THE Tar Sands Thread (merged)

[WildRose]

From the same article Tanada just referenced above, natural gas exports from Canada to the US are expected to decline 30% by 2015 - that's just 8 years from now. I didn't think it was going to be that much of a decline, that soon. Can anyone remember what percentage of the natural gas used in the US comes from Canada?

Sorry it that question is a bit off topic.

[Oil-Finder]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 201431.htm

Making Gas Out Of Crude Oil: Discovery Could Lead To Dramatic Improvement In Fossil Fuel Processing

ScienceDaily (Dec. 12, 2007) — An international team that includes University of Calgary scientists has shown how crude oil in oil deposits around the world -- including in Alberta's oil sands -- are naturally broken down by microbes in the reservoir.

Their discovery could revolutionize heavy oil and oil sands production by leading to more energy-efficient, environmentally friendly ways to produce this valuable resource.

Understanding how crude oil biodegrades into methane, or natural gas, opens the door to being able to recover the clean-burning methane directly from deeply buried, or in situ, oil sands deposits, says Steve Larter, U of C petroleum geologist in the Department of Geoscience who headed the Calgary contingent of the research team.

The oil sands industry would no longer have to use costly and polluting thermal, or heat-based, processes (such as injecting steam into reservoirs) to loosen the tar-like bitumen so it flows into wells and can be pumped to the surface.

"The main thing is you'd be recovering a much cleaner fuel," says Larter, Canada Research Chair in Petroleum Geology. "Methane is, per energy unit, a much lower carbon dioxide emitter than bitumen. Also, you wouldn't need all the upgrading facilities and piping on the surface."

Biodegradation of crude oil into heavy oil in petroleum reservoirs is a problem worldwide for the petroleum industry. The natural process, caused by bacteria that consume the oil, makes the oil viscous, or thick, and contaminates it with pollutants such as sulphur. This makes recovering and refining heavy oil difficult and costly.

Some studies have suggested that biodegradation could by caused by aerobic bacteria, which use oxygen. But Larter and colleagues from the U of C, University of Newcastle in the U.K., and Norsk Hydro Oil & Energy in Norway, report in the journal Nature that the dominant process is, in fact, fermentation. It is caused by anaerobic bacteria that live in oil reservoirs and don't use oxygen.

"This is the main process that's occurring all over the Earth, in any oil reservoir where you've got biodegradation," Larter says.

Using a combination of microbiological studies, laboratory experiments and oilfield case studies, the team demonstrated the anaerobic degradation of hydrocarbons to produce methane. The findings offer the potential of 'feeding' the microbes and rapidly accelerating the breaking down of the oil into methane.

"Instead of 10 million years, we want to do it 10 years," Larter says. "We think it's possible. We can do it in the laboratory. The question is: can we do it in a reservoir?"

Doing so would revolutionize the heavy oil/oil sands industry, which now manages to recover only about 17 per cent of a resource that consists of six trillion barrels worldwide. Oil sands companies would be able to recover only the clean-burning natural gas, leaving the hard-to-handle bitumen and contaminants deep underground.

Understanding biodegradation also provides an immediate tool for predicting where the less-biodegraded oil is located in reservoirs, enabling companies to increase recovery by targeting higher-quality oil. "It gives us a better understanding of why the fluid properties are varying within the reservoir," Larter says. "That will help us with thermal recovery processes such as SAGD (steam-assisted gravity drainage)."

The research team also discovered an intermediate step in the biodegradation process. It involves a separate family of microbes that produce carbon dioxide and hydrogen from partly degraded oil, prior to it being turned into methane. This paves the way for using the microbes to capture this CO2 as methane, which could then be recycled as fuel in a closed-loop energy system. This would keep the CO2, a greenhouse gas blamed for global warming and climate change, out of the atmosphere.

The petroleum industry already has expressed interest in trying to accelerate biodegradation in a reservoir, Larter says. "It is likely there will be field tests by 2009."

[FireJack]

Ya heard this on the cbc was thinking ya that would be kind of nice. Then there is the catch, field tests by 2009. Uh ya good luck with that. By 2025 mabey we'll see results, lots of time before the oil starts peaking.

[Oil-Finder]

Well in the meantime there's no reason why they can't continue to process the oil sands using their current methods.

[lightman]

You're right. They can and they will. But there is more than one good reason why they really shouldn't:

1) It is not economical (energy-wise, not financial).
EROEI is quite low for tar sands (generally less than 3, but almost never more then 5). This doesn't even take into consideration the energy consumption (buildup and maintenance) of the infrastructure required to support the operations.

2) It is not ecological.
In the case of surface mining, large "modifications" of the natural landscape occur (e.g. destruction of boreal forest in Alberta).

3) It is making large areas inhabitable (and even kills people).
The extraction of synthetic crude requires large quantities of water (generally 3-4 times the amount of oil produced), which (despite recycling) ends up in tailing ponds. Even so, enormous quantities of toxic material may end up in the environment and eventually in our food chain (like in the case of the Athabasca River).

<sarcasm>On the other hand it generates a lot of jobs, may help reduce energy dependency from overseas and contributes to the economy by keeping large quantities of money flowing. What more could you want?</sarcasm>

[Grifter]

another article on the same technique

Sounds very interesting to me. Can Nitrogen Fertilizer be made out of Methane?

