The Oil Sand
Energy availableness and economic progress go hand in hand. It isn't possible to achieve economic progress in the absence of cheap, reliable energy supply. The usage of energy for world has increased systematically over the past two centuries, since the time of the professional revolution. And there is no end in view to the increase in the consumption of energy. This will continue because as global human population continues to increase and especially in a few of the growing countries like China and India, the intake of energy will increase exponentially.
In the past fifty years, global energy use has increased monotonously and how is this demand satisfied? This demand has been meet mainly with crude oil. Crude essential oil has been the largest energy component since 1960 and grew very quickly in the 1970s and ever since, is continuing to grow less rapidly. Though olive oil has been shedding ground but still, it remains the main way to obtain energy, second being coal, in line with the Energy Information Administration (EIA). Olive oil is a fossil fuel and the planet is approximately 80 to 85% dependent on fossil fuels for our energy resource. This is challenging since when fossil fuels are burnt, they emanate CO2 in the atmosphere and since CO2 is a greenhouse gas, it plays a part in global warming
Oil is a variety of hydrocarbons that are liquid under atmospheric conditions. The actual fact they are liquid permits easier processing, transport, storage space, and has an increased content of energy per volume level. These are the best advantages that petrol has over other energy resources. However, there are scenarios where the petrol is not stuck in a cap rocks and pushes it way out to the top, or very near the top of ground, at which point, the lighter substances evaporate into the atmosphere and what is still left are heavier molecules, which are normally called extra heavy petrol or bitumen. That is known as Petrol sands or Tar sand and it is made up of a mixture of sand, drinking water, clay, and bitumen[1]. Olive oil sands or Tar sand are found in a variety of countries across the world, but the vast quantities of olive oil sand reserves are located in Canada and Venezuela, according to EIA. Alberta, Canada, is approximated to own about 1. 7 to 2. 5 trillion barrels of olive oil fine sand reserve, thus, representing the greatest solo reserve of oil on earth. [2] Consequently, Canada produced about 3. 8 million barrel per day of crude engine oil, in 2014 exclusively. Of the, 2. 2 million barrel per day was produced from the oil sands. [3] About 10% of the world's oil reserves are situated in the Alberta olive oil sands and about 96 percent of Canada's total oil reserves are contained in the oil sands. [4] Additionally, Canada is reported to be the leading distributor of crude oil and refined olive oil products to the United States and the craze continues to grow in terms of percentage of US oil imports. About 60 percent of Canada's production capacity from oil fine sand, about 1. 34 million barrels each day is exported to the US. [5]
Energy as found in nature must mined, processed, processed and transferred before it is designed for end use. Unlike petrol produced by conventional engine oil drilling which is generally less dense than normal water, extracting oil from engine oil sands is more complex. There are two methods for getting bitumen from the ground and making it usable products - "in-situ" and "open pit mining". The extraction method used will be based upon how profound the oil sand debris are below the top. Both methods are complex, energy-intensive and expensive procedures.
In-situ (in place)
In-situ removal process is employed to mine bitumen that lies deep below the surface of the ground (higher than 75 meters underground). Matching to studies, about 80% of oil sands reserves in Canada are accessible via in-situ techniques. [6] The in-situ method normally uses a process called Heavy steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD). This method requires the drilling of two horizontal wells; one is utilized for injecting steam into the oil sand deposit to heat the oil fine sand making the bitumen to be more smooth and easy to move more easily. The second well is used to generate the streaming bitumen to the surface. [7]
Open-Pit Mining
Like the traditional petrol mining Open-pit mining can be used when mining olive oil sand reserves that are closer to the surface of the ground (less than 75 meters below the ground). Matching to industry report, 20% of essential oil sand reserves in Canada are extracted making use of this mining approach. [8] With this technique, trees and top layer of soil are cleared, large shovels are used to scoop the oil fine sand, which is mixture of sand, water and bitumen into large vehicles and then relocated it to onsite processing facility, where warm water is put into this combination of fine sand, clay, bitumen, in a big separation vessel. Bitumen froth is pressured to go up to the top, during the parting process and then removed and diluted with chemicals. [9] Normally, the put in sand and other materials that are retrieved in this process is then came back to the mines to complete empty space that has been mined as a means of reclamation
Upgrading
Once the Bitumen is retrieved from either through open-pit or from in-situ operation, the viscous substance is then processed to make it simpler to move through pipelines to various refinery, where it is usually to be used as feedstock. This technique is called update. The goal of changing is to convert bitumen into fabricated crude oil, a superior quality, light sugary crude oil, by detatching carbon and adding hydrogen and substance to bitumen. [10] Usually the upgrading process will come in two phases particularly primary and extra upgrading. The principal upgrading involves breaking down the heavy molecules of bitumen into lighter and less viscous substances. The secondary upgrading can be used to further cleanse and purify the bitumen accomplished from primary phase. This phase requires removing other pollutants such as nitrogen, Sulphur, and trace metals and obtain it ready for essential oil refineries. [11]
Refining
The bitumen is finally sent to through pipelines the refinery through pipelines. The SCO product is then sent to a downstream refinery for conversion into final product. [12] Here the oil is processed and converted into final products like gasoline, jet gasoline, diesel, plastics, asphalt and other consumer and industrial products.
