RE: salvation from tar pits?

Kenneth wrote:

> -----Original Message-----
> From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu
> [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf Of Kenneth Piers
> Sent: Monday, June 28, 2004 8:22 AM
>
> REPLY: Glenn and Al are both right in their comments about
> heavy oil (Alberta or Venezuelan tar) - these sources will
> very likely never serve as a meaningful replacement for
> conventional oil. Alberta is struggling to produce 700K bbl/d
> right now from their tar sands. Not mentioned in these
> numbers is the amount of petroleum energy going into
> producing this 700K barrels of oil. In 1998 Jean Leherrere
> estimated that the EROEI (energy return over energy invested)
> is about 1.5/1 for the Alberta tar sand operations. So for
> these 700K bbl we are expending the equivalent of something
> like 475K bbl/d of oil equivalent - a lot of it in the form
> of natural gas.

I guess I have always thought that it would be ridiculous to spend 1/3
of a barrel of oil to get a barrel of oil. My reasoning is that when one
burns a barrel of oil, one gets about 1/3 of a barrel of oil out in
useful work. Your values cited from Laherrere would exceed that value.
Now I do know they have gotten much more energy efficient over the past
6 years, but I doubt they have doubled the efficiency. Are the Canadian
tar sands in an energy losing situation? Any comments?
Received on Mon Jun 28 19:35:18 2004