THE Tar Sands Thread (merged)

[Denny]

That picture looks about the same as if it were taken at most open pit mining operations. I have been to a few, the largest being in northern Minnesota at the Mesabi range iron mines. They aren't pretty, that is for sure. As somebody else pointed out, that area of boreal forest in Alberta is none too pretty to begin with.

To be fair to Syncrude, one should get a picture of a renewed area. And, don't forget that among their "stakeholders" are not just the shareholders looking for money, but the Alberta government and the Indian bands who want the land restored.

[EndOfSewers]

I have seen reclaimed land at the Syncrude site and it looks fine. There was a small herd of bison grazing there. Obviously the money and apparently the will exist to do effective cosmetic surgery when the work is done. That won't bring back the water or natural gas though.

[WildRose]

As somebody else pointed out, that area of boreal forest in Alberta is none too pretty to begin with.

Whether or not the northern boreal forest strikes you or me as pretty has nothing to do with the issues. In its natural state it is a thriving ecosystem and beautiful all on its own, home to a large variety of plants and wildlife. Because of the oil sands activity, at least one of the rivers running through it is turning brown and the air is questionable. Syncrude has reclaimed some of the land, but from what I've read from other sources it will be a very long time until it resembles the original forest. I will look for some links in regards to this.

Aside from the ecological damage, the other issues are the amount of water and natural gas used in the process and the growing level of greenhouse gases produced. Syncrude is meeting government standards, but that isn't saying much as those standards are lacking. Tar sands projects are in the top few industries in Canada for the amounts of greenhouse gas emissions in our atmosphere. The huge area of forest that is gone further complicates matters because the forest isn't able to do what it actually does a very good job of, and that's take care of the excess C02.

The northern forest is not as classically beautiful or as majestic as Jasper National Park or the Kananaskis region, to be sure. But those areas are protected because they produce so much money through tourism.

[Denny]

I think everybody is on the same wavelength that it is imperative to restore the land when finsihed. And, yes, production of synthetic crude uses natural gas and its does emit lots of CO2. But the reality is that there is strong market for fuels right now. It has always been the nature of Canda to exploit its mineral wealth. Some people seem to think of this exploitation is evil. They think we should treat nature not as our servant, but rather sacrosanctly, almost as a deity.

But, I learned in school as a youngster that, according to the bible, God gave dominion over the earth to Adam, which evolved over time to the monarch and in turn she (Queen Victoria) gave the authority over this land to the Parliament of Canada and its provinces with the authority segmented according to the British North America Act. That was the origin of the term "Dominion of Canada".

Thus the earth and the animals are under our control, not the other way around. We must be intelligent about this, practicising conservation appropriately, not like what happened in the nickel belt a century ago, but these riches are for us (at least the people of Alberta) to use.

[pstarr]

Dominion over the land? Holy jesus! What does that have to do with this.

Oil sands are a joke subsidized by relatively inexpensive petroleum. As long as Canada produces light sweet crude and believes in a subsidies this nonsence will continue. The entire project is subsidized by heavy equipment built when petroleum was cheaper than cool-aid. It is subsidized by natural gas and coal electric energy. This entire project is an energy-conversion scheme and not a source of primary energy.

Canada is sacrificing natural gas, clean water, clean air: in fact the planetary ecosystem that supports feeds and protects all humans. For short-term monetary gain. This is the most corrupt subsidy of them all.

[holmes]

LOL! Conservation! LOL. Yeah. Its energy for us! The problem there einstein is that we aint even gonna see that energy. Its a ponzi scam. Profits for a very few. Its really just kinda like just a thing to do just for the sake of doing. It will fill a few wealthy peoples pockets. We arent getting hardly any of this energy! How freakin stupid are people! IT IS PONZI! doeas any one have a clue? Imn afraid not.

[pstarr]

We humans are nothing more than the shit, grease and cum smeared underwear of a NYC wino. Nothing more.

I'm glad I joined this forum That is classic stuff. It takes a while to get into the swing of a new thread. I think I got it now.

A person's gasoline consumption should be monitored. Consumer drives down the street for a bag of natchos and warning picture (devastation of open-pit mine) flashes on the dashboard gameboy. If driver persists hypodermic needle injects person's fat butt with NYC wino solution.

[coyote]

If an outside force of "goodness" doth exist - please assist us now..

