One of the 400 ton trucks at work in the oil sands.
This picture gives a better idea of the size of the truck. (See the worker standing in front -- and the other one standing on the balcony.)
Posted on 10/05/2005 2:42:01 PM PDT by thackney
Along a giant patch of Canada's Far North, where moose outnumber people, a vital part of America's energy future seeps out of riverbanks and is hidden below soft prairie grass.
...
In the north of the remote Alberta province rests the equivalent of 1.7 trillion barrels of oil. An estimated 176 billion barrels is recoverable with today's technology, and perhaps twice that amount is potentially recoverable. But this oil can't be pumped from the ground the conventional way. It's spread across more than 54,000 square miles, about the size of North Carolina, and is mixed with sand and clay.
"It's the single-largest hydrocarbon deposit on the Earth, and it's next door to the biggest market for oil products, the United States. What's wrong with it? It's crap oil," said Neil Camarta, senior vice president of oil-sands operations for Shell Canada.
"You've got to use a lot of energy and a lot of pots and pans to extract it from the sand, and you have low-quality oil. It's a high-cost business and a lot of capital and a lot of operating costs," Camarta said.
Don't mistake that for discouragement.
"The good news is, once you've got those pots and pans on the ground, you never run out of oil. The resource is almost infinite, so we never decline," Camarta said.
...
The sands contain a tarlike grade of crude oil called bitumen, which must be separated from the dirt through a costly, complicated boiling process. Hydrogen is added, sulfur and nitrogen removed, and the final product is synthetic crude oil.
Shell's Athabasca Oil Sands Project - a joint venture between Shell, ChevronTexaco and other companies - already produces about 155,000 barrels of oil a day. Within a decade, it should produce half a million barrels per day.
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
The Canadian Government has protested ANWR for its environmental impact. I guess that goes away when it is your oil to produce.
When one arrives at oil-sands operations, Alaska-like wilderness abruptly ends and heavy industry begins. Chimneys belch smoke. An open pit stretches as far as the eye can see. Before sunrise, a miles-long procession of pickup trucks and buses crawls north from Fort McMurray, a boomtown five hours from the nearest city.
Ping!
Please let me know if you want on or off this Canada ping list.
The WSJ reported recently that this stuff can be pulled from the ground for $22 per barrel. And, there is as much of it as there is oil in Saudi. It just takes about $1B to put up a good extraction process. Now that oil appears stable above $30, they'll build the plant.
I love my Tundra!
Besides ANWR, we need to look at making shale oil extraction more profitable.
And like it or not (some Freepers don't), we need to look at making alternative energy sources (like hydrogen) more profitable as well.
We'll inevitably tap this source of energy, but probably not on a large scale until oil is permanently above $100/bbl.
I understand there's an awful lot in Colorado too - oil shale.
They got it wrong, then. Ten years ago a friend of mine was with Sunoco, at the time the biggest player on the oilsands. The break-even point for their operation was a selling price of $13/bbl.
Not needed AT ALL!
The United States has more oil reserves than Saudi Arabia but this happy though shocking information has been covered up for years.
The wells have been drilled, it's merely a matter of turning on the faucets to supply America's needs for 200 years.
These astounding revelations have been confirmed by a 30-year veteran oil executive with leukemia who has decided to speak out.
In 1980, Lindsey Williams wrote a book, The Energy Non-Crisis, based upon his eye witness accounts during the construction of the Trans-Alaska pipeline. As a chaplain assigned to executive status and the advisory board of Atlantic Richfield & Co. (ARCO), he was privy to detailed information.
"All of our energy problems could have been solved in the '70s with the huge discovery of oil under Gull Island, Prudhoe Bay, Alaska," Williams said. "There is more pure grade oil there than in all of Saudi Arabia. Gull Island contains as much oil and natural gas as Americans could use in 200 years."
Oddly though, immediately after this massive discovery, the federal government ordered the rigs to be capped and oil production shut down.
Developing Alaskan oil would make the United States completely independent of oil imports, Williams said in his book.
Why is the government covering up such good news? Why does it want to be dependent on imported oil? Do international financiers who are heavily invested in the oil industry want to keep the supply limited and prices up?
Will the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, chaired by Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska), investigate what could be a criminal cover-up? Will the appropriate House committees in quire? Or the Justice Department? Since the cover-up has extended through four presidential administrations, only public outrage can force action.
