[notacornucopian]

Good morning all,

I thought I would start a new thread that will hopefully shed some light on Alberta's fossil fuel reserve situation ( I know it probably seems self serving since I live here, which I suppose it is, really ).

I have been collecting as much information as I can through internet news stories, trade papers and the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board. So far, all I have determined is that there is a lot of conflicting data and opinions on the subject ( no surprise ! ). The Utilities Board has yet to publish this year's report ( available to the general public, at least ). My main purpose is to try to establish approximately when natural gas in the province will no longer be able to supply both domestic needs / exports as well as provide the huge energy requirements of the tarsands oil projects. Some news articles I have read lately would suggest that some people in the industry are aware of this looming problem ( Mackenzie pipeline diversion, etc. ). In addition, exports to the USA have already began to decline. With the NAFTA agreement giving the USA access to ( 60% ? ) of Canada's resources, the stuation is ripe for conflict.

Should there be enough data to conclude that there will be a lot of conflicting demand for the resource ( NG ) within the next fifteen years, I plan on drafting a letter that can be sent to the Minister of Energy, etc. asking what the current provincial government plans to do about the situation. Our provincial constitution allegedly guarantees Albertans a fifteen year supply of reliable energy. Perhaps an amendment is in order.

Oh, and Matt, I do not believe that a magical political-willed solution is at hand. I simply want to hear our leaders response to the question. This is completely selfish and has nothing to do with saving the world.

[Aaron]

Our provincial constitution allegedly guarantees Albertans a fifteen year supply of reliable energy. Perhaps an amendment is in order.

Now that's funny...

The emperor has no clothes.

[nero]

Regarding the "15 year guarantee" I don't think the Oil big wigs are going to go for an "Alberta energy program" after killing off Trudeau's National Energy Program.

But seriously with regard to the oil sands and NG, I have always wondered why they would use natural gas instead of burning the coke produced from the bitumen as a by product of the synthetic oil. Does anyone have a clear explanation of that? I can see that for SAGD, they have to produce the steam out in the field in a distributed fashion so NG rules just like in residential heating, but places like Syncrude where they excavate and have a central processing plant. What to stop them from converting their process to being energy self sufficient?

On another Canada related tangent, Here in Ontario, they're planning on shutting down all coal fired generators to be replaced most likely with natural gas turbines by 2007. Where they think that natural gas is going to come from I have no idea, since Alberta says they've peaked in natural gas production and LNG regassifiers aren't in the works and the Makenzie pipeline is 2009 at the earliest.

[Whitecrab]

I read an article in the business section of the Toronto Star about a month ago, about the nat. gas supplies left in North America. Enbridge Gas, the most optimistic side in the article, said NA probably has about 80 years supply of natural gas left. Others disputed them saying "oh lots of that supply is in small pockets that aren't economical to get to and then hook up to the pipelines" and Enbridge saying they have ways around that.

Now conservation, coal methane, and liquified natural gas could extend that, but since 80 years is "optimistic" that's probably as good as you'll get. And I'll bet you anything they weren't factoring in peak oil when they said that!

As for Ontario, Enbridge said even if we did go the natural gas route we'd still be using only 1% of North America's supply so it's pretty negligible. Although they did advise killing the coal by 2007 is very aggressive. Personally, I think they're going to drag their heels a bit on the coal, go natural gas, maybe build a nuke plant or two, and do a limp-wristed attempt at conservation that they'll screw up.


By the by, one of the peak oil strategies I'm playing around with is going to Alberta and imbedding myself in the tar sands project (I'll have the education in 2 years). Make myself valuable enough so the government will take care of me...?

[nero]

Well sure its not a large portion of the overall north american market but who exactly is going to be giving up their share? We have a genuine natural gas peak in North America going on right now (see note). The petrochemicals industry has already started to leave north america so I'd say you're on the right track by embedding yourself if Ft McMoney.

I agree that the Ontario Liberals are extremely unlikely to meet such an aggresive target. I am more than a little peaved though that they are damaging my health by not immediately improving the scrubber technology on the coal fired generators because they say they're about to close. It leads me to become almost as synical about their electricity policy as I am about George W's hydrogen economy. I'll believe it when I see it.


Note: I think its very telling that there hasn't been much of an increase in drilling for oil in North America because all the rigs are too busy hunting for natural gas.

[notacornucopian]

When I read about the Ontario governments plans to switch to more NG electricity generation (and less coal ), I was was stunned. I read a news item recently ( I think it was a link on the ER yahoo board ) suggesting that a lot of American electricity plants were planning to switch from NG to coal. Why would the Ontario government go the other way ?

I am sorry I do not have the link right now, but when I recently read the most up to date Energy and Utilities board projections, I found a sobering statistic: by 2012, Alberta will have recovered 84 % of it's ultimate potential in conventional NG ( ultimate potential - or original endowment - was estimated to be 5600 trillion m3 ).

I do not know how accurate the following guesstimations are ( as I am unsure of how accurate the charts I downloaded from another site ) :

Assume that demand for tarsands oil is on the high end in 2017, and that the NG input into the process is 3.7 billion ft3 per day x 365 days = 1.35 tcf per year. Add in Alberta domestic demand at 2.55 tcf per year and you have a total demand of 3.90 tcf per year of domestic demand. This equals 10.68 billion ft3 per day. The entire Western Canada Sedimentary Basin daily production is projected to be about 8 billion ft3 per day in 2017 ( information I gleaned from a trade paper, I believe ) so where does the NG come from to make up the shortfall ? For an already low EROEI oil recovery process using currently available conventional NG ?

I also do not have any clear explanations as to why NG is the current choice as opposed to any other as far as steam generation is concerned.

Anyone have more data that would be useful ?

