DIRTY OIL: Extracting oil sands results in more of the heat-trapping gases causing climate change than conventional oil drilling
Image: NASA
FORT MCMURRAY, Alberta -- On a chilly December night in Alberta, in the heart of the country's oil boom, cab driver Milan Malusic complains about the gasoline-like odors from oil sands facilities that seep through his car windows on a daily basis.
The 46-year-old says he hates the drives past the massive pit mines and accompanying smokestacks processing the gooey form of petroleum known as bitumen. Canada holds the second-largest oil reserves in the world after Saudi Arabia, and the majority of that is buried underneath sandy earth in an area the size of Florida in this province.
The streams of trucks hauling oil-saturated sand swirl dust in the air, and the industrial complexes leave a constant odor hovering over the highway, he says.
"I think they should shut down the mines. They are dirty," Malusic said during a drive through downtown. "But I don't mind the other thing. It is clean."
Ironically, the "other thing" may not be as clean as the cab driver believes, at least in terms of greenhouse gases. It is known as in situ, an alternative form of oil-sands extraction for bitumen more than 490 feet beneath the earth. The deep bitumen is not mined, but pumped out of the ground after being loosened with hot steam.
It is not yet the primary mode of production in the oil sands, but it will be, considering that 80 percent of the overall reserves are too deep to be extracted through traditional mining.
The leased area for in situ is 16 times greater than the entire mining region, according to the Pembina Institute, an environmental think tank based in Canada.
A technology to win Canada's PR war?
Without the massive trucks, factories and large "tailings" ponds of waste that have caused waterfowl deaths and bad press for the mining sector, in situ may help Canada win a public relations war.
Yet this next generation of oil sands extraction is raising concerns among environmentalists because of climate change. In situ produces more greenhouse gases per barrel of oil than traditional oil-sands mining, which in turn generates more heat-trapping gases than conventional oil drilling, such as that in the Middle East.
In situ may be less of an eyesore than mining, environmentalists say, but it is going to worsen the oil sands' carbon footprint when the country can least afford it. It also has the potential to destroy more swaths of the country's boreal forest than mining because of the sheer number of planned in situ facilities.
"Canada won't be able to meet their targets under the Kyoto Protocol largely because of their ever-increasing emissions from oil sands. More in situ development won't help that," said Danielle Droitsch of the Pembina Institute.
Her comments come as Canada is under scrutiny for lowering greenhouse gas reduction targets for 2020 to tie its policies to the United States'. At international climate negotiations this month, Canada said it would not support commitments past 2012 under the Kyoto Protocol as long as other large emitters like the United States fail to ratify the treaty.
A planned pipeline called Keystone XL that would double the amount of oil sands crude coming into the United States is the subject of an advertising battle on both sides of the global warming debate. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to make a final decision on the pipeline next year.
The industry and its supporters say the oil sands are being unfairly targeted. They are quick to point out that Canada emits 2 percent of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, and that 95 percent of that number is not from the oil sands.
Driven by the U.S. oil addiction
Even with the industry's projected growth, the oil sands will still constitute less than 10 percent of Canada's emissions by 2015, according to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, or CAPP.
That means that any strict ceiling on oil sands emissions would deprive the United States of its top source of oil at a time when the United States is not placing strict greenhouse gas limits on its own industries, supporters say. In their view, the United States may just turn to emission-heavy oil from Venezuela or Mexico if Canada's role is diminished.
"The right behavior for us is reduction in greenhouse gas emissions," said Greg Stringham of CAPP at a recent briefing for reporters in Calgary. "It is not shipping them to another jurisdiction."
On a recent tour of oil sands operations in Alberta, the differences between mining and in situ were stark.
At a Suncor mining operation, a canyon-like pit is home to massive shovels dumping dark, bitumen-rich earth into truck after truck, which move on the horizon like ants circulating through an anthill. They deliver their loads to a building where the bitumen gets extracted from clay, sand and water in bubbly caldron-like machines splattering oily liquid.
All around the complex are tailings ponds of waste, which hold small amounts of bitumen mixed with water, clay and sand. Ponds run by other companies have proved toxic to birds, which have died by the hundreds at some locations in the province and subjected the industry to lawsuits.
Mining companies agree to clean up their mess
Amid public outcry and government regulations, companies are spending millions to clean up the ponds and reclaim the land. This month, seven companies announced they would collaborate on research to reduce tailings waste.
