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Tar Sands vs. Asphalt: Round 1
Posted by Prof. Goose on February 2, 2008 - 11:00am in The Oil Drum: Local
Topic: Demand/Consumption
Tags: asphalt, environment, petroleum, tar sands [list all tags]
This is a guest post by Hans Noeldner.
OK, Oil Drummers, it's quiz question time.
Would it make sense to extract crude oil from asphalt? The process for extracting it from tar sands is, after all, very energy- and capital-intensive, not to mention the horrific environmental impact. Meanwhile Earth would be much improved if we-the-people replaced many of our biologically dead highways and parking lots with useful things like forests, wetlands, farms, gardens, and user-friendly habitation for homo pedestrianus. This would give us a lot of torn-up asphalt from which we could harvest energy…
Anyway, here are the quiz questions:
(1) On average, how many barrels of petroleum are there in a ton of asphalt? (Apparently there is about one barrel of oil in two tons of tar sands.)
(2) How many barrels of petroleum are used to asphalt binder per year in the USA? What about other binders like black liquor from papermaking?
(3) Considering highways and parking lots only, what is the total amount of asphalt binder in the USA?
(4) Is a significant percentage of this binder lost (via leaching and evaporation) as asphalt breaks down?
(5) Can the binders used in asphalt be cracked (or whatever) to make the usual range of refined petroleum products – particularly gasoline and diesel?
Around here the stuff is ground up and reused, either with additional binder or without. Given the ongoing need for roads and paths, even if only for bicycles and pedestrians, it seems highly unlikely to be worth the extra expense to refine recycled asphalt into fuel.
parking lots and even the old buildings around here are ground up and you can see big huge piles that are just reused on the same spot as a base.
I'm afraid I can't answer these questions without guessing, but I am all for an immediate ceasation of the insane and irresponsible destruction of our landscape to accomodate Happy Motoring Utopia. That would mean not building or expanding any more roads except possibly in rare exceptional cirumstances. But isn't it exactly that Happy Motoring Utopia that requires a large part of the oil anyway? The idea of extracting oil from highways and parking lots is a paradoxical in that sense. In the relatively distant future, it seems like it might be a good idea but I have to wonder... what would the EROI of this process be? I don't have a good idea. Would it be more of something to do in a real emergency?
For now, though, I think it would be best to concentrate on using less oil via the following, in order of importance:
1. Live, work, and grow food more locally, the food growing being done increasingly organically
2. (The above facilitates) Less personal car usage, more bicycle usage and walking (BONUS: better health!)
3. The amount of longer-distance transportation should decrease, but that which remains should be increasingly done by rail, specifically electric.
With the above, we can start to lessen our requirements for roads and parking lots. With less required, there will also be less maintenance required. We can start to shut down lanes and use the space currently wasted by parking spaces (which even today often seem to be too large anyway) to help make development more dense. After that is done, as you said, we can possibly extract the oil for our needs - but we should definitely concentrate on using less now. I just can't see how anyone could look at the future prospects for oil, and energy in general for that matter, and conclude anything less.
Transitioning the infrastructure is an excellent idea. Goals to work toward are lifestyles that are as carfree as possible. City development or restructuring in the future could follow the pedestrian and light rail oriented designs by J. H. Crawford;
Individual districts could look like the following;
I'm quite skeptical of planned cities. They tend to miss the boat on mixed-use development -- retail on the first floor, residential above. That's a very successful urban form, and one used along avenues in most old streetcar suburbs.
Intentionally non-gridiron, non-rectilinear streets also seem ill-advised. Non-straight streets seem to increase the amount of walking required and the amount of pavement needed.
By an amazing coincidence, that's exactly what is suggested in the plan.
If interested in such things, you should visit carfree.com. It may astound you, but people can't give their entire plan for reorganising cities and societies in a comment on an article on a website. They need at least a few pages.:)
As much of the foot travel is to and from the center of the district, a radial pattern is more desireable. Absolutely straight streets everywhere can take a bit of human scale away from an urban design, and the wedges of a radial shape are so narrow at the center as to reduce efficiency of space.
