[R-G] Peak oil? No time soon; But securing supply has more risks, study says

[Macdonald Stainsby]

I just found this clearing out old mails:

gregory meyerson wrote:
> really interesting.
>
>
> this 120 mbd they're "predicting" fits exactly the cheney group's
> projections for demand by 2020.
>
>
> these optimistic arguments about supply are based on technological
> fantasy--putting aside the environment/people for a sec.  the most
> enthusiastic proponents of the tar sands figure they'll get 37 mbd by
> 2020 (or 2030, I forget which).

Where on earth do you get this idea? This physically impossible- unless
you are talking including other tarsands elsewhere, like California, Utah,
Venezuela... combined. But this still seems utterly impossible.

By 2030, the US Dept of Energy wants 5mbpd from Alberta's tarsands, giving
Canada as a whole something like 8 mbpd, depending on what happens in the
Maritimes, etc.

> and they're going to do this without
> using up natural gas to get the "oil."  which means using nukes to get
> the oil.

Building a nuclear reactor is a massive undertaking, uses vast stores of
energy and needs to operate for most of a decade before the greenhouse gas
is leveled off to a neutral position as opposed to using the gas directly
to extract the tar sands. It's a lucrative contract, a developers happy
place to get, but it is a non-starter for what it is claimed for. Plus, it
needs to be close to the source of the steam's use (the steam is 600
degrees!) to be functional, requiring not a nuke plant, but dozens. That's
if they want to seriously supplant the gas needs.

> but given real actual nuclear technology, this means mining
> uranium and if there is a "nuclear renaissance," we will be having
> "peak uranium."

Agreed. People should note that the "less destructive" in the ground
methods used in Venezuela, the Peace Region and Cold Lake all use *more*
energy, and *more* water, while puncturing the ground with upwards of a
dozen wellheads at a time, where "conventional" oil would be one. In other
words, building this kind of infrastructure by 2030 would require the use
of alien, non earth bound technology since the energy and the matter,
labour and land is not there nor even close for the number 37 million
barrels a day.

If tar sands were the same as conventional oil, there effect on the peak
would still be based on the rate of extractability- and that would not be
a slam dunk either. But this stuff is a non-starter.


--
Macdonald Stainsby
Co-ordinator,
http://oilsandstruth.org
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