Tar Sand Eco Impact Pt.1(merged)

[ClassicSpiderman]

There will be a time when Alberta will be as you say, but that time is not now. May I suggest you sell your house now and rent for a little while. In a short time, you'll be able to pick up a McMansion for $10K or less (where you'll probably find me as your neighbour )

Well--my house is going to be paid off in 3 years--and that's no exaggeration. I only bought it 2 years ago (before I was peak oil aware). I thought I made the biggest mistake when I started to read about housing bubbles, etc but then job offers started to happen my way.

If I sounded smug--I apologize. I originally come from a very economically depressed area of Canada (Northern Ontario) where unemployment is well over 35%. My Uncle says it best about N. Ontario: "You have to suck c*ck if you want a good-paying job in these parts". In fact, if you guys want to buy a cheap home, go there in the smaller communities (Cochrane, Smooth Rock Falls, Moonbeam) and it's a buyer's market. You could easily find a home to retire in for only $5000. The only area of growth is Timmins (pop 40,000) and that's because it has a call center with an outsourcing contract to handle American cell phone support and inquiries. People in Timmins are grateful to get a full-time job that pays 'only' $10 an hour. However, the typical home there (1200 sq ft) will probably cost you around $100,000 now (before the call center was opened it was around half of that).

My first job out of community college was to pump gas in -40C weather for minimum wage. And there was BS 'office politics' with bitter part-time workers (also graduates of same community college) who were jealous that I had a full time schedule while they languished with 1-2 shifts per week. I got the hell out of there.

Peak oil may be hurting many parts of America and Canada but it hasn't hurt Alberta--in fact, it only has benefitted. The higher the price of oil, the more money comes this way. Even if there is a bust period (I can't foresee it, the last bust cycle in Alberta was artificially created by the government--Eastern Canadians jealous of Alberta's success basically voted itself subsidized gasoline at the expense of Alberta). I moved to Alberta in 2000 when the price of oil was much lower than it is now and I was able to find a job fairly quickly.

Peak oil will hurt a lot of people in Alberta too--those who aren't homeowners and want to buy one. Those people are basically screwed and priced out of the market. Could I afford a new home right now? HELL NO.

Unlike a lot of people here, I mostly see peak oil as an economic crisis rather than a logistical one. But that economic crisis will mostly be felt by those who rely on energy imports. You may talk about EREOI and the so-called environmental damage caused by tar sands mining in Athabasca (I live far from there, an 8 hour drive, I live in Calgary), but you can't argue about the fact that an inflow of capital means increased employment and higher quality of life for the people who live there. I live within walking distance of grocery stores, consumer electronics, post office and a 20-screen megaplex movie theater. LIFE IS GOOD HERE. It may be the last bastion of middle class life remaining in the world, but I'll enjoy it because I'VE PAID MY DUES. No one gave a crap when I was struggling to get by with odd jobs and min. wage work. It seemed that the generation before me (the boomers) were completely selfish in holding on to their well-paying jobs while Gen-X'ers like me were being lambasted for supposedly being lazy. It was all a bunch of BS. The unprecedented creation of wealth of the post-war era (1946-1974) came to a screeching halt and everyone was too blind or afraid to admit that things weren't quite like they were before.

Yes, I'll agree that the boom of Alberta is also artificial. House prices are going up like crazy due in part to home flippers, speculation but the most important part--desperation. Desperate people trying to hold on to the illusion of the 'American Dream' that their parents took for granted. People always want what they need. And they need the American Dream.

[FoxV]

It seemed that the generation before me (the boomers) were completely selfish in holding on to their well-paying jobs while Gen-X'ers like me were being lambasted for supposedly being lazy.

ya know I had almost forgotten about my struggling "Gen-X" days. Unfortunately we'll probably be back there again, as the power will be with the boomers for another 30years.

However I am sincere about selling and renting till the bust comes. Those dreamers to the south of us are begining to wake up to a severe hangover from their 4 year party. And when they go down, so do all the other big boom economies who are benefitting from their spending spree (we may be witnessing the flashpoint of a USD crash as we speak)

My current PO plan is to wait for the Alberta bust and start flipping houses as the next boom begins. Just wanted to let you know that I wasn't trying to criticize you, but offer my perspective/advice (for what its worth )

[ClassicSpiderman]

My current PO plan is to wait for the Alberta bust and start flipping houses as the next boom begins. Just wanted to let you know that I wasn't trying to criticize you, but offer my perspective/advice (for what its worth )

No worries, I just have a different perspective I suppose. Before I found out about PO I thought nothing of carrying thousands of dollars in credit card debt and was your typical consumer unit. I am extremely frugal now, and I suppose I could sell my house in the hopes of a housing crash but I figure that I might as well pay it off.

I was thinking about the posts I wrote in this thread and I guess I do come off as the stereotype of the arrogant Albertan that Canadians hate so much. I shouldn't exhibit so much hubris, everything could turn around very badly.

