by MrBill » Tue 28 Nov 2006, 06:56:37
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I have been following PO for about 18 months because of Global warming. My take, I think we have peaked and that is a gut feeling. Something is not right when Perth is the second most expensive city in Australia has just beat Melbourne, think about that. I have been there twice this year, nice place and the most isolated city in the world. Why because of Iron Ore, gas & oil. I am orginally from Canada and Alberta is booming!!!!! Why because of the tar sands oil!!!!. When you use up to 4.5 barrels of water to extract 1 barrel of oil, I think we have gone mad!!! Plus the fact that we are using NG to heat that tar sands oil which is equlivant of using one barrel of oil. So our net gain in energy is 0!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. BUT they are making $30.00 US/barrel profit at the moment. There are days when I wonder what planet I live on, have we all gone mad!!!!! This is just my opinion.
Hey Den. Perth must be great? Had friends from Alberta living there for awhile, but no chance to visit them. Ironically, they were studying the feasibility of turning Australian nat gas into N2, but the AUD exchange rate was too strong, so now they are in Egypt to do the samething. Water pricing is always an issue! ; - )
There is no reason why Alberta needs to use nat gas for the extraction of tarsands bitumen, but at the moment this is the cheapest source of energy for them. Longer term they should consider nuclear to produce steam and electricity as an example. They can import the uranium from neighboring Saskatchewan and the CANDU reactor know-how they already possess. No technology is a panecea, but agree it makes no sense to burn non-renewable nat gas to produce synthetic oil. No more than S. Arabia using nat gas to desalinate water for example.
As for using water I think the claims are always exaggerated. Do not get me wrong. Ground water polution is a serious problem anytime you have an industrial process. Downstream water courses like the Athabasca Basin need to be protected from harmful chemicals, and flow levels need to be maintained to keep the ecosystems healthy. However, it is simply wrong to say that 4.5 barrels of water per barrel of oil is used as if it is gone forever?
When I drink a liter of water and take a piss evaporation ensures that almost one liter of water evaporates leaving behind the trace minerals and waste products of my urine, but the evaporated water is pure.
Industrial sized sludge pits are not enironmentally friendly by any stretch of the imagination, but the water is eventually recycled and re-used. But as you are concerned about global warming as well then obviously this is a major drawback of releasing trapped CO2 gases from recovering and burning synthetic oil drawn from the tarsands.
However, in order to curb those emissions you need sources of clean energy. No one that I know is prepared to freeze to death in a dark, cold cave, so long as there is dung, wood, coal or oil to burn to cook and stay warm? Global warming or not. We all leave an energy footprint even if it is only to move about from Canada to Australia and visit nice, but out of the way places like Perth! ; - )
The organized state is a wonderful invention whereby everyone can live at someone else's expense.