I'm with you there... but if I were that 'outside force,' I'd be shaking my head and saying "Screw you guys" right about now...

[coyote]

Reforestation during 2003 included the planting of 315,000 tree and shrub seedlings on 240 hectares, bringing to 2,835,000 the total of trees and shrubs planted since 1978. Direct 2003 expenditures on reforestation and other reclamation programs was about $10 million."

I think everybody is on the same wavelength that it is imperative to restore the land when finsihed.

Oh the hubris. Is that all you and they think 'restoration' consists of?

'Restoration' of a destroyed complex system is dicey at best, is usually screwed up completely, and to succeed at all requires an incredibly high level of knowledge, familiarity, patience and delicacy. It certainly won't be accomplished by planting a few weed-trees into decimated and raped soil. Might as well slash the Mona Lisa with a chainsaw, then give a toddler some tape and crayons to 'restore' it.

Actually, never mind. The toddler would do a better job.

[ClassicSpiderman]

This thread was hilarious. Especially about the part about 20 provinces in Canada ruined by oil sands extraction when the operations multiply by 20... lol (hint: there are 10 provinces in Canada).

Pollution is local... 99% of the population in Alberta would not even be affected by tar sands operations if the oil companies DID ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to repair the damage being done. BUT THEY ARE REQUIRED TO CLEAN UP ANYWAY.

[Denny]

LOL! Conservation! LOL. Yeah. Its energy for us! The problem there einstein is that we aint even gonna see that energy. Its a ponzi scam. Profits for a very few.

The profits are not for a "very few". Most of the companies operating in the oils ands are public companies. You can buy shares in them. The private ones often have an income trust associated to support their capital needs, which pay out some healthy distributions. (Well, at least to 2010, but that is another issue.)

All kinds of pension funds, including yours, assuming you're in the CPP or QPP, are invested in these energy companies.

[lzlp]

what some of you don't seem to realize is that it isn't " THEM " doing this. It's US. WE are addicted. If we own a car, heat our homes, and consume large amounts of plastic, it's us.

[holmes]

Im not addressing companies or corporations. There is NO other option left. Thats apparent. Im bitching at the HUMAN RACE in general. Weve grown way toomuch and have become a nasty bloated parasite. We are winding our way to the last drops now. So now we are in disgusting pathetic mode now. We are cannibals now. Its really fun to watch us consume the last parts of our external bodies. Eventually we will begin to conume actual human bodies becuase their wont be nothing left to consume except humans. Restoration? LOL. That region will never produce anyhting again for us. shes all Dwindling down now. On to the next! The problem is running out of "next". Im saying nothing about corporations! Humans need to reduce breeding. I understand whos driving the death march. The ones that continue to go BAU! Obviously.

[ThePostman]

I am doing a research paper for my Master's degree and hope the PO community can provide some references for research.

Long story short, my professor is an energy economist with about 50 years of experience in the industry and has stated that the Canadian tar sands hold an estimated 100X unextracted oil beyond current reserves and therefore, "we have little to worry about" when it comes to "running out of energy". The question, at least in academic terms and for my analysis, is where the cost point of extraction of these sands truly lies in terms of economic viability.

From http://www.energybulletin.net/1894.html :
"Energy economists in Calgary, the freewheeling commercial capital of this sparsely populated but energy-rich province of three million, say that most tar sands projects are viable only when oil is selling for more than $30 a barrel."

Intuitively, and if correct, it would have been economically viable to aggressively pursue this resource some time ago.

While I may not necessarily be sold on PO, or more specifically it's often predicted ramifications of a hard landing occurring in our lifetime, I choose to follow "Pascal's Wager" and be prepared for something that I hope doesn't occur rather than finding myself at the opposite end of the spectrum. In any case, it should make for an interesting research project.

That said, I'm simply looking for references that I can research in order to base an economic viability study upon, free of bias or subjectivity, at least as objective as it can get given the quantity of unknowns in the equation. Debate on the subject is not really what I'm after however I will entertain any feedback you may have on the subject. We all have our views on PO, the timing and ramifications of such, I'm simply trying to come up with some quantifiable data that will help us make an informed decision on one aspect of the bigger picture.

Thanks, R.C.

