Did you copy that off of GOPUSA.com?
If you really believe that the tar sands in Canada can replace the crude being used on a daily basis in this country, then you are sorely mistaken.
Of course, any notion that the status quo in the US might be unsustainable is either refuted or labeled as a "conspiracy theory".
The problem with tar sands is their Energy Return on Investment or EROI. Right now crude oil has an EROI of about 10:1. $10 output for every $1 input.
Tar sands EROI is less than 3:1. The process of converting the tar sand into useful petroleum distillates is energy intensive, requires huge amounts of water, and is very bad for the environment.
Do you know just how much crude oil the US uses every day? How much the US produces every day? What about the potential output of the tarsands in Canada?
For the un-initiated, check out www.energybulletin.org Once the output of crude oil fails to meet world demand life as we know it will begin to undergo dramatic changes. Our whole economy is based on cheap oil. Currently there are no viable replacements. How will our growth based economy continue to grow once cheap energy is a thing of the past?
Keep living in denial and believe everything the mainstream media tells you and you'll be fine. Hell, just buy another SUV! Oil will be down to $25 a barrel in no time! *(-sarcasm)
Check out www.peakoil.com for more discussion on this vital yet largely ignored issue.
********************* a litte more on tar sands from
How Much is Gas in your Area__ 1784Bill, My apologies on the link above. It should be www.energybulletin.net Nuclear power is definitely part of the solution. But it is not the panacea some would wish. Hydrogen economy? How...
***************************** According to industry analysts the world leader in tar sand ores is Canada where the mineral covers approximately 77,000 square kilometers (km2). The oil bearing sands are found chiefly in four Alberta regions: Athabasca (26,300 km2), Cold Lake (13,500 km2), Peace River (4,900 km2), and Wabasca (4,300 km2). It is estimated that in this region between 280 and 300 billion barrels of oil are recoverable. However, as serious existing problems document, the development of the Canadian tar sands comes at high environmental and economic costs while producing negligible or net negative energy.
The largest producer today is Syncrude of Canada producing about 215,000 barrels of oil daily, about 14% of Canada's total oil production. In an $8 billion project a consortium lead by Syncrude expects to produce approximately 25% of total Canadian oil. In 1999, Syncrude produced 81.4 million barrels and by 2007 the plan is to produce 170 million barrels per year.
If the $8 billion capital investment is divided by the output (170 million barrels), the result yields a ballpark breakeven oil price almost double the market price today -$47 per barrel (in today's dollar). This implies a cost of gasoline over $3 a gallon before transporting, operating expenses and profit margin ?when the current gasoline price is less than $1.50. Suggesting the temporary nature of the large Syncrude development, if production reached a goal of 200 million barrels per year the total recoverable reserves will be exhausted within 15 years. That is to say, by the year 2020 Canada will have few remaining natural gas or oil reserves in any form. The environmental consequences of extraction and processing, however, will persist.
The effect on the land is only one of several environmental consequences. Mining the tar sands is a mbuttive undertaking. To simply prepare the site for the Aurora mine opened last year required the removal of over 20 million cubic meters of overburden. The tractor-like vehicles have 43 cubic meter "shovels", each scoop significantly larger than a two-car garage. Syncrude is proud to state that "more soil has been excavated by Syncrude than from the construction of the Great Pyramid of Cheops, the Great Wall of China, the Suez Canal and the 10 biggest dams in the world combined." And the developments are in the early stages! With 77,000 km2 of land with ore, the size of the mines could easily swell beyond imagination.23
Although Canada has greater free water resources than any other nation the copious use of a life-sustaining resource for tar sand processing requires careful thought.
Water laced with oil and tailings is a byproduct of the manufacturing process. It has been found that for every barrel of useful oil manufactured, over twice the volume of water polluted wastes result. The current Alberta Syncrude pond is greater than 23 kilometers (14.5 miles) in circumference (25 km2), with about six meters (20 feet) of water polluted with tailings laced oil lying above a 40 meter layer (125 feet) composed of oil mixed with sand, silt, and clay. Thus, by 2025 Syncrude will have in excess of one billion cubic meters of fine tailings and other matter stored in ponds and maintained as polluted muddy water. (However, as described above, recoverable tar sand oil deposits will be depleted a decade before 2025.) In addition, there are also heavy tailings requiring sizeable ponds as well.
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GREAT SOLUTION THERE BUDDY!!!