Environmental Challenges
The mining and control of oil sands present a number of environmental influences, such as global warming and greenhouse gas emissions, disruption of land framework, and air and normal water quality. It also may have significant cultural and financial impactson local neighborhoods. Another major matter is related to the tremendous amount of water required for oil sands development -extraction, improving and refining. It is estimated that the process requires an average of three barrels of drinking water for just one barrel of oil produced, [13] though some of this inflatable water are be recycled. The major environmental troubles to oil fine sand extraction amongst others are land, water, air:
Land
Development of engine oil sand crate matter about the build up of large amounts of residual waste materials known as tailings. Tailing, which contain a mix of drinking water, clay, un-recovered bitumen, and dissolved chemicals, including some organic compounds are believed to be extremely harmful and very dangerous to the environment. Additionally, the tailings are stored in large ponds and triggers seepage into the surrounding landscape, though the drinking water released from the ponds can be recycled and reused, however, most still remains as dirt almost indefinitely. The considerable activities associated with petrol sand job are also known to create remarkable structural disruptions of the surroundings including seismic exploration and development of wells, highways pipelines etc. negatively impact the surroundings and endangers the animals.
Water
Since oil fine sand is made up of an assortment of sand, water, clay and bitumen, a warm water process must separates the bitumen from the associated sand, water, clay and minerals. The process requires extensive amount of drinking water of fresh water to produce a barrel of bitumen from mined essential oil sands. In many cases, this particular is sourced from surface water aquifers. Swift expansion of olive oil sands projects are creating great strains on fresh drinking water resources, which contributes to ecological and environmental problems. [14] Also, since bitumen is denser than drinking water, it can be harder to clean up when there is a spill. Additionally, essential oil sands mining functions produce huge amounts of toxic waste, known as "tailings", which contain water, sand, silt, clay, hydrocarbons and contaminants. The contaminates may contain various levels of naphthenic acids, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, phenolic substances, ammonia and mercury etc. , a few of which, according to International Organization for Research on Tumors and the U. S. Environmental Safety Agency, are known to be cancer-causing agent. [15] Even most detrimental, the tailings are generally stored in ponds or man-made dams, thus creating the tailing to drip into ground drinking water and surrounding drinking water resources. It's estimated that about four billion liters of tailings drip each year, in so doing triggering huge environment devastation. [16]
Air
Extracting Oil sands require a considerable amount of energy in control to process, upgrading and refining bitumen to the final products well suited for market. The complete development process is so energy intensive which it contributes immensely in carbon emissions. Reports claim that the oil fine sand industry is one of the highest contributors of nationwide air emissions in Canada.
Oil is produced to be consumed, over fifty percent of the petrol consumed in the world is for transport - fueling society's unquenchable demand for flexibility. A lot more than 50 percent of oil produced is employed for transportation needs. [17]. As the world's human population develops, so will the global traveler ability to move, global freight and transport volumes. Additionally, the current global surge in urbanization, the global economic development, as well as advanced of monetary development are other critical indicators prompting the increase in demand for oil. As fossil energy, final engine oil products are burnt for energy through the various applications for which these are used. When burnt, they emanate high amounts of dangerous emissions, including nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, and contaminants that drift in to the atmosphere and donate to air pollution. Carbon dioxide and water vapor, and also other gases such as ozone and nitrous oxide, are known greenhouse gases and the increasing amounts of these greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are associated with global warming and could have disastrous environmental implications. [18] However, because the business of producing petrol from oil sand is base generally on engine oil price, chances are that you will see some slowdown in sand oil operations about the world, as engine oil prices decline. Due to the recent downward style of essential oil prices, the economical viability and financial attractiveness of petrol sands projects also have declined. Financial experts including those from Goldman Sachs and Total have figured "oil sands projects require long-term prices more than $80/barrel to break even"[19]. Deutsche Bank and BP, amongst others, have raised doubts about the future of investing in essential oil sand and Shell Petrol has significantly scaled back its olive oil sands plans[20]. If these phenomena should continue, it could be the preeminent way in minimizing and mitigating environmentally friendly degradation being induced by oil fine sand.
[1] http://www. canadasoilsands. ca/en/what-are-the-oil-sands/recovering-the-oil
[2] http://www. nrcan. gc. ca/energy
[3] lbid
[4] www. oilsandsmagazine. com/technical/oilsands-101
[5] Kenny Bruno, Bruce Baizel, Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, Elizabeth Shope, and Kate Colarulli, "Tax Sands Invasion: How Dirty and Expensive Essential oil from Canada Threatens America's New Energy Overall economy" (May 2010)
[6] http://www. suncor. com/about-us/oil-sands
[7] http://www. canadasoilsands. ca/en/what-are-the-oil-sands/recovering-the-oil
[8] http://www. nrcan. gc. ca/energy
[9] http://www. canadasoilsands. ca/en/what-are-the-oil-sands/recovering-the-oil
[10] http://www. nrcan. gc. ca/energy
[11] lbid
[12] http://www. oilsandsmagazine. com/technical/oilsands-101
[13] http://www. nrcan. gc. ca/energy
[14] lbid
[15] Kenny Bruno, Bruce Baizel, Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, Elizabeth Shope, and Kate Colarulli, "Duty Sands Invasion: How Dirty and Expensive Oil from Canada Threatens America's New Energy Market" (May 2010)
[16] lbid
[17] https://www. iea. org
[18] Kenny Bruno, Bruce Baizel, Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, Elizabeth Shope, and Kate Colarulli, "Taxes Sands Invasion: How Dirty and Expensive Engine oil from Canada Threatens America's New Energy Economy" (May 2010)
[19] lbid
[20] lbid
