My wife told me to clean up my office so I am trying desperately to input
data which has been stacking up on my desk. I ran across a couple of
tidbits which are a bit scarey. For those who think enhanced oil recovery
will produce bountiful amounts of new oil, Zittel and Schindler wrote this
last year:
"To assess the overall influence of this measure, out of the 1.4 billion
barrels of oil which were produced since 1929, only 40 million are due to
enhanced oil recovery-an increase of about 3 percent." Werner Zittel and
Jorg Schindler, "Future World Oil Supply," Presented at the International
Summer School On the Politics and Economics of Renewable Energy at the
University Salzburg, July 15, 2002.
As for hope from tar sands, they said this:
"Finally one should not forget the energy and water resources which are
needed to extract the oil from the ground. Just to give an idea of the size
of these efforts: today a quarter of all water used in Alberta is directed
to the oil and gas industry. Canadian Natural Resources Inc (CNR) is
investing about 5 billion Canadian dollars to push the production rate of
the project horizon 20 235 kb/d by 2011. Within that project there are plans
to divert a river for several miles and to use the water to allow on-site
extraction of 3.5 cubic meters per second. Large extensions of these
projects are simply not realistic when one considers the needs for other
resources and the environmental side effects." Werner Zittel and Jorg
Schindler, "Future World Oil Supply," Presented at the International Summer
School On the Politics and Economics of Renewable Energy at the University
Salzburg, July 15, 2002
Thus, while there may be enough molecules for our needs, how many rivers can
we divert to get them?
this paper can be found at
http://www.peakoil.net/Publications/International-Summer-School_Salzburg_200
2.pdf
Received on Sun Dec 7 16:47:32 2003
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