No such obstacles plague an in situ plant two hours down the road, operated by Cenovus on a site called Christina Lake. There, the main above-ground visual is a surgical pipeline network in the snow mixed with patches of buildings and roads. There are no tailings ponds, shovels, trucks or pit mines.
"This is basically what you're going to see for the next few decades as far as in situ disturbance," explained Drew Zieglgansberger, a senior vice president at Cenovus, pointing at forest sprinkled with occasional wells and white pipes.
There are two main in situ methods, but the one being used by companies like Cenovus -- steam-assisted gravity drainage -- is the one projected to grow the most. It involves using natural gas to heat steam, which is then injected underground via a well.
The steam loosens the bitumen underneath the earth, where gravity drains it into a second well below the steam-filled pipe. Water and bitumen are then pumped to the surface, where they are separated before being piped to a refinery.
With in situ, there is no need to break up bitumen from clay or other materials, since the oil comes to the surface relatively pure.
Partially because in situ technology is newer to Alberta than mining, it makes up a lower percentage of oil sands production, standing around 45 percent. It will become the majority mode of production by 2015, according to Alberta's Energy Conservation Resources Board, or ERCB.
The higher greenhouse gas emissions over mining come mainly from in situ's reliance on natural gas. "We're burning a cleaner fossil fuel to get a dirtier fuel," explained Zieglgansberger.
A debate over 'dirtier'
Just how much "dirtier" in situ is on the greenhouse gas front is a matter of debate, however.
A report from IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates this year, for example, reported that one in situ process produced roughly 23 percent more greenhouse gases than oil sands mining methods. The Pembina Institute estimates that in situ is 152 percent more greenhouse gas-intensive than mining, per barrel.
There are similar discrepancies in the figures on the oil sands overall, with some numbers reporting that the industry spews at least 20 to 40 percent more greenhouse gases than traditional oil drilling, while others state it is more in the range of 6 percent.
The differing numbers result from different ways of calculating the life-cycle emissions of the oil sands, according to Droitsch of Pembina.
Industry tends to calculate the "well to wheels" number for emissions, which includes greenhouse gases emitted when oil-sands oil is burned in a vehicle, along with production emissions. Their argument is that 75 percent of emissions associated with the oil sands comes from a tailpipe, and that transportation should be considered in evaluations of the oil sands.
"With most of the emissions from the oil sands, you're just as much to blame as me," said Zieglgansberger to reporters.
Many environmentalists focus on the "well to tank" number, which accounts for oil sands production only. In their view, the key point in terms of climate change is how extraction and processing of oil sands fuel compares to traditional oil drilling. The inclusion of transportation emissions camouflages the real climate impact, said Droitsch.
There are additional ways to tinker with the estimates, including calculating emissions associated from diluted rather than pure bitumen.
Companies are doing extensive research to decrease greenhouse gas emissions, partially to reduce costs. They also don't know the future of natural gas prices, which need to stay low enough in comparison to oil prices for oil sands processing to be competitive, Zieglgansberger said.
Cenovus, for example, is investigating injecting butane with steam underground to assist with loosening bitumen. In theory, that should lower the amount of natural gas and steam, and thus the emissions and price tag of the process.
Working on carbon capture and cheaper production
Of 50 company research projects, 35 are dedicated to lowering greenhouse gas emissions, said Zieglgansberger. In the next decade, the industry is going to be able to get its "steam to oil" ratio low enough through new technology that emissions will parallel those of conventional oil drilling, he said.
That doesn't change the fact that the emissions from the oil sands could triple from 2008 levels by 2020, according to green groups.
The Albertan government also has invested more than $2 billion on carbon capture and storage technology, although some of that work is focused on coal plants. Carbon capture and storage has yet to be proved at scale.
It is "a small portion of the answer" for oil sands emissions, said Stringham of CAPP. Efficiency is the main way industry will cut greenhouse gases, he said.
In 2007, the Albertan government required facilities emitting more than 100,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases yearly to reduce their emissions intensities by 12 percent from predetermined baselines.
Companies failing to meet that target must pay a carbon price of $15 per metric ton into an Albertan-run fund. The industry says the fund is boosting development of clean energy technologies, while environmentalists criticize the penalty as a weak one that is a financial drop in the bucket for most companies.