Thats the first thing that occured to me. If its a simple low tech method of converting dirty fuel to clean(er) fuel then surely this is a little peice of possitive news.

Hooray

[pstarr]

Of all the hair brained schemes this one has got to take the cake. This is right up their with JD's methane space-elevator and the Missouri Turkey-Gut Depolymerzation gambit. The only methane coming out of this project is the brain-fart emmited from this 'science.'

How is the geologic structure prepared for the microbe? How will it be penetrated down to the granular level? How are the bugs inserted into the geologic mass? How are biologic processes supported under the ground and immense pressure? How is oxygen supplied and CO2 removed? Other waste products? How is proper pH, temperature, humidity, etc. maintained in the culture? How is the finished product removed?

Or is this is another one of those virtual and cornucopian schemes that will be sure to make money and sense the moment crude reaches $60. Oh wait that happened Oil-Finder, the devil is in the details you know.

[highlander]

There you go again pstarr. Asking about the elephant in the room that nobody seems to notice. Stop it . News like this is suppose to make you rush out and buy more stuff.
A scientist said it works, so who are we to question.

[pstarr]

There you go again pstarr. Asking about the elephant in the room that nobody seems to notice. Stop it . News like this is suppose to make you rush out and buy more stuff.
A scientist said it works, so who are we to question.

Hiya Highlander. How ya doin?

I love how this cornucopean nonsense brings out the gullibility in folks. Can't get enough, but darn, if it isn't in such short supply these days.

[Grifter]

There you go again pstarr. Asking about the elephant in the room that nobody seems to notice. Stop it . News like this is suppose to make you rush out and buy more stuff.
A scientist said it works, so who are we to question.

Well....as opposed to what? A scentist said it might work so it obviously doesn't

I don't know how phosphorus is manufactured yet, if it is simple then I don't understand how this theory is dismissed out of hand.

And just because something might work (IE be of some use) does not automatically mean that anyone is suggesting everythings fine and business as usual will continue forever.

Man this place doesn't like anything that suggest we're not dead yet.

Sheesh.

[wisconsin_cur]

Legal threat to tar sand production FT

In a letter to Robert Gates, US defence secretary, Canada said that it “would not want to see an expansive interpretation” of the Energy Independence and Security Act 2007. A copy of the letter, from Michael Wilson, Canadian ambassador, and copied to Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, and Samuel Bodman, US energy secretary, has been obtained by the Financial Times.

Section 526 of the law limits US government procurement of alternative fuels to those from which the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions are equal to or less than those from conventional fuel from conventional petroleum sources. Canada’s oil sands are considered unconventional fuels, and producing them emits more greenhouse gas than conventional production.

Amy Myers Jaffe, energy expert at Rice University, said cutting out the oil sands as a source of fuel would also limit global supplies further, forcing up the price of oil: “$106 a barrel is going to look cheap.”

The three presidential candidates hoping to replace President George W. Bush are proponents of strong US policy to counter greenhouse gas emissions, which could lead to a narrow interpretation of the law. That could be why Canada wants the law interpreted now.

“The Canadians do, in fact, have something to worry about, particularly from a Democratic administration,” Ms Jaffe said.

Environmentalists say extracting a barrel of crude from oil sands results in five times the amount of greenhouse gas emissions than extracting conventional crude – a figure some energy companies dispute.

Environmentalism is so attractive when it isn't so costly.

[paimei01]

They scared us with this "global warming" to make us consume less oil. Now it's going back at them making them not able to extract from tar sands.

I think the warming is real, but I do not know if it's man made, and I think all the talk about it is because they want the world to reduce oil consumption

[joeltrout]

Don't blame global warming on oil production blame cows.

joeltrout

[jimmyz]

where are the before pics?

[Daniel_Plainview]

Shows how desperate we are for oil ......... and this is only the beginning.

[Denny]

Very impressive pictures. It is amazing to see the immensity of it all.

[Pablo2079]

There are some before pics later on in the slide show.... or at least pics that show what the boreal forest was probably like before the mining.

This is just the beginning

[alokin]

are there serious protests in Canada? Like occupations, huge demonstrations etc?

[eric_b]

I could not stop shaking my head, and laughing, as I read that. Completely rape the land to squeeze out a little oil. And it's profitable. Demonstrates the need and demand for oil.

I liked this bit:

But for friendly Canada the tar sands are rapidly becoming an environmental liability as well as an economic hurricane. Described by the United Nations Environment Program as one of the world's top "environmental hot spots," the project will eventually transform a boreal forest the size of Florida into an industrial sacrifice zone complete with lakes full of toxic waste and man-made volcanoes spewing out clouds of greenhouse gases. Are Canadians willing to create an environmental disaster in Alberta in order to provide the U.S. market with some of the most expensive oil in the world? The answer seems to be an emphatic yes.

We're doomed.

Excellent article.

[seldom_seen]

The US is a world leader in destroying their own countryside.

We don't have anything on Canada though. From the Amazon style devastation of British Columbia's old growth forests to shoveling up the province of Alberta and turning it upside down. They win!