[talus]

Imagine what all that goop will do to the environment. We have to stop killing the planet. Our light oil reserves will soon be gone. At that point we should call it a day and find a healthier way to live for our children's sake. Solar building designs, heat pumps for every house, smaller house designs, electric bicycles, crop rotation, less consumer choice, perhaps these are some of the things we really have to be doing now. As a B.C. Tahltan chief said to a Shell Oil representative the other day, "..you are poisoning our kitchen."

[Spud]

The tar sands will never produce.The is just too many problems,and all those rich Albertans don`t want toxic lakes just anywhere. <img align=absmiddle src='images/smilies/twisted.gif' alt='Twisted Evil'> <img align=absmiddle src='images/smilies/mrgreen.gif' alt='Mr. Green'>

[Perturbed]

Americans who don't dare mention occupations forget to mention NAFTA gives them the stuff anyway.

[Dr Caleb]

That's an old article. Just a little clairification - 'Syncrude' is the name of a company. "Synthetic Crude' is what you get when you convert Tarsand to Crude Oil, in a process called 'cracking'. <br /> <br /> Alberta is now #1 in the world as far as crude oil reserves. We're still #2 as far as reserves that can be exploited, but SAG-D technology (Steam Assisted, Gravity Driven) makes almost 90% of our reserves exploitable. Synthetic crude is highly prized, because it is very high quality, and low sulphur. It's easier to 'crack' into gasoline and heavy fuel oil.<br /> <br /> Saudi oil is cheaper to exploit, at about $2 per barrel out of the ground, but Alberta Syncrude Sweet blend costs about $9 to extract, and sells about 20% above the price for Texas intermediate crude. (Today that's about $65 a barrel).<br /> <br />

[talus]

Home heating fuel- natural gas, makes the steam. It's like a zero sum game for energy extraction with the added bonus of polluted air and water. I'd rather keep the natural gas in reserve to heat our homes until there is some alternative. otherwise, people will be returning to wood and coal.

[Perturbed]

[QUOTE BY= talus] Home heating fuel- natural gas, makes the steam. It's like a zero sum game for energy extraction with the added bonus of polluted air and water. I'd rather keep the natural gas in reserve to heat our homes until there is some alternative. otherwise, people will be returning to wood and coal.[/QUOTE]<br /> <br /> I'd talk about lack of royalties, low corporate taxes, but what about that plan to build a CANDU reactor to heat the steam? Not a bad idea if speed is the key, but we should trade east-west IMO and keep it for when WE need it.<br /> <br /> Taxpayers paying for a nuclear plant to enruch foreign oil comapanies would be a bit disturbing IMO.

[talus]

Some good news today, our government is investing in a system to extract oil from oil sands using compressed air instead of natural gas and water. Also, a 50+ solar heated housing development in Alberta. Now if they could find a way not to burn that oil. <img align=absmiddle src='images/smilies/biggrin.gif' alt='Big Grin'>

[Spanky]

Talus said:<br /> <i>Some good news today, our government is investing in a system to extract oil from oil sands using compressed air instead of natural gas and water. Also, a 50+ solar heated housing development in Alberta. Now if they could find a way not to burn that oil.</i><br /> <br /> Any idea what the EROEI (Energy Returned on Energy Invested) would be for this compressed air method? My understanding is that one of the drawbacks to the traditional tar sands processing methods is that it is very energy intensive (most of that energy currently coming from natural gas) and the EROEI for the tar sands derived oil is very low compared to conventional oil sources, i.e. in the range of 1.5:1 compared to approximately 30:1 for conventional oil. In other words, with the oil derived from tar sands for each unit of energy put into the process of producing the oil you get only 1.5 units of energy in the oil pumped out the other end.<br /> <br /> More discussion of Energy Economics here:<br /> <br /> <i>energy return on energy invested, or EROEI<br /> <br /> When an energy source that has an EROEI ratio of 4:1 is replaced with another, alternative, energy source which has an EROEI ratio of 2:1, twice as much gross energy has to be produced in order to reap the same net quantity of resulting usable energy.<br /> <br /> This can be worse than it looks. Consider that I inherited one barrel of oil, and the EROEI was 4:1. I could use my one barrel and end up with four barrels. Now consider that the EROEI was 2:1, and I still wanted four barrels. Well, I can use my one barrel to extract two barrels, then I have to use those two barrels to extract the four barrels that I want. Thus with an EROEI of 2:1, it has cost me three barrels to gain four; whereas with an EROEI of 4:1, it only cost me one barrel.<br /> <br /> This means that when a society moves to using energy sources that have lower EROEIs, the actual amount of energy available to use (for manufacturing, transport, heating etc.) inevitably will diminish.</i> <br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.abelard.org/briefings/energy-economics.asp">www.abelard.org</a>

[Dino]

Do any of you know exactly how much of our oil in Canada is foreign owned?

