[lbo-talk]Peak oil and Why can't you guys learn to quote andattribute properly?

[jthorn65 at sbcglobal.net]

> How much oil is in Alberta's oil sands deposits?
> 
> Alberta's three oil sand deposits — Athabasca, Cold Lake, and Peace 
> River — contain resources that could supply Canada's energy needs for 
> more than 475 years, or total world needs for up to 15 years. The 
> production potential of all the oil sand deposits could be as high as 
> 2.5 trillion barrels of bitumen (five times more than the conventional 
> oil reserves in Saudi Arabia). The Athabasca deposit is twice the size 
> of Lake Ontario.
> 
> /  dave  /

Read Surindar Singhs "Cost Analysis of Advanced Technologies For the 
Production of Heavy Oil and Bitumen in Western Canada" available from the 
World Energy Council. No production technology is currently applicable to oil 
sand deposits and none are promising in development expected to be brought 
online within the next 20 to 25 years. 77% of this oil is currently unextractable.

If oil reaches $175 to $190 a barrel (in today's dollars) then it might be feasible 
to begin extraction. At that price there is no way to determine exactly what 
demand will be but it is unlikely to be high enough to make such extraction 
probable. Only a little bit of a stretch to suggest this is analogous to finding 
huge pools of oil on the moon. 

John Thornton