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

[gregory meyerson]

It's probably a typo!


missing decimal point.
On Aug 8, 2007, at 10:05 PM, Macdonald Stainsby wrote:

> 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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> -Bertholt Brecht.
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