Watch 60 minutes on oil sands?

Anyone see this piece on 60 Mins
http://tinyurl.com/9dls4

On Fri, 27 Jan 2006 09:16:51 -0600, me@privacy.net wrote:

Anyone see this piece on 60 Mins
http://tinyurl.com/9dls4

yup... I watched it.
60 minutes didn't mention that it takes 40 to 50 Therms of NG to recover and upgrade tar sand output into ONE barrel of refine-able Oil.
That's a lot of energy and CO2 (>90kg/CO2) dumped into atmosphere..
ref.. figs 2.4, 6.4, and 7.1 http://www.acr-alberta.com/Projects/Oil_Sands_Technology_Roadmap/OSTR_report.pdf
Can you imagine the look on their faces when the NYMEX futures for Jan 2006 hit $15.5/MMBTU (10 Therms). Ouch...
ref: http://www.wtrg.com/daily/gasprice.html
==========
At some point humanity is going to have to face the FACT that burning ever increasing amounts of fossil fuel and release CO2 is going to end up submerging coastlines around the world.
The so called experts have YET to add this critical hidden COST into their calculations. That hidden "Tragedy of the Commons" cost of comsuming blows the cost of production factors right out of the water. Let's see, amortize a substantial (10 to 20 m) sea level rise, 500T$ (my guess in current $) loss of US coastline over fifty years verses 1T$/yr US fossil fuel market.
Seams the real cost of burning fossil fuels is undervalued by at least 10x. (Note: I expect 50 years of inflation will drive the 500T$ property figure up by 10 or 20 times. )
The sooner humanity abandons fossil fuels the better.
Have a nice day..

"T.Keating" wrote:

Seams the real cost of burning fossil fuels is undervalued by at least 10x.

Interesting!
Thanks for that info!

T.Keating wrote:

On Fri, 27 Jan 2006 09:16:51 -0600, me@privacy.net wrote:
Anyone see this piece on 60 Mins
http://tinyurl.com/9dls4
yup... I watched it.
60 minutes didn't mention that it takes 40 to 50 Therms of NG to recover and upgrade tar sand output into ONE barrel of refine-able Oil.
That's a lot of energy and CO2 (>90kg/CO2) dumped into atmosphere..
ref.. figs 2.4, 6.4, and 7.1
http://www.acr-alberta.com/Projects/Oil_Sands_Technology_Roadmap/OSTR_report.pdf
Can you imagine the look on their faces when the NYMEX futures for Jan 2006 hit $15.5/MMBTU (10 Therms). Ouch...
ref: http://www.wtrg.com/daily/gasprice.html
==========
At some point humanity is going to have to face the FACT that burning ever increasing amounts of fossil fuel and release CO2 is going to end up submerging coastlines around the world.
The so called experts have YET to add this critical hidden COST into their calculations. That hidden "Tragedy of the Commons" cost of comsuming blows the cost of production factors right out of the water. Let's see, amortize a substantial (10 to 20 m) sea level rise, 500T$ (my guess in current $) loss of US coastline over fifty years verses 1T$/yr US fossil fuel market.
Seams the real cost of burning fossil fuels is undervalued by at least 10x. (Note: I expect 50 years of inflation will drive the 500T$ property figure up by 10 or 20 times. )
The sooner humanity abandons fossil fuels the better.
Have a nice day..

But it IS cost effective at current crude oil prices. All they need to do is build a nuclear power plant to extract the sands and save all that CO2.

