The Trillion-Barrel Tar Pit

An anonymous reader writes "The latest issue of Wired has an interesting article about Canadian tar pits that could result in a trillion barrels of oil when processed. It seems just when we think the oil will run out we find new reserves. Now excuse me while I gas up my Hummer."

Comments

Hmm

[Analise]

Makes you wonder, if all the money being put into finding new sources of oil was instead put into new sources of energy, would we all be driving cars that get 80mpg and make almost no emissions? Or, you know, something like that.

Re:Hmm

[be951]

...if all the money being put into finding new sources of oil was instead put into new sources of energy, would we all be driving cars that get 80mpg and make almost no emissions?

It is possible, but not necessarily the case. Along with money, it takes time to adopt new technology. Also, we can build cars that get 80 or more miles to the gallon, zero emission vehicles, vehicles that use non-petroleum power sources, and various combinations of those and other "green" features. There are a number of reasons that "everyone" doesn't have these. First of all, cost is an issue. But there are many other factors -- both rational and emotional -- involved in purchasing a vehicle. Does it do what I need? Does it do what I want? Does it look how I want? Is it better in one of those areas than an alternative?

The short answer to why we aren't all driving super-high mileage vehicles is that we as consumers haven't demanded. We want fast, pretty, luxurious, big, cool, cheap, convenient, etc... cars more than we want highly efficient, enviro-friendly cars.

Re:Hmm

[Fat Cow]

i've got great news for you! you don't have to wonder - you can take your own money and invest in those alternative energy companies. if you're right you can make a bundle. hurrah!

Re:Hmm

[Zachary Kessin]

The thing is that for all we bitch about oil it does its job quite well. Oil and derived products (gas, jet fuel, Disiel fuel, heating oil etc) have several things going for them:

1) They have a high energy density. The fact is you can get a lot of useful work out of a gallon of auto gas.

2) They are reasonably stable at room tempurture. Yes they will burn but they won't explode for no reason (which some things will).

3) We have an infrastructure for them. From the drill to the pump a lot has been invested in making oil avalable.

4) We have a huge knowlege base. There a lot of people out there who know how to do a lot of useful things out of petro chemicals. From roughnecks to chemical engineers a lot of folks know how to do useful stuff here.

There is a lot of oil in the world. Right now there is a lot of oil that we know about but like the Canadian tar we haven't bothered to go after it because its a lot cheaper to get oil some where else. If for every $100 of oil it costs you $3 in Saudi Arabia but $60 in Canada to extract it which would you use? As the oil that is easy to get to is used up we will get creative about how to get the other stuff.

I imagine the fuel of the future will be Eathanol. You can make it by fermentation of sugars in plant products. But this also has problems, in that corn used for Eathanol can't be used for food or other things.

There is this myth that there is some perfect source of energy out there and if we would only spend 5 minutes looking we would find it. I wish it was so but I'm kind of skeptical. I mean if you did find it you would get quite rich. But so far its not happened. Other energy sources have problems as well.

Re:Hmm

[SpaceLifeForm]

Probably not, in the whole scheme of things, very little gets spent finding new, better energy sources.

Perhaps that is due to the controlling interests not wanting to give up that control.

oil running out?

[Slowping]

The world has always had big reserves in many places, especially around Alaska and Canada. Why burn up your own reserves when you can eat away at others first?

For countries like US and Canada to open up their own reserves would just drive down oil prices and make the oil worth less. Wait until the global supply is lower and then you can get some real bang for the buck.

How does this solve the problem?

[kawika]

There is no lack of oil at reasonable prices. Even with the recent price spike, US gas prices are lower in inflation-adjusted terms than they were during the "Oil Crisis" of the late-1970s. Prices would be a lot higher if we were running out of oil.

The problem comes if China and the Third World follow in the footsteps of our oil-wasteful economy. The planet's atmosphere is not going to like that. Although there's a lot of concern about the Three Gorges Dam in China, I would rather see them submerge some local Chinese history than throw tons of hydrocarbons into the world's atmosphere.

Re:How does this solve the problem?

[hal9000]

It's not only submerging history, it's fucking up the ecosystem of the entire region. Just like every dam does.

Re:How does this solve the problem?

[kawika]

Yep, hydroelectric power can do a lot of local damage. But it doesn't poison the whole world. Also, the floods it controls have killed thousands in the past, so there is a benefit. Unless the dam breaks--there are legitimate concerns about that.

Also, China is making an important strategic and economic decision by using hydroelectric. Their economy will not be dependent on foreign oil, and won't need to become involved in Middle Eastern politics to protect their country. Now there's a real tar pit.

Re:How does this solve the problem?

[b-baggins]

A CHANGED ecosystem does not mean a DESTROYED ecosystem. I am so sick of this ignorant environmentalist prattle about some utopian static, eternally unchanging mythical ecosystem that exists nowhere except their deluded fanaticism.

Re:How does this solve the problem?