How do you think the next bust cycle will pan out in Alberta?

[Russian_Cowboy]

How do you think the next bust cycle will pan out in Alberta?

Alberta will mostly run out of natural gas in about 10 years. This will first affect everybody downstream including the gas plants, chemical manufacturers who use natural gas as their feedstock, and even the tar sand operations based on SAGD. So, already in 5-8 years Alberta will stop receiving all the oil/gas windfall money. On the other hand, there is enough land in Alberta to build new homes and to eventially satisfy the demand for housing.

[some_math_guy]

My father works in construction here in Nova Scotia and has been flying out to Fort McMurray to work on tar sands projects for a few months at a time for the past few years when work is slow here in NS. He can make about 3x his normal salary from working overtime. A friend of his made 160,000$ Cdn last year working on the tar sands projects, and he's just a laboror.

My dad told me what they do is basically scrape off all of the topsoil (ie. the habitat for thousands of animals), strip-mine the sand nearest the surface, then mix it with superheated water/steam to extract the bitumen. Then the sand is dumped back into the hole and the topsoil is scraped back on top. There is a huge man-made lake of poisoned oily water where they put the waste...it's so toxic that they have to put up scarecrows to keep birds from drinking the water and dying and bringing pesky environmentalists down on their heads.

All in all, I think the Albertan tar sands 'boom' is fairly characteristic of most oil-enterprising operations...raping the sh*t out of the available resources to extract the maximum amount of profit at the maximum rate, and to hell with anything else.

But hey, a guy's gotta make a buck, right? We've all got mortgages after all.

[whereagles]

All in all, I think the Albertan tar sands 'boom' is fairly characteristic of most oil-enterprising operations...raping the sh*t out of the available resources to extract the maximum amount of profit at the maximum rate, and to hell with anything else.

But hey, a guy's gotta make a buck, right? We've all got mortgages after all.

yeah... at this stage one wonders whether mankind is able to survive itself.

[threadbear]

Classic Spiderman could have summed up the gist of his thread with a little nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah.

Aren't we lucky to have pinheads like this at the pinnacle of power? Stephen Harpur our new pm is on the same page. But I'm loving it, because these guys are going to suffer big time in a wave of demand destruction coming really soon. And who deserves it more. Tards.

[FairMaiden]

Alberta is a joke. You do NOT own the land under your land in Alberta. So if the oil company finds oil under your ranch/farm/etc - they have every right to plop a big oil rig in the middle of your backyard and there isn't a dang thing you can do about it. There have been many lawsuits of individuals suffered miscarriages, deformed babies and cancer-related illness from having these rigs right next to their homes.

And universal medical?? Are you NUTS? Alberta has been pushing for a user pay medical system for years. The richest province in Canada and they want everyone to pay for their own medical. Its like a third world country - selling off its resources with no long term investmen and planning...good luck when you run out of water/natural gas/etc...then you'll have the "no growth" dead towns the likes of suburban Detroit or the dreaded S. Ontario you speak of...

And most of my relatives live in Alberta - they are constantly trying to talk me into moving there bc they could set me up with a big, high paying cushy job *(in the oil industry)!

[Eddie_lomax]

Well the water actually is made into lakes, nice black foul smelling lakes of contaminated waste water.

Excellent, and there was me worrying that we would have nothing to leave future generations

[AtmaStorm]

I've always thought the tar sands as a source for oil was a sham.
1. It takes far more energy to turn up the earth to get at the bitumen than a drilling operation; oil extract has the benefit of the deep underground pressure as an assist. With tar sands, you gotta haul it out manually.
2. Water presents several issues, including the one discussed in this thread.
What has really bothered me is the steam; water needs lots of thermal energy to get it boiling, therefore affecting the energy units in vs energy units out signifigantly.
3. What happens to all these toxic lakes left over from processing?
They just sit there till the end of time? They're a huge ecologic threat,
and some of the gases coming of it are nasty as hell. Not just that, but some of the longer chain hydrocarbons that slipped through will begin to decompose with constant exposure to the elements.
I picture myself in a nearby town wondering why the horizon has a brown haze. In addition, is there some sort of containment around these lakes? If I live in Alberta I'd think about moving at the worst.
If one of these lakes seeps it contents into underground streams then the shit hits the fan big time.

P.S. I forget the ratio of energy units in vs energy units out for tar sands, anyone got the figure?

[Raxozanne]

P.S. I forget the ratio of energy units in vs energy units out for tar sands, anyone got the figure?

http://www.eroei.com/eval/net_energy_list.html

It's in the list somewhere.

[pstarr]

It's in the list somewhere.

that's the problem with that site. It doesn't seem very concise. and where is corn and sugar ethanol?