However, the ultimate fate of in situ may not rest with arguments about climate change. Albertan government official Andy Ridge said the province will not consider a cap on emissions if the United States is not doing the same.
"Canada needs the rest of North America to move before we can go any further on our own regulatory framework. We can't put our industry at a disadvantage," said Ridge, Alberta's director of the Climate Change Secretariat.
Impacts on water, forests and caribou
In the meantime, challenges to in situ are coming over other issues. Yesterday, a peer reviewed report from the Royal Society of Canada reported that the cumulative impact of in situ on groundwater and surface water, such as lakes and wetlands, needs to "be better understood." In situ uses less water overall than mining, but there are "uncertainties" about groundwater contamination, the Royal Society said.
There are also concerns about the woodland caribou, an endangered species in Canada whose habitat happens to overlap with swaths of the in situ region. The landscape footprint per barrel of oil of in situ is lower than mining, but more forest could be lost overall with in situ because of the number of planned in situ facilities.
"If you want in situ and oil sands development, you will not have caribou at their traditional levels," said Stan Boutin, a biological sciences professor at the University of Alberta who published a peer reviewed paper this year on the species.
The Albertan government is examining the possibility of conservation areas off-limits to development, but the "devil will be in the details" of any proposal, said Boutin.
Dave Ealey, a spokesman for Alberta's Sustainable Resource Development, said he disagreed that in situ had a greater overall impact on forestland than mining. The main issue with in situ is straight "cutlines" through the forest that allow wolves to move easily to attack caribou, he said. They are common with in situ because of the building of pipeline infrastructure.
The government is working with industry to try and reduce the size of the cutlines and reclaim cutline areas, he said. "We are fully aware of the challenges," he said.
At Cenovus, cameras have been erected around the pipelines to monitor the movement of animals such as caribou, although no patterns have been detected yet because the program is in its "infancy," said a company official.
Slowing down development would risk hundreds of jobs and economic growth, other oil sands backers say. The Albertan government collects roughly $3 billion in royalties from oil sands projects in a budget with $34 billion in revenue.
Some of those funds are funneled into local communities in desperate need of money for schools, health clinics and projects. At Cenovus headquarters, Mayor Peter Kirylchuk said in situ development has transformed his county, which is in the heart of in situ country.
The Lac La Biche budget which Kirylchuk oversees jumped from $19 million in 2007 to $44 million this year. The county is about to roll out a new fitness and health center with millions of dollars in donations from companies operating in situ facilities.
"We couldn't have built it without them," said Kirylchuk. "Our corporate sponsors came through in a big way."
Some of Christa Marshall's travel expenses were paid for by the Canadian Consulate General in New York. The government had no say in the content of this article.
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500
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18 Comments
Add CommentJust as BP assured us that their highly risky deep-water drilling was quite safe, and that the blow-out preventers would stop any major oil leaks, the Tar-Sands powers-that-be will promise that there will be no long term environmental damage. Well, ask yourself what happened in the BP case, or the scores of other major blow-out incidents, or the Exxon Valdez disaster, or ... . Same as it ever was.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen the damage is done the corporate gluttons will slink away with a big bag of money and those who live in the area will be stuck with ugliness, polluted land, polluted water, dead wildlife, and a feeling of being violated.
As I said recently, the Alberta Tar-Sands plunder is koyaanisquatsi* on a grand scale in a pristine wilderness.
* "koyaanisquatsi" is a Hopi expression that loosely translates: 'life out of balance; a state that calls for a new way of life'
Robert L. Oldershaw
Did Christa Marshall learn that the world's largest oxygen plant is located in the Fort McMurray area (on the Long Lake in situ project site -- OPTI/Nexen)?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf not, why not?
If yes, she could have pointed out to readers that this is the solution to the oil sands' carbon dioxide problem. In the coal-fired power plant world IGCC(integrated gasification combined cycle) is the hope of the future. The coal is gassified with oxygen to produce syngas which can readily be converted to hydrogen (for generating the electricity) and almost pure carbon dioxide for injection underground.