Curved or otherwise non-straight avenues can create more of a sense of 'here', and intrigue one as to the view around the corner.
From the Carfree Cities Design Elements page.
Elegant design and concept. Almost utopian, really. But a few practical issues:
1. This would be highly unpleasant if the rail was above ground.
2. How do people get into and out of the city? Does another rail line run through the central hub?
3. How is residential and commercial divided?
4. How do people have access to the green space? Is it completely cordoned off for wildlife or can it be used for agriculture, recreation, etc?
5. Where are you going to build it? The Amazon? Siberia? Mars? Most development has already happened worldwide so the infrastructure is already there. Are you going to level existing cities in order to build it? At what cost to people and resources?
6. Air travel?
7. No personal vehicles of any sort?
8. Doesn't seem to allow much variety and options for homes and public spaces.
Each of the lobes has at least one district that can connect to external road or rail networks, for moving people and cargo (good, produce, etc).
Retail is on the first floor, with the largest retail near the center of each district. Commercial would tend to be located near the center of each district. Residential can be throughout the district, nominally above the first floor, especially near the center of the district.
This can be up to the city's preference. Obviously, with 80% open space, there will be plenty of parks, sports fields, gardens, wildlife areas, and so forth. Note that the interior of each city block, without the need for car parking, can look like the following picture;
While some countries might be pressed to find land to start such a project, other countries are creating new cities from scratch, such as Dubai and China;
Dubai Carbon Free City
China's new carbon free city
An airport could be located nearby, but such an investment would make little sense in a peak oil world.
Inside each district, there could be bikes, segways, and motorized transport for those with physical challenges. For transport outside the city, 3 districts in each lobe could have car parking, for both private cars and for car-share cars.
Any number of architectural themes can be realized. Suburbia-influenced yard layouts are not considered appropriate for this design theme, for all the obvious reasons.
There can be quite a bit of architectural diversity even within one city block;
I encourage you to visit the website Carfree.com to gain a greater sense of the way such a city would be designed, built, and lived-in.
I think the plan is very practical in a post oil world but unfortunately we probably won't have the energy resources to rebuild our cities from scratch. I wrote an undergrad thesis on the same topic back in the early 80's and a few aspects are worth expounding on.
1. The size of the subcity is both a function of the practical distance to walk to public transportation, farmland and open space (considered by some to be 7 minutes in todays society) and the appropriate scale of political entities for a local democratic government (some say 7000 is the maximum). Its interesting to note that even when preindustrial New York City exceeded a million people most of its food was grown within a seven mile radius.
2. The plan only describes uses as housing but I would assume that the blocks are mixed use, with the lower level as commercial functions, particularly in the center. The hieght of the blocks is not discribed but I would assume about a 5 story maximum to maintain a human scale and efficiency. The thickness of a building is also similar to preindustrial blocks where lighting and ventilation where from natural, not mechanical means. In this case the street and squares become defined spaces. The space between buildings become as important and defined as the buildings themselves. I explored the idea of building blocks as solar envelopes, where the intent was not to have buildings shade one another for maximum solar gain. This results in a diamond pattern of pyramids but sacrificies the strong sence of defined space between buildings.
3. The shape of the blocks in this case is a result of organic (accretive) growth, similar to most preindustrial cities but with a underlying masterplan much like Amsterdam. In Amsterdam an efficient transportation system of canals for boat traffic radiated outward as the city grew. In this case a highly efficient, quiet and above grade rail network will provides transportation beyond walking. I suspect that air travel in twenty or thirty years will become extrodinarily expensive and large airliners will become dinosaurs. Large airports will become few and far apart. Trains are the future.
