Novocastrian

<Studiously avoids thread drift>

Jingsamichty

Extracting synthetic crude from Alberta's tar sands is a pretty energy-inefficient process. As I said in the other linked post, it takes approximately 2 barrels of water and 0.5 barrel of oil equivalent (boe) to produce 1 barrel of oil from the tar sands.

But are the tar sands projects any more of an 'environmental time bomb' than any other massive open-cast mine, or logging, or crumbling ex-Soviet nuclear plants..? The list of environmental time-bombs is sadly far from short.

Regardless of how 'un-green' the oil sands may or may not be, the fact is that until we stop using electricity, gas or petrol like it grows on trees, we have no real right to criticise any source of production.

It's a bit like a heroin addict criticising his dealer for the way the poppies are grown in Afghanistan.

Novocastrian

But the key is whole process accounting. If "we", i.e. the oil companies with the connivance of Alberta politicians, didn't ignore costs of the clean-up, river destruction and human health damage, then it would be obvious that as a whole oil sands exploitation is a nett losses economically.

BTW your estimate of ERoEI is at odds (on the optimistic side) with most others.

Jingsamichty

Cleanup has to be done at virtually every resource-extraction site. The oil sands are no worse than any other site for this.

River destruction - this is my primary concern with the oil sands. The amount of water required is enormous, and remember this is a relatively dry region, and the water sources are frozen for large parts of the year. Nevertheless, the Water Authorities have approved drawoff (mostly) from the Athabasca River, which the oil companies then divert into ponds which are used when the river is low/frozen.

The water is returned to tailings ponds after use, which is progressively cycled until it's deemed clean enough to be returned to the river. There is no doubt that over the 50 year life of a typical project, the amount of toxic residue that cannot be returned will not be insignificant. But probably no more so than at many steelworks or smelters etc.

Human health damage - I'm not qualified to comment on this, but neither do I believe that the oils sands poses a risk that is any greater than any other comparable industrial activity.

You may well believe that, if faced with a sudden and massive oil discovery in Northern Ontario, that Ontario politicians would not 'connive with the oil companies', however, the realist in me wouldn't bet on it.

Off out to dinner now.

Novocastrian

I hope you enjoyed (or are still enjoying) your dinner Jings. Mine was excellent (say it myself, wot shouldn't).

Let's return to the ERoEI, using your figures. You said 0.5 boe + 2 barrels of highly polluted water per barrel of syncrude? But these are point of production figures. Now add in the energy cost of water remediation, site remediation, infrastructure investment, pipeline construction (from e.g. Alaska for NG), alternatively nuclear power plant construction and all the undefinable costs of waste disposal, throw in equally undefinable costs to wildlife habitat etc., etc. And you get very close to or below an ERoEI of one.


OK, resource exploitation can (need not be) messy. But surely, there should be a nett win if you're going to do it in the first place? Not just a profit for one sector who is allowed externalize the other costs?

Novocastrian

I note that the interim score on Iain's poll is 66.67% agree with the question as asked.

I admit to being flabbergasted, but strongly encouraged by this.

gryphea

I work on oilsands projects and I think they are fairly environmentally destructive, but I concur with Jingsamichty's viewpoint that we are all consumers and therefore all have a stake in this. Yes, I get my hands dirty working in the oilsands, but work I do actually makes it more efficient in terms of resource, not less. I probably consume less oil than the average canadian from a consumer perspective, fine critiscise the oilsands as you bike or walk to work, but drive your big car and I begin to loose sympathy. Even so I do feel slightly hypocrytical and thought long and hard before accepting the job.

I think their main destruction comes from their Co2 emissions and their destruction of landmass. The rivers are currently being polluted BUT this is by existing mines and future mines WILL not pollute the rivers to the same extent OR require as much water. Cut-off walls, active pumping systems, run-off control etc will all mean that the tailing do not pollute anywhere near the same extent. Current tailings ponds actually basically sit in the river and have no active or passive control systems. Future mines, like the one I am working on, have cut-off walls, active pumping sytems seepage control systems etc etc. All of which means contaminated water will not reach the river through run-off or groundwater (the only mechanism being diffusion though the cut-off wall.) This is tightly regulated as well. The systems will ensure the local creek (leading to river) won't receive pollution in the event of 1 in 100 year event and an associated 5 day power failure.

I think the industry can do a lot to help itself and probably will do in the future as global pressure pervails:
1. reduce Co2 through more effective use and generation of power, eg heat pump recovery on well systems , more geothermal etc.
2. reduce ridiculous incidents like the bird/tailings issue. This kind of thing happened because of poor quality of staff due to employment crisis rather than lack of systems. Slightly lower oil price means better staff on site
3. spend more money researching closure and reclaimation of tailings ponds.

Novocastrian

Yes we all have a stake. But very few have any influence.


I'm glad you feel guilty. I certainly would. Perhaps the 2/3 majority don't drive big gas guzzlers any more. One can hope.

