There's Still a Future for Dirty Oil...

[cjppjc]

Re: There's Still a Future for Dirty Oil...

Hey Steve - Pay a lot for electricity up there?

[LargoWinch]

Re: There's Still a Future for Dirty Oil...

Only now do I feel edjicated enuf to form a half-decent question, on something I know a little about (oil, not economics).

Well, I guess welcome is in order then.

As for me, I am no oil expert - far from it. So if you know something interesting please feel to express yourself; I like learning just like the next guy and I am sure a lot of other members would appreciate that as well.

Thanks for stepping in the "lime light".

[LargoWinch]

Re: There's Still a Future for Dirty Oil...

If the Americans don't want the oil from Alberta, the world will gobble it up in any of dozens of countries, including India and China. That is the point.

Well Steve, we are saying the same thing then: the producer does not care if the buyer is from Mars or the US, as long as he is willing to sell at market prices.

My point is that it makes more sense for Alberta to send the goo to the US due to its geographic location.

Shipping Alberta Oil to India is certainly feasible, but why incurring the extra costs if you have a pipeline and a buyer just a few hundred kms away?

[peakishmael]

Re: There's Still a Future for Dirty Oil...

Is this what the eco-frauds are now saying--- that bitumen can only be used for asphalt and roofing? Each of their lies keeps getting bigger and more hilarious than the last.

Come to Alberta and see for yourself what the real truth is about bitumen and heavy oil. Go visit the oil up-grader facility at Ft. Saskatchewan, Alberta, just north-east of Edmonton.

I think SantaFe just asked an honest question. This is not a new eco-fraud lie, and since I'm one of them I think I can represent.

SantaFe, to try to answer your question in layperson's terms, as I understand it, bitumen from oil sands (aka tar sands) is "heavy" and dirty because the molecules have a lot of carbon atoms, and not much hydrogen. To process it into gasoline and other lighter products involves adding hydrogen to the molecular chains, using natural gas as a feed stock. Which is why it has such a low energy return on investment, and high break-even point.

[metalman]

Re: There's Still a Future for Dirty Oil...

I think SantaFe just asked an honest question. This is not a new eco-fraud lie, and since I'm one of them I think I can represent.

SantaFe, to try to answer your question in layperson's terms, as I understand it, bitumen from oil sands (aka tar sands) is "heavy" and dirty because the molecules have a lot of carbon atoms, and not much hydrogen. To process it into gasoline and other lighter products involves adding hydrogen to the molecular chains, using natural gas as a feed stock. Which is why it has such a low energy return on investment, and high break-even point.

welcome! great to have new member here who know their stuff (and can explain it to a dummy like me).

i've heard the argument that net energy roi doesn't matter as much as net financial roi... if you can turn a plentiful cheap energy source into a rare expensive one, you win... the sci fi dreams are solar and wind into hydrogen (hydrolysis) and nuclear as a heat source to turn tar sands into gasoline... er, a few steps in between... but you get the idea.

anyway, do you agree? those examples... theoretically possible to do and make $$$?

[Starving Steve]

Re: There's Still a Future for Dirty Oil...

Hey Steve - Pay a lot for electricity up there?

Electric rates are nearly doubling in BC starting this summer because the BC Govn't refused to take action to build hydro-electric dams, nor nuclear power plants, nor natural gas-fired power plants, nor coal-fired power plants. And darn few windmills have gone up, either--- a few windmills up by Prince Rupert on the coast, and that is it.

Don't get me going on this bunch here because I have high blood pressure.

[The Outback Oracle]

Re: There's Still a Future for Dirty Oil...

Well Steve, we are saying the same thing then: the producer does not care if the buyer is from Mars or the US, as long as he is willing to sell at market prices.

My point is that it makes more sense for Alberta to send the goo to the US due to its geographic location.

Shipping Alberta Oil to India is certainly feasible, but why incurring the extra costs if you have a pipeline and a buyer just a few hundred kms away?

Largo for my two bob's worth - In a few years the Chinese will have a lot more money to buy the oil!! They will be able to outbid the US for a commodity in dire short supply.

[Starving Steve]

Re: There's Still a Future for Dirty Oil...

Well Steve, we are saying the same thing then: the producer does not care if the buyer is from Mars or the US, as long as he is willing to sell at market prices.

My point is that it makes more sense for Alberta to send the goo to the US due to its geographic location.

Shipping Alberta Oil to India is certainly feasible, but why incurring the extra costs if you have a pipeline and a buyer just a few hundred kms away?

I am all in favour of shipping Alberta oil to the U.S. at market prices, but President Obama, the EPA, and some in Congress appear to not want Alberta up-graded oil because of its so-called carbon foot-print.... Actually, the carbon issue has been solved in the up-grading process. Also, waste water used in the mining of heavy oil ( to make steam ) is now recycled in a closed-system, so there is no environmental impact. Also, tell Nancy Pelosi and her bunch down there that the ducks are happier now in North-east Alberta, thanks to better sennnnnnnnnnnnsitivity to the environment.

