Tar sand oil.... no peak oil?

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

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

Global warming blows hot and cold

 

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:

 

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.

 

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

 

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

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.

 

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

 

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.

 

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

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

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

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.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ Apr 22 2007, 09:40 AM) [snapback]427747[/snapback]</div>

Ahem....Where do you live?

I may have to exercise my second amendment opportunity while us po' folks still have it. (I'm sure the rich will continue to have every right...that's what Fascism is...Democracy for the elite.)

BTW I'm sure Ramses doesn't taste anything like chicken and is probably very, very tough. No appetizing at all. Do your neighbors have any cats?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hyo silver @ Apr 22 2007, 10:16 AM) [snapback]427821[/snapback]</div>

This is one of the problems I have with globalization and centralized anything. The costs are hidden from the majority of the consumers.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Apr 22 2007, 10:18 AM) [snapback]427824[/snapback]</div>

Let's just hope all these suits against former and current politicians/CEOs pan out to be more than just slaps on the wrist and that all of the people who claim "conspiracy theory" anytime they hear about a scandle involving a politician/CEO will open their wool covered eyes and realize the truth... That selfishness and greed is the cornerstone of our system both economic and governmental since they are now one in the same.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(F8L @ Apr 22 2007, 01:26 PM) [snapback]427826[/snapback]</div>

This is a major flaw with accounting in general. The current concepts of wealth and profit are just plain wrong.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hyo silver @ Apr 22 2007, 10:30 AM) [snapback]427834[/snapback]</div>

I agree completely yet why is it still being taught at my college? Is it that our professors are becoming just as antiquated as the idealogy they teach?

Here is an interesting website by one of the authors of State of the World.

I also just picked up "Natural Capitalism" - Paul Hawken, Amory and Hunter Lovins.

 

That tar sand extraction is even being considered is, in fact, a great indicator that peak oil is here - not the other way around that is implied in the OP. Extracing oil from the "tar" sands uses significantly more energy, costs significantly more money, and is significantly more polluting than getting oil the old fashioned way - so when tar sand extraction is viable, we're in bad shape, folks.

 

A very good report on Tar Sands from the oil industry.

http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=30703

Nate

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(naterprius @ Apr 22 2007, 04:45 PM) [snapback]427988[/snapback]</div>

Before reading the article I would have thought "a very good report from the oil industry" would have been like saying "the dead bird is alive". IE, no way that sentence could make sense or be true. LOL

 

The article sounds a lot like what I said... with with more words.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ Apr 22 2007, 05:48 PM) [snapback]428027[/snapback]</div>

Hahaha yeah, that's why I have never disagreed with you on tar sands and ethanol. I've read all this before in many books but most notably "State of the World 2005 and 2006" - World Watch Institute.