[mikerich]

There is no lack of oil at reasonable prices. Even with the recent price spike, US gas prices are lower in inflation-adjusted terms than they were during the "Oil Crisis" of the late-1970s. Prices would be a lot higher if we were running out of oil.

The oil crises were all political events caused by the taps being turned off. It's not really a fair comparison.

We are almost certainly at, or very close to, the peak of oil production - from here on it is a short plateau before oil production goes into an irreversible decline.

Most major provinces outside of the Middle East are (such as Venezuela or Nigeria) all now at their peak or past their peak (North America, and the North Sea). Countries like the UK which have been self-sufficient in oil are soon going to be looking to top up dwindling domestic reserves with imported fuel.

The Caspian, for all the excitement it raises has not actually transformed the world. Talk of 200 billion barrels in the region are at the far end of expectations, so that isn't going to bail us out.

There aren't many more big fields left to discover, what's left is in smaller fields, deeper down, harder to drill and with commensurate higher costs.

But at the same time, China and India have turned their growth to maximum. Both countries need to import oil and gas to maintain economic growth and both have plenty of hard cash to spend on fuel imports. Both are becoming major players in the Gulf where they are signing agreements to drill and produce oil for export to their own markets.

So even if oil isn't in immediate risk of vanishing from our lives, the World's addiction to the stuff is getting worse - not better. There may be plenty of oil down there - but will we be able to afford it?

Best wishes,
Mike.

True

[Mark_MF-WN]

The problem comes if China and the Third World follow in the footsteps of our oil-wasteful economy. The planet's atmosphere is not going to like that. Although there's a lot of concern about the Three Gorges Dam in China, I would rather see them submerge some local Chinese history than throw tons of hydrocarbons into the world's atmosphere.

True. It sometimes seems like environmentalists wont be happy until we all live in caves. I care about the environment, but I also recognize that something has to give somewhere. Hydroelectric dams provide bountiful, clean electricity, at a fairly reasonable environmental cost. If China is embracing hyrdoelectric, I say more power to them.

Re:True

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, don't let anyone here stop you from taking that first step.

Re:its really sad

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, get started!

A Trillion? Is that a lot?

[merockhold]

At the current worldwide rate of consumption of about 80 million barrels a day, a trillion barrels would last almost 35 years. (That said, I've seen conservative estimates of growth in that rate to something like 140 mbd within 30 years. Whatever.) Anyhow, that puts us near the end of my personal life expectancy, so I'm OK with whatever the rest of you nuts do after that. You might check with my kids before you completely wreak the environment and run the world's tank down to the dregs, though.

Re:its really sad

[ConceptJunkie]

Well, we're going to need oil until those other choices are viable. It's not like we can wave a magic wand and declare "energy independence" and we suddenly have alternative energy sources to replace oil, despite what certain presidential candidates might think.

What we need to do is pursue other source while we look for more oil. They've been looking for other solutions for 100 years. The problem is the consumers will not want to trade their gasoline-powered cars for something else that will cost them a lot more. The problem with arguments like yours is that it assumes money just magically appears out of thin air.

THe main cause of international violence is corrupt governments that keep their people in abject poverty even though it isn't necessary, and then convincing them it is someone else's fault (the U.S., Israel, etc, etc).

But what about emissions?

[Via_Patrino]

But what about emissions? You keep having cheap gas but CO2 emissions go skyhigh the same way.

Oil dependence

[SofaMan]

You know, we are, at some point, going to need to wean ourselves off of mineral oil, Middle Eastern or otherwise. It will get more expensive.

Many people have raised the quite legitimate concern about changing over to new automotive technologies, and I've got to tell you, biodiesel is looking better and better.

1. There's no significant change that needs to be implemented to current diesel automotive technology.
   
2. There's no significant change that needs to be implemented to current fuel distribution infrastructure.
   
3. Burning biodiesel is carbon-neutral i.e. all the carbon being released by it is carbon that was trapped by living plants in the first place, not carbon that was sucked out of the atmosphere and trapped millions of years ago when the climate and ecosystem was completely different. And we can start to use up a bunch of carbon that's already in the atmosphere causing problems.
   
4. It mean we can actually use huge areas of unusably salinated land again - certain types of oil-rich algae grow amazingly in shallow super-salty water.
   
5. You can make it yourself if you want (unless you live in Australia, where they have just declared that biodiesel attracts fuel excise, so by making your own you basically become a tax evader).
   

It won't replace the use of mineral oil for some time, but would be an important step on the way, by reducing the environmental, technological (combustion technology is still fairly inefficient, now well over a century old, with no significant changes in the basic principle in that time) and economic urgency for finding other energy alternatives. If we started talking about diesel electric hybrids, then we might be getting somewhere!

Re:Bomb shelters in Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

your opinion changed to due to a FICTIONAL movie

its by a biased obnoxious jerk, who will do anything to get HIS truth out.

Re:Fossils

[DigiShaman]

If anything, fossils might be FOUND through tar extraction. Obviously they haven't found fossils now. What makes you think they will find them in undisturbed tar pits? For all we know, bones are resting at the bottom of the pits.