[jk]

Re: There's Still a Future for Dirty Oil...

there is nothing more fungible than a barrel of oil.

[flintlock]

Re: There's Still a Future for Dirty Oil...

I think SantaFe just asked an honest question. This is not a new eco-fraud lie, and since I'm one of them I think I can represent.

SantaFe, to try to answer your question in layperson's terms, as I understand it, bitumen from oil sands (aka tar sands) is "heavy" and dirty because the molecules have a lot of carbon atoms, and not much hydrogen. To process it into gasoline and other lighter products involves adding hydrogen to the molecular chains, using natural gas as a feed stock. Which is why it has such a low energy return on investment, and high break-even point.

How is the oil sands when it comes to getting diesel from it? Would it be better for producing diesel than say, lighter crudes?

[peakishmael]

Re: There's Still a Future for Dirty Oil...

i've heard the argument that net energy roi doesn't matter as much as net financial roi... if you can turn a plentiful cheap energy source into a rare expensive one, you win...

Assuming a plentiful cheap energy source (where?), better to use it directly than turn it into something expensive. More below.

the sci fi dreams are solar and wind into hydrogen (hydrolysis) and nuclear as a heat source to turn tar sands into gasoline... er, a few steps in between... but you get the idea.

IMO, hydrogen from wind/solar has no future, except perhaps a few niche applications where electric storage is a problem. If solar are wind are the energy source, regardless how cheap, using the electricity directly, or storing it (batteries, gravitational potential or other schemes) is way more efficient than hydrogen conversion, and then deconversion via fuel cells.

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/11963

Hydro generation from microbes sounds good until you look at the scales required to replace significant energy fraction.

Haven't read about nuke heat + tar = gas, but the idea that nukes could be cheap seems, um, poorly supported by history. ;)

[metalman]

Re: There's Still a Future for Dirty Oil...

Assuming a plentiful cheap energy source (where?), better to use it directly than turn it into something expensive. More below.



IMO, hydrogen from wind/solar has no future, except perhaps a few niche applications where electric storage is a problem. If solar are wind are the energy source, regardless how cheap, using the electricity directly, or storing it (batteries, gravitational potential or other schemes) is way more efficient than hydrogen conversion, and then deconversion via fuel cells.

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/11963

Hydro generation from microbes sounds good until you look at the scales required to replace significant energy fraction.

Haven't read about nuke heat + tar = gas, but the idea that nukes could be cheap seems, um, poorly supported by history. ;)

so, in other words, we're screwed.

[santafe2]

Re: There's Still a Future for Dirty Oil...

I think SantaFe just asked an honest question. This is not a new eco-fraud lie, and since I'm one of them I think I can represent.

SantaFe, to try to answer your question in layperson's terms, as I understand it, bitumen from oil sands (aka tar sands) is "heavy" and dirty because the molecules have a lot of carbon atoms, and not much hydrogen. To process it into gasoline and other lighter products involves adding hydrogen to the molecular chains, using natural gas as a feed stock. Which is why it has such a low energy return on investment, and high break-even point.

Yes, thanks. I understand renewable energy but not so much the recipe for turning unconventional crude oil like oil sands into a transportation fuel. The above is helpful. When we say oil sands have a low energy return, we should be clear that it's low in relation to light sweet crude but my understanding is that overall, it has a good energy return at nearly 4:1. It's not like oil shale which, like corn to ethanol, has a negative energy return.

The problem with oil sands is not unlike the problem with renewable energy. It has a reasonable energy return but it can't scale to replace conventional oil resources. The other issue with oil sands is the probable future cost of natural gas. It's cheap today but as oil becomes more scarce, and it's price rises, the cost of natural gas will rise as well.

Nuclear has a fantastic energy return but it's best suited to stationary energy requirements. It's also a transitional energy source as the feedstock is limited.

The main issue is that we are running out of cheap transportation fuel. Renewable energy can help if one has an electric car but it's useless for big machinery. Nuclear can help as a transformational feedstock for another energy source but it's most useful as a power source for stationary energy needs. Same for natural gas.

We're apparently a generation or two from running extremely low on a cheap source of transportation fuel. It would be good if we all put politics aside and admit we've got no great tiered answer today. We're playing a game of chess and we can only see one move ahead. That always leads to checkmate.

[GRG55]

Re: There's Still a Future for Dirty Oil...

I think SantaFe just asked an honest question. This is not a new eco-fraud lie, and since I'm one of them I think I can represent.