"Everything you hear on the evening news and out of Washington is garbage," said Jim Lawler, an oil production manager with ARCO. "Eight wells have already been drilled in the areas environmentalists are claiming we must not go in. We have already been in and out. There was no damage done. All we need to do is start production."
The mainstream media is mind-molding public opinion by repeatedly showing running caribou, touting environmentalists' claims that the caribou and other endangered species and habitats would be destroyed.
"The Alaska Fish and Game Depart ment just did a study on the por cupine car i bou in Prudhoe Bay. The size of the herds has increased since 1969 by 35 percent. The pipeline area is a protected designation and the caribou have figured this out. They have migrated into this area for protection," Lawler said.
The Alaskan pipeline was built in 1977 and runs from Prudhoe Bay to the southern shores of Alaska in Valdez.
Lawler maintains that several things can be done to reduce American energy bills.
The Alaskan pipeline can be permitted to run at full capacity. In addition, the Department of Energy can allow a new pipeline to be built across Canada and con nected to the existing system in the United States.
Alaska can also ship oil to the West Coast immediately. Alaskan oil is of such high grade and low sulfur content that it can be utilized at any refinery, without damage to the environment.
"Currently, an estimated 4,000 barrels a day are liquefied at Prudhoe Bay, but government regulation controls that limit," added Lawler.
Liquefying is the process by which oil sludge brought from the ground is pro cessed to be transported.
Lawler said the existing Alaskan pipe line was built to hold another four-foot diameter pipe above it, which could be used for natural gas. However, he said it "is not ne cessary because the Alaskan pipe line has never been permitted to run at full capacity."
This same situation can be multiplied in Wyoming, Texas and other oil-productive areas across the country. The government has imposed strict orders not to produce.
And in a real emergency, Lawler contends hydrogen plants can sprout up in less than six months with just a nuclear reactor placed at sea.
"One nuclear reactor can power all of Los Angeles," Lawler said.
Natural gas is readily available; Prudhoe Bay has 48 747-jet engines pumping one billion cubic feet of natural gas back into the ground 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. They have nowhere else to put the natural gas.
Problem is that hydrogen is not a source. It's just a storage medium, and not a very good one at that.
Thank the new-world globalist hell hole thinkers for all this.
That's understood. "Source" is not a proper word.
But I believe that it needs to be looked at more closely and if feasible and profitable to do so, we should use it.
Please see post 12.
The cost of electricity will have to come down first.
Your friend and the WSJ may both be right. $13/bbl may have been the break-even point for an existing operation, while the $22 price may have included the capital costs for new operations.
The reality is that the real "break-even" point is probably in the $45 range. That's the price at which an energy company would be comfortable in starting up a new operation while taking into account the risk that the price would collapse in the near future. Most people seme to have forgotten that oil was trading at around $12 per barrel in the late 1990s -- which explains why the big energy giants aren't running out building new operations even with oil in the $65 range.
A few are trying.
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_3080266
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/business/article/0,1299,DRMN_4_4096676,00.html
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fg-chinaoil17jul17,0,3357282.story?coll=la-home-headlines
China Stakes Claim for Global Oil Access
In its quest for crude, Beijing is dangling cash and playing on nations' discontent with the U.S. Can the two huge energy consumers coexist? By Mark Magnier, Times Staff Writer
BEIJING — When Alberta Premier Ralph Klein toured China last year and invited business leaders to visit the Canadian province's oil sand deposits, he didn't expect an immediate response.
The executives' quick response paid off. Three of China's state-owned oil firms have since poured huge investments into the oil sands, including a 40% stake in a $3.6-billion project that will be able to send oil via a new pipeline to Canada's west coast for shipment to China and elsewhere.
Also see http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/china.html
Thanks for the links. Some tentative moves, hope it accelerates. The Denver Post is still quoting old technology about huge water usage and waste product contaminates.
I have read reviews by others about the Oil-Tech, Inc process, it uses no water and waste is inert. (can be used for HWY paving or for refilling the mined areas. They have taken their technology beyond the lab and built a small commercial proving unit that is producing oil as claimed.
OT's method requires no massive plants and the smaller modular units can be moved from location to location, leaving only a small footprint. OT has now leased 38,000 acres of prime oil shale mining property, so we will see how it goes for them.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.