If you agree with James Kunstler, and I do, the US is probably screwed. The huge investment in the spralling suburban built enviroment will become the new ghetto. Will the lawn become a permaculture garden? Can we cover roofs with solar panels cost effectively? Will we get mass transit up and running at the scale necessary? Unfortunately the energy required to maintain this infrastrucure as it wares out will probably be not be viable. Can we recycle much of it? Maybe, maybe not. Calculations posted below indicate its probably not worth recycling asphalt into energy. Can you recycle a tract home and strip mall? Hummm?
I've seen strip malls, at least the blocks of the buildings, parking lots and foundations ground up into huge piles. most of the steel and pipes are probably recycled because the volumes are so big.
now tract homes, not a whole lot will probably recycled unless the cost of the basic materials is expensive as it should be in a post-peak world. there already is a new trend of increased copper stealing. I have heard of slow demolition where a lot of the building is torn down piece by piece. aren't construction materials like sheet rock and 2X4s not recycled a lot? we can probably make progress in recycling construction debris.
we don't know if suburbia is the new ghetto. suppose we radically increase MPG or car pool more? suppose the unemployed living in suburbs gets jobs busing suburbanites to their jobs in the city? I would think that raised beds would help suburbs that had their good top soil scrapped away. the costs for solar seem to be going down while the cost for power is trending up. there are also other options. solar windows, solar paint, geothermal, wind and other things. the suburbs usually have more money so they could adapt. they could sell the SUV if they had to!
I am very glad to see people discussing the demand side situation relative to carbon fuels, the application of new urbanist city planning principles.
The biggest challenge is the entropic suburban developments that have sprung up in the age of the automobile and cheap oil. These communities need to be retrofitted, with the major change being the building of community centers for economic and cultural activities. WE need to bring the goods and services to the neighborhoods rather than all this willy nilly wasteful driving around to get the things we need and want.
Such will not occur unless we accept the maxim of a Planned Economy. The trick will be changing the way that resources are allocated to and within communities. We need to look beyond the tyranny of the bottom line in development projects, and allocate resources incorporating environmental (i.e. sustainability and equity) externalities. Even if we as a reactionary economic culture can accept the need for Ecological Socialist Planning (ESP ;-) ), we will still be faced with the huge problem related to the incredibly inflated real estate prices and costs of Capital. We may have to figure some way of writing off these costs.
The following is something that I wrote previously.
Policy Paper #7 – Energy, Agriculture, and Waste Issues
Mike Morin
Are they proceeding with tar sands removal and processing?
Such would be unfortunate in "light" of the gluttony of our times and relative to future needs, and to other concerns of the "natural" environment, public health (such as water and air quality and availability), wildlife (which does not threaten domestic life), and recreation.
Similar concerns have of course been stated for coal, oil, natural gas, uranium, water, and other resources.
Among the many problems associated with the agricultural sector are those regarding runoff from manures, pesticides, herbicides, and of soil. It is my considered opinion that Americans could consume much less meat. Shifting agricultural practices towards less meat and dairy production and consumption would help assuage the non-human animal manure problem. Some may argue that such manure could be a valuable fertilizer source though I would argue that I would not want such a job. Less meat, dairy, and egg consumption would also be healthier for people and would allow more people to realize healthy diets.
Currently blood meal from slaughterhouses is a source of nitrogen fertilizer. Again, such as the other jobs in that sectors would be very unpleasant and should be highly compensated. Evolution to a less meat regimen and more humane treatment of animals would be in order.
We need to put more resources into composting efforts and other practices and technologies associated with ecological food systems.
I have previously addressed in other forums the opportunity costs associated with cropping for tobacco, alcohol, soft drinks, sugar in lieu of food crops, ethanol, and biofuels.
Also, the active encouragement and support of more localized food systems (i.e. going toward self-sufficiency in all regions) would go a long way towards improving the quality of life in our communities. We need to put in place development control policies which stop once and for all the loss of productive farmland (and stop the sprawl that engenders and perpetuates energy intensive lifestyles) and work with growers and other farm workers to develop a production system in which they control the means of production and distribution (In such a scheme, I would consider people who work in distribution and transport a "farm" worker). Packaging should be minimized, advertising (in all sectors) eliminated and concurrently restaurant establishments should be scaled back considerably, if not minimized. Doing these things would greatly help the trash disposal problems that are with us now. Additionally, we need to actively support the reinstitution of source separation of wastes.