In the OPTI/Nexen process the bitumen is distilled into overheads and bottoms. The bottoms are gassified with oxygen to produce the hydrogen needed to upgrade the overheads to a water--clear synthetic crude. The residual syngas stream, which at this stage contains carbon monoxide, is today burned with air in gas turbines to generate electricity. In the future, when North American society is prepared to seriously pursue carbon dioxide capture, the carbon monoxide will be cheaply converted to hydrogen and removed, leaving only the carbon dioxide for injection underground. This is a very inexpensive way to sequester carbon dioxide. The heat production from all of this generates enough steam to produce the bitumen in situ.
In short, the Long Lake project, which is the fourth and most recent large-scale tar sands project, will have no mining pits, no tailings' ponds, and no carbon dioxide release. It will in fact be cleaner than ANY conventional refinery in the world. And this is not some dream in a techie's eye. It has been built at a cost of $6 billion and is running today.
Now, why do you suppose no one told Christa Marshall (or James Cameron) about this???
"...pure carbon dioxide for injection underground..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisImpossibly expensive, utterly impractical, science fiction.
CO2 sequestration is just more welfare for Big Oil.
To keep Canada Green, nuke the tar sands
Tar sands crude would be a lot 'greener' if Canada nuked them replacing gas generated steam with nuclear steam, saving big bucks and eliminating production GHG's at the same time.
Ground water pollution aside, tar sands oil would be the amongst most environmentally friendly crude in the world.
8 big mass produced Candu ACR-1000 reactors or 300 hot tub sized Hyperion units ($400 kw of steam) would be required. The total cost of the zero GHG, clean and green Hyperion units is $9 billion. Natural gas at $4 a thousand cu ft is $3 billion a year. Payback - three years.
Any excess clean and green nuclear power would be delivered to the dunces at Seattle City Light at a third the price it's paying for dirty carbon intense wind power, eliminating Alberta's coal fired plants saving hundreds of lives annually, and generating huge profits for Alberta.
Alberta could like Utah, start a motor vehicle CNG program to use the surplus gas for auto fuel at a buck a gallon equivalent, saving billions for the provinces economy.
Unfortunately Canada's Fascist Leader Ole "Brimstone" Harper is committed to global warming and making more money for his bosses over at Big Oil. He is however committed to phasing out Coal with NG, and spending millions on worthless carbon capture schemes.
Brimstone with his Mickey Mouse diploma from a second rate ex prairie bible college, has been put in charge by Big Oil of making sure that Canada stays the "second rate" country he has called it in speeches by giving away Atomic Energy Canada Ltd for a few shekels in campaign donations - no nukes for the Tar sands.
His rival - a fellow named Iggy- at least sees a future for Canada's second raters in a nuclear powered economy with AECL. The world and Bruce Power up in Peace River would love to buy Canada's still best in the world reactors but Brimstone has shut it out of the market.
Brimstone is a fundamentalist nutball who rightly sees nuclear power as the enemy of his wacky religion's apocalyptic ravings of a world devastated by global warming prepared for the "Shout". Big Oil campaign donations for his party and church will ease the pain as he waits for the day.
The problem with separating the oil from the sand is energy. It takes diesel trucks to move the sand and steam to separate the oil from the sand. This mean you have to burn fossil fuels to get fossil fuels. This fact makes the process less profitable and increases the carbon foot print from the process. Enter nuclear power. If you increase the scale of the operation enormously and use nuclear reactors to generate the steam and power the mining/ milling procedure the carbon footprint goes down and the net gain in energy (from what you have to put in to what you get out) improves significantly. The problem with building a facility of this kind are two fold - start up costs in the billions and getting approval for the construction of nuclear power plants. To get an operation like this started it would take real capitalists. The kind of steel men and oil men and railroad men who built this continent -guys not afraid to take chances and get things done. Unfortunately mostly what we have out there now are pension fund barons who are only interested in downsizing and quarterly profits. We don't have the men for the job so I don't think it will ever happen.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"To keep Canada Green, nuke the tar sands"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this====================
Good idea, and then Canada could start a new tourist destination like the Ukranians at Chernobyl, bringing in those that like to see devastation and radioactive glow!
I'm willing to bet that the Heritage Foundation will give a two-for-one discount, for the "true believers" wanting to visit both Chernobyl and the Canadian tar sands during the same vacation, and for an extra glow!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@rloldershaw: As I said recently, the Alberta Tar-Sands plunder is koyaanisquatsi* on a grand scale in a pristine wilderness.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this* "koyaanisquatsi" is a Hopi expression that loosely translates: 'life out of balance; a state that calls for a new way of life'
========================
It is 'life out of balance,' especially taking into account that they are using huge amounts of fossil fuels to extract other fossil fuels from deep within the Earth, while polluting the water and most likely causing huge spikes in cancer rates in Canadians, as well as increasing greenhouse gas emissions.