SantaFe, to try to answer your question in layperson's terms, as I understand it, bitumen from oil sands (aka tar sands) is "heavy" and dirty because the molecules have a lot of carbon atoms, and not much hydrogen. To process it into gasoline and other lighter products involves adding hydrogen to the molecular chains, using natural gas as a feed stock. Which is why it has such a low energy return on investment, and high break-even point.

SantaFe: peakishmael has described it pretty well. A bit more detail [for those who can stand it ]:

Quite a bit of Canadian oil sands bitumen is sold directly to heavy crude refineries [most in the USA]. Bitumen is composed of C30+ molecules.** It's too viscous to be transported any distance in a pipeline so it's blended with "diluent". The most common diluent is natural gas condensate - the volatile liquids that condense from natural gas at atmospheric pressure and typical ambient temperatures - generally composed of C5 to about C15. This diluent is transported by purpose built pipeline from the Edmonton region [which is a major transport hub for Canadian petroleum] to the tar sands region where it's blended [roughly 1:3 by volume] with the bitumen, which is then batched through the crude oil pipeline systems to heavy crude refineries in the USA and Canada that have the capability to process this DilBit mixture. Because the mixture contains low boiling point and high boiling point hydrocarbons, with nothing in the middle, it doesn't have much of a middle distillate yield.

A number of oil sands operations have integrated upgrading facilities either proximate to the mines/production operations, or elsewhere in Alberta. These upgraders produce a "synthetic" crude oil of generally pretty high quality. The upgraders include Syncrude, Suncor, Husky and Shell. In these upgraders the bitumen is subjected to some combination of delayed or fluidized-bed coking [cracking the heavy molecules using high heat], hydrotreating [cracking the heavy molecules in a hydrogen rich environment to create "synthetic" hydrocarbon molecules] and distillation.

To answer flintlock's question about diesel, it depends entirely on the upgrading process which determines what portion of the cetane range the final distillate made from the upgraded oil contains. Some of these synthetic oils produce a full cetane range low sulphur diesel directly, but not all.

**For those not familiar with the "shorthand" the "C" refers to carbon and the number refers to the number of carbon atoms in the molecule. So C30+ would refer to a hydrocarbon mix where all the molecules have 30 or more carbon atoms joined together...in other words a very heavy crude. To contrast, octane, a component in motor gasolines, is of course C8.

[santafe2]

Re: There's Still a Future for Dirty Oil...

SantaFe: peakishmael has described it pretty well. A bit more detail [for those who can stand it ]:

Quite a bit of Canadian oil sands bitumen is sold directly to heavy crude refineries [most in the USA]. Bitumen is composed of C30+ molecules.** It's too viscous to be transported any distance in a pipeline so it's blended with "diluent". The most common diluent is natural gas condensate - the volatile liquids that condense from natural gas at atmospheric pressure and typical ambient temperatures - generally composed of C5 to about C15. This diluent is transported by purpose built pipeline from the Edmonton region [which is a major transport hub for Canadian petroleum] to the tar sands region where it's blended [roughly 1:3 by volume] with the bitumen, which is then batched through the crude oil pipeline systems to heavy crude refineries in the USA and Canada that have the capability to process this DilBit mixture. Because the mixture contains low boiling point and high boiling point hydrocarbons, with nothing in the middle, it doesn't have much of a middle distillate yield.

A number of oil sands operations have integrated upgrading facilities either proximate to the mines/production operations, or elsewhere in Alberta. These upgraders produce a "synthetic" crude oil of generally pretty high quality. The upgraders include Syncrude, Suncor, Husky and Shell. In these upgraders the bitumen is subjected to some combination of delayed or fluidized-bed coking [cracking the heavy molecules using high heat], hydrotreating [cracking the heavy molecules in a hydrogen rich environment to create "synthetic" hydrocarbon molecules] and distillation.

To answer flintlock's question about diesel, it depends entirely on the upgrading process which determines what portion of the cetane range the final distillate made from the upgraded oil contains. Some of these synthetic oils produce a full cetane range low sulphur diesel directly, but not all.

**For those not familiar with the "shorthand" the "C" refers to carbon and the number refers to the number of carbon atoms in the molecule. So C30+ would refer to a hydrocarbon mix where all the molecules have 30 or more carbon atoms joined together...in other words a very heavy crude. To contrast, octane, a component in motor gasolines, is of course C8.

Thanks, we should start an energy primer thread on iTulip. I'm sure EJ could pull in the occasional expert as he does with regard to economics. We have the expertise here to build a broad understanding of the possible energy outcomes over the next 20 years. Something like a "How one iTuliper uses energy" thread.

In 2109 our primary source of transportation energy will not be oil. Others can pull this in and predict a more accurate end date but I find it more important that we agree that oil as a transportation fuel has a knowable end date. If we can agree on that, then we can discuss how we might move from place to place or if we'll decide that wide ranging human transportation was a conceit of the 20th Century.