Or wind - this would be a good way to transport wind energy from the North down to where the consumption is... Nog wrote:

T.Keating wrote:
On Fri, 27 Jan 2006 09:16:51 -0600, me@privacy.net wrote:
Anyone see this piece on 60 Mins
http://tinyurl.com/9dls4
yup... I watched it.
60 minutes didn't mention that it takes 40 to 50 Therms of NG to recover and upgrade tar sand output into ONE barrel of refine-able Oil.
That's a lot of energy and CO2 (>90kg/CO2) dumped into atmosphere..
ref.. figs 2.4, 6.4, and 7.1
http://www.acr-alberta.com/Projects/Oil_Sands_Technology_Roadmap/OSTR_report.pdf
Can you imagine the look on their faces when the NYMEX futures for Jan 2006 hit $15.5/MMBTU (10 Therms). Ouch...
ref: http://www.wtrg.com/daily/gasprice.html
==========
At some point humanity is going to have to face the FACT that burning ever increasing amounts of fossil fuel and release CO2 is going to end up submerging coastlines around the world.
The so called experts have YET to add this critical hidden COST into their calculations. That hidden "Tragedy of the Commons" cost of comsuming blows the cost of production factors right out of the water. Let's see, amortize a substantial (10 to 20 m) sea level rise, 500T$ (my guess in current $) loss of US coastline over fifty years verses 1T$/yr US fossil fuel market.
Seams the real cost of burning fossil fuels is undervalued by at least 10x. (Note: I expect 50 years of inflation will drive the 500T$ property figure up by 10 or 20 times. )
The sooner humanity abandons fossil fuels the better.
Have a nice day..
But it IS cost effective at current crude oil prices. All they need to do is build a nuclear power plant to extract the sands and save all that CO2.

"T.Keating" wrote in message

On Fri, 27 Jan 2006 09:16:51 -0600, me@privacy.net wrote:
Anyone see this piece on 60 Mins
http://tinyurl.com/9dls4
yup... I watched it.
60 minutes didn't mention that it takes 40 to 50 Therms of NG to recover and upgrade tar sand output into ONE barrel of refine-able Oil.
That's a lot of energy and CO2 (>90kg/CO2) dumped into atmosphere..
ref.. figs 2.4, 6.4, and 7.1 http://www.acr-alberta.com/Projects/Oil_Sands_Technology_Roadmap/OSTR_report.pdf
Can you imagine the look on their faces when the NYMEX futures for Jan 2006 hit $15.5/MMBTU (10 Therms). Ouch...
ref: http://www.wtrg.com/daily/gasprice.html
==========
At some point humanity is going to have to face the FACT that burning ever increasing amounts of fossil fuel and release CO2 is going to end up submerging coastlines around the world.
The so called experts have YET to add this critical hidden COST into their calculations. That hidden "Tragedy of the Commons" cost of comsuming blows the cost of production factors right out of the water. Let's see, amortize a substantial (10 to 20 m) sea level rise, 500T$ (my guess in current $) loss of US coastline over fifty years verses 1T$/yr US fossil fuel market.
Seams the real cost of burning fossil fuels is undervalued by at least 10x. (Note: I expect 50 years of inflation will drive the 500T$ property figure up by 10 or 20 times. )
The sooner humanity abandons fossil fuels the better.
Have a nice day..
It is interesting to note T. Boone Pickens was interviewed and said:

"back then we said it was rediculous, oil would have to be $5 a barrel!" It would be nice to know if we could use solar thermal to generate the heat to get the oil out. That might reduce the CO2 and pollution and make it even more cost effective.

Why not reduce overall consumption of oil and then we wouldn't need the Oil Sands at all?

sugna41@hotmail.com wrote:

Why not reduce overall consumption of oil and then we wouldn't need the Oil Sands at all?

Hell, why not do both?

wrote in message

Anyone see this piece on 60 Mins
http://tinyurl.com/9dls4

It's got to be frustrating for the oil companies. Just when they've almost got us convinced we're running out of oil, there's another massive discovery.

Does anyone know of a link to a table of 'typical profit in different industries'. 60 minutes said oil companies were making about 7% profit. I hear Nike makes 100% profit on a pair of shoes made in an overseas sweatshop. Grocery stores seems to muddle along in the several % range. Looks like car companies and airlines are in the negative range recently. What about potato chips? Ladies stockings? Video games? Seems like folks shouldn't start crying 'Gouging!' until the profit gets past 10% or so. It also seems the government shouldn't impose more than about a 10% tax on something either... interfering with the market.