To the extent that sewer systems exist, humanure can and is captured. The production of algae for energy production may very well be an endeavor worthy of pursuit. Biosolids are a major problem and perhaps the construction of tankers and barges to haul and dump such to the deep ocean could mitigate this problem and create many high skilled jobs and community economic development and ownership opportunities.
However, like a national highway program (the so-called free freeways of the so-called free market system), the notion that these could be developed as a marketable products strikes me as absurd, but not nearly absurd as the plethora of extraneous and ill-conceived products that currently sit on shelves or the mountains of trash which plague our
hinterlands.
Policy Paper #2 – Equity and Sustainability Mike Morin
>Unfortunately, most Americans led by one certain heinous VP and his non-elected boss, have been inured with the notion that our energy consumption patterns are not negotiable.
This is undoubtedly one of the biggest challenges we face and the one that we must work relentlessly to correct.
We must form an equity union to implement community redevelopment and relocalization strategies towards the realization of walkable communities and the significant reduction on the dependence of the automobile and the airplane. Perhaps a desirable goal would be the reduction of automobile use by 80% in the next 20 years. With regards to what would remain of the automobile industry it is necessary to implement strong CAFE standards, which would probably be best done by the capitalization of a retooling effort (imagine something like the Yugo or a quality Aveo as a hybrid). TOD and car sharing are very worthwhile ideas.
Concurrent with the former would be a program of road narrowing which would reclaim the livability of many once desirable and potentially reclaimable properties.
There would be problems associated with peak and non-peak use of automotive vehicles. For example, here in Oregon, many folks would want to use cars in the summer months to get to hiking destinations (assuming there will be any left given the current and projected policies and practices consistent with the rapacious concept of supply side economics). If one does not have a car, the current alternative is to rent one. I did this once, and the insurance costs are prohibitive. If we had an insurance pool, and the "users" owned the vehicles instead of rented, it may be a better arrangement.
I concur that bio-fuels are a limited alternative and only within the context of a much less energy intensive civilization, and much better if we could produce it with byproducts and waste products. And there are opportunity costs associated with liquors and soft drinks. Dealing directly with such issues would also go a long way toward reducing health and waste problems. And there are the opportunity costs associated with food (and byproduct) production relative to the tobacco industry. Converting liquor and soft drinks to ethanol, and tobacco resources to food resources May both be great ideas. Though a more thorough discussion about the use of biofuels May be in order.
But neither is sufficient without radical demand side management and more relocalization of food production and the production and distribution of other (necessary) goods.
Supply side economics has been a disaster and we can no longer rely on "the invisible hand" to DICTATE an anarchist (though the Capitalists prefer the term Libertarian) world headed toward certain disaster.
Sustainability and equity, equity and sustainability need to be our guiding principles.
Imagine the money we could reinvest in our communities and economy if we weren't spending it on the tremendously costly (also in terms of lives, injuries, and other miseries) wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Imagine the money that could be saved by drastically downsizing government: Federal, State, County, and Municipal.
Major savings realized by reducing or eliminating or in some cases reorganizing the current redundant, legalistic, bureaucratic, inefficient, and oppressive "democracies" which represent the interests of the monied elite coupled with an economic reorganization, a transition to an economic democracy, a planned economy, is fundamentally necessary for world peace, sustainability, equity, and survival.
You May want to look at the following also:
www.culturechange.org/Morin.html
Workin' for peace and cooperation,
Mike Morin
katerimarie@netzero.net
When gasoline prices climb to a much higher level, very few people will buy an SUV at any price. They become un-sellable, but they make great driveway ornaments and storage sheds.
.