Supplying the U.S. addiction to fossil fuels is insane.
All across this planet there are intensive and extensive attacks on the biosphere.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIndonesia cuts down an alarming percentage of its valuable forests in order to plant huge monoculture palm oil plantations. The great Amazon Rain Forest is being hacked down acre-by-acre. Much of Africa is already a lost cause. Canada, for some bizarre reason, wants to emulate its deranged neighbor to the south. China is too busy "developing" to notice that when it is "king", it will be king of the slag heap. Between the berserk oil industry and the insatiable fisheries industry, the world's oceans are at risk of being turned into a wasteland. And so on across the planet.
And then there is overpopulation. The elephant in the room that no one talks about very much because no one knows what to do about it. It drives all the other crises.
Is there any stopping this juggernaut? Or is it ever more severe koyaanisquatsi until a dystopian nightmare settles the score with some rather harsh causal and fully deterministic feedback mechanisms?
Do all civilizations go through this cycle of growth and destruction? Is that the answer to Fermi's question: "Where are they?"?
Some night thoughts as we approach the solstice/eclipse of 12/21.
Robert L. Oldershaw
www.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw
Oddly the nukes release no radiation to the environment while the radioactive radon gas spew from Tar Sands NG and load balancing gas plant needed to balance Lakota's filthy wind plant make Chernobyl look like the leakage from cancer patients radiotherapy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA lot of the comments in this forum are just noise.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are going to deny one of the world's largest economies access to the world's second largest oil deposit ? It is not going to happen. It is worth too much to the governments of Alberta and Canada that it will never just be left in the ground. It is only a question of making improvements to the processing so that it can be developed efficiently so there is the least harm made to our environment. Do not forget that China has made major investments in the oil sands too. If the U.S. wants to turn their back on the oil sands Canada will sell to those that still want it.
Get your heavy oil from Venezuela instead ? Not if Hugo Chavez can help it. Reports are saying that he dislikes the U.S. so much that he has made plans to refine his heavy oil in the Caribbean and ship it to China rather than sell it in the U.S.
Comparing AECL's reactors to Chernobyl ? When has AECL ever had a radiation leak, let alone had a reactor blow up ?
Ever thought of letting the CO2 sequestration project actually finish their tests before you pronounce that it is going to be a failure ? How did you arrive at your conclusion ? Can you share your data for others to analyze ?
I live in Alberta but have nothing to do with the oil or gas businesses. I would rather see a meaningful dialog rather than persons spreading misinformation.
Personally I think we could decrease our rate of oil consumption by 50% and achieve a much higher quality of life. The wastefulness of the developed nations is almost beyond belief. And the more we get, the less happy we seem to be: look at the rates of obesity, drug addiction, incarceration, violence, divorce, suicide, educational mediocrity, corruption, ...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo turn things around would require the public to be well-educated and committed to a new way of life based on honesty and rational evidence-based decision-making.
It is extremely hard to imagine a scenario wherein such a major paradigm change, calling for a new way of life and a new definition of progress, could occur. (Except perhaps in the aftermath of some global calamity.)
Still, as John Lennon said, one can still "imagine".
RLO
www.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw
Personally I think we could decrease our rate of oil consumption by 50% and achieve a much higher quality of life. The wastefulness of the developed nations is almost beyond belief. And the more we get, the less happy we seem to be: look at the rates of obesity, drug addiction, incarceration, violence, divorce, suicide, educational mediocrity, corruption, ...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo turn things around would require the public to be well-educated and committed to a new way of life based on honesty and rational evidence-based decision-making.
It is extremely hard to imagine a scenario wherein such a major paradigm change, calling for a new way of life and a new definition of progress, could occur. (Except perhaps in the aftermath of some global calamity.)
Still, as John Lennon said, one can still "imagine".