[KevO]

"As we know, the oil sands and oil shales of Canada are put forward as one of the reasons why oil isn’t running out, why there is still a century or more of supplies to use. So this doesn’t look good:

However, before the peak oil crowd start crowing about how it shows that the process will never make sense, will never really amount to much, it’s worth looking at what (well, at least what Shell say) is the problem. It isn’t the process itself, isn’t something wrong with the whole idea. It’s simply a result of an overheated market:"

full article
HERE

and also
"SHELL is facing a cost explosion in the expansion of the Athabasca Oil Sands Project, a mining venture that extracts oil from bitumen deposits in the Canadian province of Alberta.

The first phase of expansion, intended to add 100,000 barrels daily to the current 155,000 barrel per day output was budgeted at C$7.3 billion (£3.6 billion) only a year ago. It is now expected to cost as much as C$11 billion, according to estimates published by Western Oil Sands, Shell’s partner in the project.

Shell Canada said yesterday that it was conducting an assurance review of the project’s cost, pending a final investment decision later this year. Planned in three phases, the Athabasca expansion is intended to raise output to 500,000 bpd, and represents a large part of Shell’s oil production ambitions.

Shell admitted to “significant upward pressure on capital costs” but declined to confirm its partner’s prediction of a 50 per cent increase."

more on that
HERE

What's it all mean?
Oil sands will be too expensive to develop having a ngative EROEI?

[Sleepybag]

Oil sands will be too expensive to develop having a ngative EROEI?

I guess you mean an EROEI between 0 and 1.

It is quite possible that oil companies will be interested in fuels that have an EROEI below 1. When the result is a liquid 'gasoline' then this might be worth the loss of energy. So therefor, tar, coal, natural gas, corn and switchgrass can all go into one side of the factory, as long as some commercially viable gasoline replacement comes out on the other end. The corn-to-ethanol factories in the Midwest use coal for the transformation process.

[MacG]

What's it all mean? Oil sands will be too expensive to develop having a ngative EROEI?

Most probably: Yes

The same goes for biofuels. At $20 oil, biofuels will be viable at $40, at $40 oil, biofuels will be viable at $60 etc, etc.

The infrastructure used to extract the tar sands was built with $20-$50 oil, but with infrastructure built with $75 oil, the tar sands will yield $100 oil. And so on and so on....

[Heineken]

As conventional sources of fuels deplete, the cost of "alternatives" will continue to rise along with the cost of everything else---another reason why we're screwed.

[pstarr]

As long as there is a store of moderately inexpensive petroleum flowing alt fuel experiments will continue. Processes which have a miserable to moderate energy return (like super deep-water crude, tar sands, stranded gas, etc.) will continue to run on an infrastructure of that inexpensive petroleum and with government and industry "investment" monies. The crap energy return is merely lost in the mix.

Processes which have scant positive energy returns and long miserable track records (coal to liquids, oil shale, etc. )will continue to burn research and development money but will never be built. Everybody knows the Germans lost the war and Apartheid died with FT.

Now the marginally positive (to grossely negative) energy returns from some biofuels are a magic siren calling us to vast stupidity. That is because the engineer and accountancy types who fund these projects;

1. know nothing about agriculture (and sincerely believe it is the next great thing, listen to self-serving academics and ag associations (like the Corn Growers) who are pulling the green rug over everyone's eyes, and are patriotic and want to believe in "energy independence") and
2. entry fees are pretty cheap. It doesn't cost a lot to build a mill and a fermenter.


Now all these high-tech industrial processes depend on cheap petroleum for development, prototyping, and installation. As long as that drug is available people can continue to delude themselves in thinking the party will continue. Once any and all of these alt fuel facilities are up and running energy inflation will cause energy production costs to inflate in lockstep with materials that are produced with same petroleum. No one will ever make a cent and the investors will drift away to their next gimmick. (bunkers, horse drawn plows, gold?)

[shortonoil]

Heineken said:

As conventional sources of fuels deplete, the cost of "alternatives" will continue to rise along with the cost of everything else---another reason why we're screwed.

Exactly the problem. This is a 1’st and 2’nd Law problem, which no one, even the oil companies seem to understand. The incremental energy output of oil is growing slower than the incremental energy input that is necessary to extract it. The slope of the ERoEI vs. time graph for conventional oil is at or very close to -1. As the slope of conventional oil’s ERoEI falls toward zero, above -1, the ERoEI of most non-conventional sources will go negative. This is because most of them are highly dependent on conventional oil for their processing and maintenance.

[DantesPeak]

In case anyone missed my prior thread on this, Canada released a comprehensive report on pipeline constraints in Western Canada.

Costs will not be the only thing restraining oil sands production.

Link to full report:

National Energy Board

[Fergus]

In case anyone missed my prior thread on this, Canada released a comprehensive report on pipeline constraints in Western Canada.

Costs will not be the only thing restraining oil sands production.

Link to full report:

National Energy Board

Wow, it just keeps getting darker and darker doesn't it?