6 comments on ASPO 6 Ireland DVDs and ASPO-USA 2007 Houston Conference DVDs
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Totally off-topic, but prominently placed :-)
From the latest ASPO-USA Peak Oil Review:
"In Alberta, at Fort McMurray's open mines, it takes 2 tons of tar sand, 250 gallons of water and 1,400 cubic feet of natural gas to produce one barrel of synthetic crude, says Peter Wells, director of English research firm Neftex Petroleum Consultants Ltd. (2/22, #19)"
According to some conversion tables, 1 cubic foot of natural gas contains 0.3018644 kWh energy.
So 1400 cubic feet contain 0.422 MWh.
One barrel of oil contains 1.7 MWh.
So EROEI (Energy Returned On Energy Invested) for tar sands at McMurray cannot be better than 0.422:1.7, that is about 1:4.
Given the pretty large extra energy cost in diesel and electricity for the mining and upgrading equipment, EROEI does probably approach 1:3.
So in total, tar sands production "wastes" a quarter to a third of the extracted energy.
Is that calculation correct?
Cheers,
Davidyson
I think it should be the other way around i.e 3:1.
Not sure if you can really say there is any waste as teh energy returned is greater than the energy invested therfore there is an energy profit. As long as there is a "profit" then they'll keep doing it.
It would eb intersting to see what the financials are on tar sands production. Does anyone have any data on that?
Oh, sure, it's 3:1, sorry!
Energy is wasted whenever you covert it from one form to the other (in this case thick, sticky tar to liquid oil). 2nd law of thermodynamics...
But you're right, they will keep "producing" it until hell freezes over.
Cheers,
Davidyson
Thank you for posting the link to the PDF web site. These presentations are fantastic.