Gilbert.
http://www.angelfire.com/in/Gilbert1/tt.html
I'm just guessing, but I suspect the EROEI is roughly the same as tar sands: 1.5. That is, for every 2 barrels spent, 3 returned. With tar sands, we get vast environmental destruction that pretty much makes that "gain" a loss. Now ripping up roads, that may be much more productive! We already have the equipment to do it and the environmental damage has already been done. Would the energy gained pay for new concrete roads? Probably not. But hey, there are a lot of roads we won't be needing....
The EROEI of tar sands is much higher than that - this end-is-nigh article estimates 4:1, and this anti-tar-sands article estimates 6:1.
If you want to estimate from first principles, consider that official estimates by Canada's National Energy Board are that natural gas represents the main energy input to tar sands facilities, and that current methods use an average of 0.8Mcf of natural gas per barrel (p.16-17). At 1.05GJ/Mcf for natural gas and 6.1GJ/bbl of oil, we get a ratio of about 7.3:1.
Energy other than natural gas (e.g., diesel for mining equipment) will lower that ratio some, but not particularly moreso than in similar surface-mining operations. Accordingly, estimating from first principles supports an EROEI of about 6:1. Any estimate which is less than half of that is almost certainly due to wishful thinking; I've certainly never seen a shred of support for the claims of sub-2:1 EROEI, despite following the supporting links in, for example, this story. The available data simply doesn't support those claims.
Last week I attended a meeting that the county had set up - they are in the process of developing a county-wide map of bikable roads, and they were looking for input from cyclists from all over the county about routes and paths that they might not know about - thus we were marking up some large maps with all of the ways that we have for getting around.
I was chatting with one of the county guys who said that there was a brief time last year where asphalt became more expensive than concrete, which surprised me. Typically concrete is more expensive, but is regarded as being more durable.
Awesome; good for you. Out of curiosity, where?
Fairfax County, VA. The county now has a full-time bicycle programs coordinator, and this map is one of his initiatives. That isn't to say that things are perfect here, but the map is partly so we can see where things are today, as this makes it easier to figure out what areas need more attention.
Arlington County is really far ahead of us - anyone who has biked here can say that. At the meeting they noted that in Arlington County, there are roads that were 4 lanes with parking on the side, and they were reducing them to 2 lanes with parking and bike lanes. Mainly as a traffic calming measure - the local residents were strongly in favor as they were tired of people speeding through the neighborhoods, and the traffic patterns were such that 4 lanes weren't really needed. Fairfax County is working on doing the same thing to similar areas.
They are also looking at other roads that are wide enough that they can simply be re-striped to accommodate bike lanes. The advantage of doing this is that it is quite inexpensive, the disadvantage is that it doesn't work everywhere. Some of these things need to wait until the roads are resurfaced.
The other thing that is interesting is that the general public needs to be behind these ideas. The outer portions of the county are still very exurb like, and many of these folks don't view bike lanes the same way we do. The areas that are closer in and adjacent to Arlington and Alexandria are the areas where bike lanes are going to be more popular.
There was one HOA that fought tooth-and-nail to prevent bike lanes on a nearby road (which makes no sense as they had bike trails also going behind their neighborhood). No idea what that was about. There as a fight some years back in Vienna VA where opponents were fearful of their neighborhoods being overrun by "perverts in spandex".
>I was chatting with one of the county guys who said that there was a brief time last year where asphalt became more expensive than concrete<
In Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty I briefly discuss how recent spikes in asphalt prices are just one example of the many unexpected price increases we're already facing as we approach peak oil (or, as some prefer, "coast through currently undulating plateau of world oil production").
Those price spikes make for an interesting case study IMO because the effects they had on local street repair and construction activities --and the repercussions for local economies-- hold some lessons for how we might respond to peak oil in general.
The discussion in the book (p 25-26) is available as an excerpt at:
http://postcarboncities.net/pcc-excerpts
Daniel Lerch
Looking a little further down the black asphalt road to where we will sit roasting animal bits on piles of asphalt, tires and assorted petroleum products while they burn and melt producing the liquid used in our oil lamps at night. Still an easier way of life than chasing damn whales about.