[talus]

Here's the promo and the link:<br /> <br /> "The THAI™ technology offers a number of advantages over the current steam-assisted gravity drainage system for heavy oil recovery, including higher potential resource recovery (70-80 percent), lower production and capital costs, minimal usage of natural gas and fresh water, the possibility of a partially upgraded crude oil product and significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions"<br /> <br /> <a /> <br /> This may prevent Alberta looking like a charred carcass but it still does nothing for our dying planet. We have to decrease our expectations of prosperity built on burned fuel.<br /> <br /> http://www.ic.gc.ca/cmb/welcomeic.nsf/0/85256a5d006b972085256fd60065aa54?OpenDocument<br />

[Spanky]

[QUOTE BY= talus] <br /> <br /> (snip)<br /> <br /> We have to decrease our expectations of prosperity built on burned fuel.<br /> <br /> http://www.ic.gc.ca/cmb/welcomeic.nsf/0/85256a5d006b972085256fd60065aa54?OpenDocument<br /> [/QUOTE]<br /> <br /> You won't get any argument from me on that. Unfortunately I've heard it more than once that <a href="http://alternet.org/envirohealth/21588/">Peak Oil</a> is a myth and we have no real energy problems because we can just start producing more Tar Sands oil if/when Middle Eastern oil goes into decline.<br /> <br /> Even if reducing greenhouse gasses was not in itself an important issue to deal with, our traditional western, industrialized economies have evolved over the last 100 years into a system that depends on continued economic growth fueled by an ever increasing availability of cheap energy (to date supplied by fossil hydrocarbons). From what I've seen, I don't think its wise to count on low EROEI Tar Sands oil making up the shortfall in energy supplies that will occur when the high EROEI oil from the major Middle Eastern producers like Saudi Arabia hit peak and go into decline. Unless some very significant improvements in energy efficency are made and we have much more diversified energy supplies when the world oil production peak occurs, we will likely be in for some major economic turmoil and dislocation.<br /> <br /> To grasp the impact of constantly expanding growth on resource consumption I recommend watching University of Colorado's Professor Al Bartlett's presentation on exponential growth, doubling times and resource consumption. What many fail to grasp is that it is not enough to find ways and means to replace today's energy requirements with renewables and alternatives etc, but if we insist on keeping our current economic system intact, we must plan on how we are going to fill tomorrow's energy requirements as well.<br /> <br /> As Professor Bartlett explains, even quite small constant increases in consumption (exponential growth) leads to a doubling of consumption in much shorter time frames than the non mathematically inclined might think would be possible, and it takes only a few doubling times for what once appeared to be a long lasting and bountiful resource to be whittled down to insignificance.<br /> <br /> Al Bartlett's presentation:<br /> Real Player Version (.ram streaming video cable/DSL connection required)<br /> <a href="http://edison.ncssm.edu/programs/colloquia/bartlett.ram">Real Player-Cable/DSL</a> <br /> <br /> MP4 version. (Apple Quick Time or Real Player) - Downloadable, right click on link and select save.<br /> <a href="http://news.globalfreepress.com/movs/Al_Bartlett-PeakOil.mp4">MP4 </a><br /> <br /> The substance of Professor Bartlett's presentation is also contained in his Paper <a href="http://www.npg.org/specialreports/bartlett_index.htm">Forgotten fundamentals of the energy crisis</a>

[Spud]

Well said!This planet is only so big and has only so many resources.We consume far too much.The system is showing some serious cracks already,so instead of patching it up we should rebuild it so that it will last longer and benefit more,not just a few on top. <img align=absmiddle src='images/smilies/twisted.gif' alt='Twisted Evil'>