar sands is a bad idea. Quite simply, the costs are greater than the benefits. But the people getting the benefits don't pay the costs, and as long as there's 'profit' to be made, it will happen.