Great questions -- obviously the answers will depend on local factors, but thought provoking.
I was wondering why we should confine the recycling efforts to asphalt? The world contains at least 6.5 billion people, of whom only 2.04 billion could be call "necessary". (That would be the Christians, and arguably, some of the Jews.) How many barrels of biodiesel can be extracted from 4 billion unneeded people?
Now now, LNG, that sounds like a silly dark medieval question along the line of th e current one in Iraq of "how many oil barrels can dance on the head of a hand grenade pin".
A great candidate for moderator intervention.
That's a ridiculous thing to say. How is anyone "necessary" for the world? It seems pretty clear to me that the world got along fine for a very long time before we started fucking things up, and that happened before we numbered 2.04 billion. How'd you come to such a precise number anyway?
The comment about Christians and some Jews being necessary is even more asinine. I hope you're joking, but even if that was a (sick) joke, it wasn't funny.
Hopefully NeverLNG was writing in the style of Jonathan Swift and his 1729 "A Modest Proposal (For Preventing The Children of Poor People in Ireland
From Being Aburden to Their Parents or Country, and
For Making Them Beneficial to The Public)", in which he proposed that the solution to the poor Irish people was for them to eat their children. I would not assume, however, that NeverLNG was thinking of satire until he clarifies.
Sorry, poor taste on my part. I am not a Christian, and do not presume to be "necessary" for the Earth.
I am simply following what appears to be the guiding principal of the Neo-Con establishment. If you can't buy anything, you are unnecessary and will be hidden in plain sight by the media while you slowly starve. If you are Muslim, you are more likely than not to be a terrorist (never directly stated, always implied.) If you are pagan or Atheist -- you are beneath contempt.
Once again, sorry -- nothing to do with oil. But the basic principal is that if there were fewer people there would be less environmental degradation and less consumption. Short of catastrophic war, famine or epidemic, that seems unlikely to happen.
I guess it would depend on what part of the world they were from. Though this might give you a rough idea.
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Quirks/2006/12/06/liposuctioned_fat_could_b...
I guess it's hard to outdo reality even with the tasteless jokes. What's next?
Asphalt is commonly recycled. The earth under most roads has no reclaimable dirt, it has all been scraped away. The best use for asphalt is asphalt.
A good lesson from history is the fate of the paved Roman roads, especially in Britan. Once the paved roads were no longer needed ( the Roman army had left) and could no longer be protected and maintained (the Roman army had left) the locals gradually used the pavement stone for other purposes. I don't think there was any plan to do so, it just evolved as the stone was an easy source for whatever purposes it was required. The transportation legacy was the well built, graded and drained road beds under the pavement. These still form the basis for many roads in Europe. This will be the same legacy for many of our roads and the main benefit will be the all weather road beds beneath the pavement although it is likely that a lot of that aggregate will be mined as well for local use. If we have specific "good" ideas for the use of asphalt we should leave a note for our grand kids and great grand kids. My personal favorite is that they will find a way to melt the asphalt out of the matrix and use it for waterproofing and maybe wood preservation. Short term there will likely be sufficient liquid fossil fuels for those who can afford it and I suspect we will be too busy with other problems.
As a digression, this network of well engineered road beds may make it less likely that the railway system will be rebuilt to its former glory in North America. Most railways here were developed before the road system and were successful in competition with water transport and the rough almost impassible old military and pioneer trails. It may be cheaper to carry freight on these roads rather than rebuild railways, even if the time of travel increases. The big problems with roads here will be the bridges and snow blockage in winter. But the Australian outback is a good model. Truck trains, probably moving a lot slower then the cowboyed ones I remember on the Alice - Darwin track, and eventually fords and overflows in the stream beds might replace expensive bridges. As with the wet in the Australian NT we may hve to become seasonal or at least weather sensitive. In the Canadian north we already do that with ice roads. This won't happen in my lifetime but I suspect that our decendents will walk a little less proud upon the land.
