[your local physicist]

Thanks for the freepmail...some interesting stuff there.

You might find this to be interesting:

Air secret ingredient in new heavy-oil extraction method

Article about a new process for producing oil from oil sands--a very clever process where they actually light a slow underground fire that heats the oil and separates it from the embedded sand. I'm watching this company (Petrobank) to see if they can license this THAI process to other oil companies. Potentially it could be used all over the world on oil sands and heavy oil to lower production costs dramatically.

[familyop]

Thanks! That method could also help the oil sands producers to get around the environmentalist/anti-competition opposition from California and Ontario.

[dennisw]

Article about a new process for producing oil from oil sands--a very clever process where they actually light a slow underground fire that heats the oil and separates it from the embedded sand. I'm watching this company (Petrobank) to see if they can license this THAI process to other oil companies. Potentially it could be used all over the world on oil sands and heavy oil to lower production costs dramatically.

So far the major process is to burn natural gas to liquefy and extract the oil which is loony
But the economics work out in Canada because the natural gas is cheap enough to get away with it