Dumb question on tar sands...wouldn't it use more energy to extract

[yurbud]

than it produces?

This always seems to be the big criticism of biofuels--that it would cost too much in money and energy to make it. I don't believe that's true for biofuels, but I could see that being the case for trying to extract petroleum from solids which still need the regular refining process after that.

If anybody has good sources on this, I'd like to see it.

[NEOBuckeye]

1. Probably

Not to mention the tremendous amount of environmental damage that it will do.

Follow these links to learn more --
http://www.energybulletin.net
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net

Careful. The second one is a real doozy.

[Botany]

2. It is more a question of the price of oil .....

..... when you can buy oil a $40.00 / barrel it wasn't worth it but @ $75.00 / barrel it is worth it.

The question of more energy in then out is very good from an ecological perspective but the
energy companies just see dollars ..... that is it. Hell nuclear power takes much more energy then
it produces ..... mining, milling, enrichment, and waste disposal are all hidden subsidies that the
electric companies do not talk about.

[megatherium]

6. I find your claim about nuclear hard to believe.

Are you confusing claims that you can 'produce' more energy per dollar invested by working on conservation and the like, instead of investing in nuclear? Nuclear is relatively expensive because of the high capital costs of building a new reactor, but I would be astonished if it consumes more energy than it produces. And I support nuclear alongside solar and other renewables, because I have become convinced that energy shortages and global warming are a far greater threat to peace and the environment than civilian nuclear.

[UncleSepp]

3. True of many forms of energy... it's about the form factor though

The production of petroleum and petroleum analogues (like biodiesel) may still be necessary even when it requires more energy to produce the fuel than what the fuel contains. Engines that run on gasoline and diesel still exist, and gas stations to fill them still exist, and there's no direct way to fill an ordinary car or truck up with electricity from a windmill, a solar panel, a hydroelectric dam, or what have you. It's a way of getting the energy into a portable form that's usable by the engines we have.

[applegrove]

4. Traditional sources of oil were very easy to extract. Just pump. So

having to cook tar sands for a bit is not out of the world. 1 Think it is like 1 barrel used to cook - makes for 1.8... or something. The issue is too that some sites are lucky enough to have access to natural gas - so they can use that to cook. And it is cleaner that way.

don't know how Alberta will feel about big oil when they become the biggest stove-top in the world.

[Strelnikov_]

5. Soon They Will Run Out Of Cheap (Stranded) Natural Gas

and have to go to coal, nuclear or cannibalism (burning bitumen) for an energy source. None of these sources make sense from an EROEI/Environmental standpoint.

Why burn coal to create process energy to produce a liquid fuel with a EROEI of 2 or 3 when you can make a liquid fuel from the coal directly with an EROEI of 5-6, all for double (or more) the global warming gas generation and terrestrial environmental costs?

Why crash atoms to create process energy to produce a liquid fuel with a EROEI of 2 or 3 when you can use the nuclear energy generated as process energy in ethanol production to make a liquid fuel with a similar EROEI, with nearly neutral global warming impact?

I have yet to see a compelling reason to consider tar sands or pre-oil shale as an energy source. Maybe as petrochemical feedstock source, but not an energy source.

I am sure someone will be chiming in that THAI is the holy grail of tar sands extraction processes. So I will make a preemptive comment that THAI in this application is developmental and has not been proven to be either scaleable or efficient.

[hatrack]

7. I think it's a positive EROEI, but pretty low

I've heard estimates between 1.5 and 3, but don't know if there's an "official" consensus on this. I also heard Mike Ashar, an Executive VP at Suncor, say that the ratio is about 8, but have serious doubts on this.

In the same presentation, he talked about 5 mbpd by 2030, meaning that it sure as hell is no panacaea. It's also worth noting that it took 30 years and $20 billion to collectively (for the entire industry) get up to 1 mbpd, and all of that depended on the cheap in situ natural available at the time. As gas becomes constrained, so does tar sand production. And, as Matt Simmons noted in the Barron's interview, production in the Athabascan is also becoming constrained by, of all things, rubber shortages:

"I was in Toronto a few weeks ago and there was a front-page story in the Globe and Mail about a tire shorage. The tires are massive - 13 feet high and six feet wide - that are used in strip-mining coal and in the oil sands These tires have a short shelf life because they are used so intensively. We are in the middle of a rubber shortage, so there is a tire shortage. We are not oging to have big growth in oil-sads production if we can't expand. We are starting to bump into capacity limitations in the funniest places: tires on big trucks, rigs, people, refineries, pipelines, tankers, well-head capacity."

[yurbud]

8. Great quote from CS Lewis--post it somewhere conservatives can see