 | What is your environmental footprint? | The Oil Drum: Local | Bogota Part 2: Transmilenio Bus Rapid Transit |  |
75 comments on Tar Sands vs. Asphalt: Round 1
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
| Show without comments | PDF version
75 comments on Tar Sands vs. Asphalt: Round 1
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
| Show without comments | PDF version
User login
Personnel
Classic posts
Archives
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
The Oil Drum: New York City archives
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
- February 2006
- January 2006
- December 2005
- November 2005
- October 2005
- September 2005
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
GAIA Host Collective
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.