[extropy-chat] OIL: Albertan tar sands, was Peak Oil?

Mike Lorrey mlorrey at yahoo.com
Wed Sep 14 19:52:01 UTC 2005



--- The Avantguardian <avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com> wrote:

>  
> I like the idea of solar powered heaters better for
> getting oil out shale, but every advance that aids in
> the burning of yet more hydrocarbons is an advance to
> the rear. That is, to say, a step backward. We know
> the health and environmental impact of burning
> hyrocarbons, yet we do it any way. 

Firstly, it may not be a retreat of any kind. Solar heating
efficiencies tend to 50-80%, primarily because it captures a much
broader spectrum of solar flux, while PV ranges only from 10-36%
efficient due to its narrow band energy capture. Sunlight falling on an
oil shale field is going to waste just hitting the ground, warming the
air, and radiating back into space. Instead, using that energy as a
sort of catalyst to release even more energy from the ground not only
puts that sunlight to work, but acts as an amplifier.

For example: lets say we have a 66% efficient solar heater system
heating the shale. For every square meter of sunlight collected (at 1
kW/m^2), we recover 3.5 kW worth of natural gas and light crude from
the ground.

Putting the recovered oil through a reformer process to produce H2 for
transport with the natural gas produces additional excess heat to put
back into oil shale heating, plus carbon which can be pumped back into
the well at retirement, or catalyzed with O2 for energy, with the
resulting CO2 being retained for pumping into deep tar sands for
further oil recovery.

There is no reason these processes cannot be used to recover a lot of
clean energy and fuel from previously unexploitable deposits.

> And the oil
> companies are probably not going to rest until, we
> have burned every last drop of oil on the planet. All
> the carbon that has gone to ground over a billion
> years released back into the atmosphere in less than a
> millenium. And with all the deforestation it will be a
> long time before all that carbon gets scrubbed back
> out of our atmosphere. And if there are abiotic oil
> sources, we will end up with more carbon in the
> atmosphere than was ever there before. All in all a
> losing proposition as hydrocarbons will never get us
> to the stars.
>    
> 
> The Avantguardian 
> is 
> Stuart LaForge
> alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu
> 
> "The surest sign of intelligent life in the universe is that they
> haven't attempted to contact us." 
> -Bill Watterson
> 
> 
> 		
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Mike Lorrey
Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH
Founder, Constitution Park Foundation:
http://constitutionpark.blogspot.com
Personal/political blog: http://intlib.blogspot.com


		
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