"BobG" wrote in message

Does anyone know of a link to a table of 'typical profit in different industries'. 60 minutes said oil companies were making about 7% profit. I hear Nike makes 100% profit on a pair of shoes made in an overseas sweatshop.

Do they get the materials and labour for free?

"Nog" wrote in message

sugna41@hotmail.com wrote:
Why not reduce overall consumption of oil and then we wouldn't need the Oil Sands at all?
Hell, why not do both?

All this let's have nuclear, wind, solar thermal, etc. May as well go for all those, heavily insulate homes and forget the oil.
What must make it cost effective is that there is no transportation cost from half way around the world, just pipelines.

Do not have a link to typical profits....but if you google a company and go to its home page you can got to the investor section and see quarterly/annual reports.....which will give you info....
Here is example....exxonmobile......sticks 10 cents on each dollar of stuff it sells into its pocket.....10 percent....
Adds and collects 26 cents to each dollar of stuff that it passes to the government.....
Go down about half way down the page ......appendix one.....lays it out pretty simply.....
http://ir.exxonmobil.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=115024&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=774069&highlight=
In comparison microsoft makes about 30 cents on each dollar of stuff it sells.....
You can not go on what a company makes one year....it may lose money for a few years because it is investing in something....and then make a whole bunch of money for a few years.....thats why you sometimes hear a company has doubled its profits.....if it is making maybe 2 cents per stuff sold and then it goes up to 4 cents it has doubled...but still only making 4 percent that year......with maybe a lot smaller average....over a few years....
Have heard the average s&p 500 company makes between 10 and 15 cents....do not know if that is correct......
hope helps....have fun.....sno
BobG wrote:

Does anyone know of a link to a table of 'typical profit in different industries'. 60 minutes said oil companies were making about 7% profit. I hear Nike makes 100% profit on a pair of shoes made in an overseas sweatshop. Grocery stores seems to muddle along in the several % range. Looks like car companies and airlines are in the negative range recently. What about potato chips? Ladies stockings? Video games? Seems like folks shouldn't start crying 'Gouging!' until the profit gets past 10% or so. It also seems the government shouldn't impose more than about a 10% tax on something either... interfering with the market.

-- Seen it all, done it all, can't remember most of it
This tag line is generated by:
SLTG (Silly Little Tag Generator)

The tar sands in the Athabaska region are hardly a "new discovery". They've been known to the Indians for as long as they've lived there, and came to the attention of Canadians of European origin in the late 19th century, IIRC.
There have been sporadic efforts to exploit the resource since the early part of the 20th century.
But it's really only been in the last couple of decades that Increasing oil prices and improving extraction technology have made it possible to mine the tar sands, and extract and sell the crude at a profit. (Not to mention some changes to the tax laws.)
You have to have deep pockets to be a player in that game; the capital requirements to set up mining and extraction facilities are immense. But the geological risk is negligible; you know going into it how much oil is there to be mined.
And yes, there has been talk of using nuclear fission power plants as an energy source for mining and upgrading the crude. It would be a good fit, since the uranium mines in Saskatchewan are only a couple fo hundred miles distant, and there is also plenty of lake and river water available for cooling. And spent fuel from the plant(s) could be disposed of by deep burial either on-site or trucked to northern Manitoba for burial there. In either case, the transport route would not have pass close to large centres of population.
Gordon Richmond

"BobG" wrote in message

Does anyone know of a link to a table of 'typical profit in different industries'. 60 minutes said oil companies were making about 7% profit. I hear Nike makes 100% profit on a pair of shoes made in an overseas sweatshop. Grocery stores seems to muddle along in the several % range. Looks like car companies and airlines are in the negative range recently. What about potato chips? Ladies stockings? Video games? Seems like folks shouldn't start crying 'Gouging!' until the profit gets past 10% or so. It also seems the government shouldn't impose more than about a 10% tax on something either... interfering with the market.

How's this for muddying things up?
You can count profit with or without: interest, taxes, research & development, reinvestment, capitalization, depreciation, amortization, inflation, stock price changes, debt costs, present and future, to name a few...
So pick a number, and that's your "percent profit."