OK. When? Does $45 oil help?

gryphea

OK that was my point - I do have some influence and I use it for the better. If I wasn' t working in the job - I wouldn't and believe me there wouldn't be any one else to do it. Quite simply there haven't been any staff to do it, run jobs properly, pay attention to detail etc. Hence the point about staff quality, slightly less work/projects in the oilsands will improve staff quality.

I will also say that pretty much anyone in Alberta benefits from oilsands, whatever job they do eg most Brits on WPs are here because Canadians couldn't be recruited and that is a knock on effect of the oilsands. I never said I felt guilty I said I felt hypocrytical which is not the same.


Actually geothermal/groundwater heatpumps have enormous potential in the oilsands. Warm tailings spread over a massive area? Its not trivial. Active deep groundwater well systems could have heat pumps etc

Number 3 is a problem and its not all about money doing it - its working out the best way to do things from the offset and then there is far less of a problem.

Novocastrian

Best of luck, gryphea. But it's all doomed. If you can't extract $$ for an investment of fewer $$, then what's the point?

You haven't even addressed the Energy Returned on Energy Invested issue, or the total lifespan accounting points.


Edit: EST bedtime. I'l check in tomorrow.

gryphea

No I haven't - but don't have time right now. My commute took ovr double my usual yesterday, down to Calgary's weather and roads seemingly. You should relax in the knowledge that Clagary wastes very little of its oil on gritting trucks!!! Now up at crack of dawn to ensure I am back in time for kid's Chritmas concert.

Look- I have given my points, I have said I think they are environmentally dodgy, so I can't then turn round and state that they are not.

I have never worked in oilsands before and my skills are applicable to a wide range of other activities. If they go belly-up then sure I turn my skillset to other areas, proibably that would mean not in alberta as there will be few other areas of work too.

Oakvillian

I'm in the 'somewhat agree' camp. I think there are some serious issues to address - not the least of which is the ERoEI calculation that Novo mentioned. There seems to be no consensus in how far out from the extraction and processing itself you draw the system boundaries for this calculation, in much the same way as the nuclear industry has been debating for years on the issue of accounting for costs of waste management and the open-cast coal, metals and minerals industries have been arguing about the cost and extent of restitution.

Two things held me back from 'strongly agree' though. First is the very fact that this debate is happening, especially as the price of oil comes down. There seems to have been an acknowledgement (not yet a strong enough acknowledgement from either the oil corporations or the provincial government) that this is an issue that needs to be addressed now. The second caveat I have is a sort of 'least worst option' argument. It will take time for global oil demand to reduce. The potential environmental damage in extraction and transportation of oil into North America from other producer nations is environmentally damaging and could be economically and politically destabilising as well. The potential downside in environmental terms elsewhere in the world may be greater than that in the Athabasca basin.

Having said that, it's pretty clear to me that Big Oil needs to pull its finger out. The attitude towards oil consumption in North America seems to be shifting further and faster than it did in 1973; the auto sector is struggling to align itself to the new reality; new alternative energy sources are closer to commercial reality than they have been in the past. If production in Alberta is to remain economically viable at all (what's the lower limit on the oil price beyond which everybody packs up and goes home?) then long-term environmental costs need to be a part of that equation.

iaink

My concerns dont really revolve around the economic arguments, or even the amount of energy it takes to extract the oil, its primarily the alarming stuff I've read about toxic chemicals making it into the water and food chain, and what seems like a ridiculous amount of faith that those huge tailings lagoons will somehow all maintain there integrity and prevent any ground water contamination. Some reports of bizarre occurrences in the region already should be setting alarm bells ringing

My second concern is this long term commitment to return the land to the way it way. Does anyone seriously believe an industry that is still dragging its feet over paying up over the Exxon Valdez (19 years and counting?) will commit the necessary resources to land reclamation at the butt end of these projects when the money has already been made. Frankly I'm mad that this huge scale environmental butchering has occurred with what seems to me like no public debate over the ethics and long term implications.

At least it sounds from Gryphea's comments that there is more focus on doing it right now, but it still seems to me that there is much that can go wrong and serious consequences to face if and when it does.

Novocastrian

This article from the SF newspaper is about 3 months old but gives a reasonable overview of the environmental, ecosystem and human health issues. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...MN3H12E130.DTL

Note that the oil price has more than halved since this was written. I doubt there's any more attention to these issues today than then.

Jingsamichty

Dinner was excellent, thanks.

Highly idealistic, Novo. I'm afraid that if the Government is happy to take Big Oil's filthy lucre for the leases, that's more or less the end of it. The more restrictions and conditions that are put on the leases, the less hard cash they're obviously worth. High revenues from leases equates to lower taxes, and it's the voters that decide on things like that....

Incidentally, you're obviously an expert on the subject of EROEI - what about another of Canada's major resource industries - diamonds? Vast, vast amounts of energy expended, and for what? Trinkets. Now that's shameful.