[Jack]

I did a google scholar search using the terms:

EROEI tar sands

and got several references. One of the more interesting ones was:

This PDF (LINK)

Google scholar mentioned it was cited by two other works, so that suggests it has some merrit. More importantly, it has some citations which should give you a starting point. (Tar sands are mentioned on page 4).

You might also wish to look at the Army Corps of Engineers report (from Google) at: This Link

Perhaps, after you finish your work, you would consider posting a link to your conclusions.

[frankthetank]

"60 minutes" did a piece a while back. I could hook you up with it if you like.

[MrBill]

Intuitively, and if correct, it would have been economically viable to aggressively pursue this resource some time ago.

It has been aggressively pursued for over 30-years now. At least that is how long Syncrude has been operating in Fort McMurray for. But as little as 5-6 years ago the price of crude was significantly below $30, so excellerated development was not economical.

Keeping in mind that breakeven costs at $30 a barrel that were forecasted back in the 1970s have since risen due to inflation and of course energy that now costs over $50 per barrel. Some of that has been offset by efficiency gains, but not all.

We are now in what I consider phase II of the oilsands development. Phase III will come when natural gas as a feedstock is phased out and nuclear energy is used a source of heat and power for bitumen extraction.

Here is one link
Government of Alberta info about oil sands development webpage

And if you google nuclear energy and oil sands you will get the latest headlines over proposals to use Candu reactors up there

Alberta mulls nuclear plants to power oil sands extraction


Good luck with your thesis. We look forward to reading it hopefully?

[ThePostman]

Thanks for the input, I've read through the links as time allows and there's some good references to start with. I'll probably need to investigate further on EROEI as Jack suggested as this will likely provide better economic indicators. There's also a tie-in to the global warming/global dimming costs as the bitumen is not very environmentally friendly.
My quick math from your links shows Canadian sands as follows:

3mbpd canadian total output
87000000 current world consumption
1.74E+11 proven reserves - canadian bitumen
2000 365
5.479452055 years (total depletion @ current technology)
3.6mbpd max predicted production by 2020

So the issue in Canada doesn't appear to be with reserves but rather with production. I used 87mbpd for world consumption rate (although estimates seem to be between 80-84mbpd). These numbers indicate max contribution to daily world consumption at about 4% which obviously wouldn't make much of a dent. That's not accounting for China, India, etc. which will likely push consumption well past 100mbpd by 2020.
Interesting... if I can find some EROEI numbers, I may have a paper here.
Thx again, R.

[FatherOfTwo]

So the issue in Canada doesn't appear to be with reserves but rather with production.

BINGO! That is THE thing to remember. Oil sands is not conventional oil production, so the cost point will be constantly fluctuating. Some trends will push it up, others may decrease it, but I believe there is more upward trend than down.

Upward trend: current fuel costs Price and availability of NG. Majority of producers still use NG, companies such as Husky are asking aloud where the NG for the projects already planned is going to come from. (CAPP said that conventional NG production peaked several years ago.)

Upward trend: environmental concerns – GHG emissions, water use etc. Federal regulations? (See Liberal leader Dion’s comments about possible punitive legistlation)

Up/Down(?) trend: fuel – potential Nuclear power for steam generation? If subsidized by the government to allow GHG emissions to drop, possibly it would be a downward trend. It the government forces industry to finance it, this would almost certainly have to be an upward trend.

Upward trend: labour and infrastructure costs. See Ft. Mac. Nuff said.

Downward trend: fuel – potential New technology that lowers external fuel requirements drastically eg. THAI (see “heavy oil” at petrobank.com ) or other bitumen based fuel stocks (MSAR etc.)


Lastly, the cost of production and total reserves size has no bearing on your professor’s silly comment about there being no worries. Forest for the trees anyone? 3.5mbpd by 2020 is a drop in the bucket of world demand. There is about as much financial incentive right now as there can be to develop the oil sands. Any more financial incentive (eg. $100+ oil and oil importing economies will start cratering and oil exporting economies, such as Alberta, will overheat (if it isn’t already)

If they can only get to 3.5mbpd by 2020, that simply doesn’t bode well for the “no worries here” argument.

[FatherOfTwo]

Oh, and while EROEI is an important concept that SHOULD have an impact on what decisions are made, the reality is, cost is the only thing that matters. How many oil CEO's have you seen talk about EROEI? Zilch. Until the game changes drastically, it'll remain at zilch for a long time.