RLO
www.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw
This article is fairly well balanced. An attribute I regularly find from SA authors which I now attribute to Christa Marshall. As an Albertan I am regularly exposed to the rantings of environmentalist vocationalists that exercise their soapbox prior to exercising their reason.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI live in Calgary and the main transportation artery through Calgary is regularly populated with well behaved tanker truck drivers. Southern Alberta is primarily an agriculture district that rests during the winter. The number of refined petroleum vehicles travelling south are clearly disproportionate to the needs of the farming community and can only be attributed to the needs pacific northwest communities of the United States.
Alberta is between a rock and a hard place. Political suicide would result from any politician's attempts to stem the tide of petroleum to the USA and would result in nearly warlike conditions between our 2 countries. The fact remains that both countries rely on petroleum to operate and grow. We Albertans would welcome an alternate energy source to relieve the international pressure we receive from the demand for fossil fuels. Americans have partnered with the enemy in the middle east and are discovering that they are financing a terrorist war against themselves. Canadians are desperately trying to fend off similar attacks on Canadian soil and have been successful to date with arrests that have spoiled attacks on Parliament.
What would you do?
Carbon capture aside I personally work along side many engineers that are
"It is worth too much to the governments of Alberta and Canada that it will never just be left in the ground."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this====================
Basically, that GREED coupled with the insatiable appetite for OIL by the U.S. at any and all costs, is the bottom line, and the biggest loser is our environment.
What are the basic necessities of life?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor me, here's the list.
(1) Food/water
(2) Shelter
(3) Clothing
(4) Meaningful work
(5) The opportunity to observe the beauty of nature
(6) Intellectual/artistic stimulation
Now ask yourself how much of human activity is directly related to the actual necessities (whatever your list is).
Then ask yourself how much of human activity is totally irrational behavior that does nothing to advance the quality of life, and in fact seriously degrades the quality of life.
We need to completely rethink: our understanding of nature, our relationship to nature, our idea of what constitutes a meaningful life, our idea what a rational person is, ...
You would say: "Stop dreaming - it could not possibly happen". I would answer that the situation might be radically different in the next cycle that follows the causal hammer of "purification".
To those who say: "We are waist deep in the Big Muddy, and there is no other option except to push on", I would say that there are alternatives, but you probably cannot see them because your mental paradigm forbids such alternative visions.
Rbert L. Oldershaw
www.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw
Do not forget, this taxidriver Milan Melusic is an Arab, who feels that only the Arabs and Muslims have the right to make money.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with JC2436. A lot of noise is going on. The industry itself is in a state of flux with competing ideas and ideologies at play. A strict environmentalist would have us reduce populations (because we are consumers) and the all hell breaks loose tar sands aficiandos who think that we have a right to rape the landscape because we can. The tar sands is not a renewable resoure. It costs money to use and develop it, just like any other resource. If you want to look at agriculture and say that they are raping the prairie grass land to produce wheat for feeding the populations of the world, so be it. What you must realize is your world view tarnishes your solutions. I have a lot of faith in people, even those in the industry, who are trying to reduce the waste and inefficiencies in the process of producing a product. It is in their best interest to reduce their carbon footprint and any non-natural polution. Remember this oil is a blight to the so-called natural environment. Nature made this mess and now we are cleaning it up. The oil was just sitting there seeping into a pristine forest. If you saw a glob of oil in Southern U.S or southern Canada you would expect the government to send in environmental workers to clean it up. This is exactly what is happening in the tar sands. They are cleaning it up and using the oil in the process. Don't tell me that this is utopian. It's just simply another way of looking at the situation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Personally I think we could decrease our rate of oil consumption by 50% and achieve a much higher quality of life. The wastefulness of the developed nations is almost beyond belief."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this=============
While it is not a reduction of 50%, the U.S. has decreased its OIL usage since our peak usage in 2006, but still uses about twice the energy per capita of the rest of the industrialized world.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_1pb7adF2Rp0/TEzVoPx17_I/AAAAAAAACHU/2nIDyBRcrwc/s1600/Oil+Consumption.jpg
This has been through a combination of more efficient vehicles, the addition of ethanol to gasoline and the economic downturn reducing consumption. Even though many fossil fuel industry sycophants keep downplaying engine efficiency, hybrids and EV's, as CAFE standards continue to rise in the future, consumption will continue to decrease. The estimated fleet-wide fuel economy standard has been set at 34.1 miles per gallon by 2016, though improvements in air conditioning systems will bring that number up to around 35 mpg. Improvements in efficiency of internal combustion engines has increased performance as well as fuel-efficiency.