[Whitecrab]

I also do not have any clear explanations as to why NG is the current choice as opposed to any other as far as steam generation is concerned.

Because it is clean burning, and cheap and fast to build. All the other options (nuclear, aggressive conservation) are harder to sell to the public and aren't instant gratification.

[EnviroEngr]

From Palmtree in the Ask The Experts Forum:

Hi every one... I came across this site today while doing research for my web site. I work in the Tar Sands and can probably shed some accurate light on the subject.

First off, the tar sands are a long way from Calgary Alberta, there actually in northern Alberta. The tar sand deposits start as from a town called Ft McMurray about 8 1/2 hours north of Calgary. The tar sand deposits spread nothern for several hundred kilometres even into the northern part of Sask. which is Alberta's nieghboring province.

How much does it cost to make a barrel of oil in the tar sands? About $8-9/barrel. How much tar sand is there? Based on past extractions/barrels/day and the rate at which it can be extracted, the figures are roughly 5-7 million barrels /day will last about 50 years. Trust me it's a vast territory. Every company in the oil game has staked out claims right up to the nothern border of the North West Territories. As far as waste water and the consumption of natural gas..it has been wasteful and consumptious, but, new technologies that are now in use have cut all those down to more realistic values (SAGD) and so on.

As far as labor shortages to build the plants as claimed by the oil companies. There are none. There is only a shortage of skilled people who are willing to live in the remote areas for years on end for nothing. The unions have done an excellent job of suppling technical people to the tar sands for years. The oil companies have actually got theCanadian government into believeing this short fall exists and has passed legistlation to allow the importation of Mexican and South American labor int ot the Tar Sands for unrealistic wages., Namely C.N.R.L. I can tell you first hand that this issue will have the greatest negative impact on the ability of the tar sands to complete its goals in the north. When the temps drop to -30 on a daisly basis for months on end I don't think Mexicans will hang around to long up there. It's a miserable existance where lung disorders run rampant from the pollution. Have you ever seen a sunrise that's green and purple, you will up there, every morning. It's the most depressing place on earth.

Thats the cost of oil in the Tar Sands.

[notacornucopian]

EnviroEngr,

Thanks for the information, it is always helpful to have someone who has direct experience describe their views.
I will take you to task on the subject of skilled labor, however. If it really does cost only $ 8 or $ 9 to produce a barrel of oil from the tar sands, why wouldn't the oil companies be able to afford to pay their key people big money to live in a less than ideal surroundings ? With the exception of the few who like a barren landscape, paying big money has always been the traditional method of keeping people on the payroll in these situations. Doesn't the current price of a barrel of oil make this fairly easy from an accounting viewpoint ? Is the price of oil on it's way up or down long term ? Add in the likely economic downturn ( in at least some industries ) post peak and you may have people lining up for those jobs so they don't default on their mortgages.
On a related subject, perhaps you can offer the insider's view on something I heard about recently. To make the tar sands more profitable, I understand the majors are studying a nanotechnology that would perform some sort of refining in situ ? I assumed this was to improve the EROEI of the tar sands extraction process. But who would fund such research if the majors are already reaping huge profits ? Methinks the $ 8 to $ 9 figure is a public relations exercise to hide the poor EROEI, which would explain why the nanotechnology avenue is being pursued.

[EnviroEngr]

My error. I should have been a bit clearer. You mis-attributed the author. It is actually Palmtree who is writing this. I'm just transferring it from the "Experts" sub-forum. Here is his latest submission:

The methods I use to derive this info is me just being right there. Every week or so I inadvertently end up chatting with an engineer about one thing or another. The conversations ussually touch on whats coming or problems, technical glitches and so on. Also work that is in progress like all the pipelines going from Syncrude and Suncor and millineum and Albion Sands to Prince Rupert. The Chinese government are just the latest to visit the Tar Sand projects. Last month the Chinese government was in discussions to either build a mega project up there or at least buy oil, now that pipelines to Prince Rupert are a reality. The tar sands is not getting harder to obtain, the problem is getting refineries to process. Currently there are pipelines going from Ft.Mc Murray to the east coast of U.S. and to the midwest. With the addition of the Prince Rupert pipelines there will be even greater markets. As far as a shortage of natural gas goes, the biggest gas find was just discovered last month near here, in Rocky Mountain House, 100 or so Kilometres south of Rocky to be exact. the best thing you could do if your interested in keeping up with what'sgoing on in the tar sands or our oil here in Alberta would be to hook up with the Edmonton Journal. That's the newspaper in Alberta you can read it on the web, check the business section. or use the search feature, just enter the word oil and you can read for amonth. I could keep you posted but I have to go up to Ft.McMurray myself again in the next few days for about 2-3 months. Suncor had a massive expolsion in the coker area and production is down to less than half, down buy 155,000/day. You can see how they might be a wee bit anxious to get things fixed up.

I will ask him to reply to your challenges.

[peak_oil_informant]

From Palmtree in the Ask The Experts Forum:

How much does it cost to make a barrel of oil in the tar sands? About $8-9/barrel. How much tar sand is there? Based on past extractions/barrels/day and the rate at which it can be extracted, the figures are roughly 5-7 million barrels /day will last about 50 years. Trust me it's a vast territory. Every company in the oil game has staked out claims right up to the nothern border of the North West Territories. As far as waste water and the consumption of natural gas..it has been wasteful and consumptious, but, new technologies that are now in use have cut all those down to more realistic values (SAGD) and so on.

i agree with most of your comments except the SAGD part. SAGD stands for steam assisted ground drilling. the key word is ground drilling. not tar sand recovery they use steam to extract oil from the wells but other than that it is mostly ok , if you could bump into engineers and ask what they are doing to find other better forms of energy like biodiesel ext. that would be great