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Except for a fraction of the extra-heavy oil or bitumen which can be extracted by conventional oil well technology, oil sands must be produced by strip mining or the oil made to flow into wells using sophisticated in-situ techniques. These methods usually use more water and require larger amounts of energy than conventional oil extraction.
The use of either of these forms of resources beyond their rate of replacement is considered to be resource depletion. [1] The value of a resource is a direct result of its availability in nature and the cost of extracting the resource. The more a resource is depleted the more the value of the resource increases. [2]
However, in-situ processes do involve possible significant environmental costs to aquifers, especially since in-situ methods may require ice-capping or some other form of barrier to restrict the flow of the newly gained oil into the groundwater aquifers. However, after the removal of the freeze wall these methods can still cause groundwater ...
Tar sands get a lot of bad press, much of it to do with the fact that the extraction and processing of tar sands bitumen creates a lot more pollution than other fuel sources. A few companies are ...
Their carbon footprints, however, are radically different: conventional reservoirs use the natural energy in the environment to flow oil and gas to the surface unaided; unconventional reservoirs require putting energy into the ground for extraction, either as heat (e.g. tar sands and oil shales) or as pressure (e.g. shale gas and CBM).
Bitumen also occurs in unconsolidated sandstones known as "oil sands" in Alberta, Canada, and the similar "tar sands" in Utah, US. The Canadian province of Alberta has most of the world's reserves, in three huge deposits covering 142,000 square kilometres (55,000 sq mi), an area larger than England or New York state .
In 1977 Strausz published his article on the chemistry of the oil sands, then also known as the tar sands attending the conference that year entitled the Symposium on Tar Sand and Oil Shale. [ 6 ] By 2003 with the rising price of oil , and the improvement of enhanced recovery techniques such as thermal in-situ methods, the Peace River oil sands ...
The Athabasca oil sands, also known as the Athabasca tar sands, are large deposits of oil sands rich in bitumen, a heavy and viscous form of petroleum, in northeastern Alberta, Canada. These reserves are one of the largest sources of unconventional oil in the world, making Canada a significant player in the global energy market.