Silly Haniboi,
All of your questions can be answered on a asphalt recyclers website. Now you have to consider how many roads today are being build with concrete. Ripping up the roads is a bad idea, to much energy used to rip them up. Expanding road systems is a bad idea too, plus wasting energy on creating new ones is a bad idea. Capitalist will break down and allow most energy efficient autos on the road to allow for the coming fuel short falls, but 10-25% will not be enough, 60-70% is the target they must hit.
As for tar sands capitalist will use 2-3 barrels to make 1 barrel of oil to keep us shopping, wasteful true.
There is enough oil in the world to keep us going shopping for a long time. Screw third world countries, our empire comes first, people must keep going shopping. Capitalist will and must keep it going at all cost, hey tax breaks for everyone.
Just think every time you go shopping where does that stuff you buy come from? it's not just about buying local, but what the tools used to make those products, hey now the third world countries don't look so bad now, when you don't have anything how much lower can you.
Now think about that every time you fill up at the pump or go shopping at the store, you just screwed another third world country.
happy motoring
cheers
Jon
Jon WhoEverYouAre:
> every time you fill up at the pump or go shopping at the store, you just screwed another third world country <
There it is, the big ethical elephant in the room. We pull up to the pump, flip the lever on the voting machine, fill the tank in our tank, and pay the K-street lobbyists who do everything possible to keep oil addiction alive in Amerka. And then we pretend it is the fault of government, oil companies, car companies, and those bad people who have larger vehicles than our own. Or we pretend oil consumption is not a problem at all.
That's why you are more far more likely to see me pedaling on the road than pedal-to-the-metal inside a motorized exoskeleton. I don't say it to brag; it's what I can do with my life.
And before you reply with, "Well, it's just not practical for ___ to bike..." let me say this.
No, all of the people can't bicycle some of the time, and some of the people can't bicycle any of the time. But a hell of a lot more of us could bicycle a hell of a lot more than we do!!
Hans Noeldner
I've been lurking here at TOD since its 3rd month or so, and this is my first comment, for what it's worth.
The idea of recycling asphalt to extract petroleum strikes me as the equivalent of burning the furniture to keep warm. The simple fact that doing so is being considered seriously here is a symptom of how far gone our whole system is. Roads are basic infrastructure. If we're willing to gobble them up to keep an ever-smaller, ever-more-hopeless system running on the fumes of its former glory, I think it's safe to "stick a fork in it", 'cause it's done.
The historical parallel of the recycling of Roman infrastructure is quite appropriate. It should be noted that it was a Roman Emperor intent on re-conquest of lost ground (not a barbarian raider) who ordered the removal of all the metal supports holding the old buildings together in Rome. These anchors, nails and support beams were re-used to make weapons, armor & other desperately needed kit for the army.
Haven't we been hearing of the US military's efforts to "go renewable"? Aside from asphalt to fuel vehicles, what other portions of current infrastructure could be recycled for military purposes? Most of it, I suspect, necessity being the mother of invention... The low-hanging fruit for raw materials will no longer be ores in the ground, but stuff lying around.
everything was reused or recycled until about the end of WWII when the whole consumption machine went into hyperdrive.
A German friend tells me that in her days when a pig was slaughtered, everything was used except the squeal. I don't see any reason why civilization can't get back to a more reasonable approach to the limits of the material world.
It may be "burning the furniture," but the better question is how much do we gain (or lose) overall by doing it. Less pavement means better rainwater capture for aquifers, reduced heat island effect, more room for agriculture or uncontrolled nature. It's yet another of those matters of "externalities." How do you reward (or punish) the indirect economic impacts of an action? Recovering fuel (or a resource in general; might be useful for plastics, but then that's a whole 'nother problem) is only a part of the equation.
I would like to turn the question on its head: why don't we use tar sands directly