shaarona
01-30-2014, 12:40 AM
This site is very opposed to the Keystone Pipeline.. My question is ... don't they use the sulfur for some purpose?
http://www.energy-reality.org/action/syncrude-sulfur/
Massive sulfur mountains at Syncrude’s Mildred Lake tar sands mine.
The Alberta tar sands in Canada are the largest industrial project on the planet, and quite possibly the world’s most environmentally destructive. The bitumen extracted from the tar sands is 5-7% sulfur, which needs to be removed since sulfur in transportation fuels is a major contributor to “acid rain” and has a direct bearing on nitrogen oxide (NOx) levels.
Click here (http://energy-reality.org/tar-sands/) to learn more about tar sands.
tar sands
Tar sands (sometimes referred to as “oil sands” or, more technically, bituminous sands) are sand or sandstone that contain a very dense and extremely viscous form of petroleum known as bitumen. Bitumen is considered an “unconventional” source of oil (http://energy-reality.org/unconventional-oil/) because significant processing is required to transform it into commercially useable oil. The current primary source of bitumen is the vast tar sands deposits of Alberta, Canada.
Typically, tar sands are strip-mined and the bitumen cooked out, making the greenhouse gas and energy footprints of tar sands oil far larger than that of conventional oil. The energy returned on energy invested (http://energy-reality.org/net-energy/) of tar sands is between 3:1 and 5:1 (http://www.scribd.com/doc/126063765/Drill-Baby-Drill-Can-Unconventional-Fuels-Usher-in-a-New-Era-of-Energy-Abundance#page=130) – much lower than conventional oil — making tar sands an exceptionally high-cost and low-net-energy oil.
Tar sands oil production also requires great quantities of water, causes deforestation on a massive scale (compounding global warming as a result of the removal of the boreal forest ecosystem, one of the world’s most effective terrestrial carbon sinks), and leaves behind toxic lakes of wastewater slurry. Levels of carcinogens in regional waters have been found to be significantly higher (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=oil-sands-raise-levels-of-carcinogens-in-regional-waters) near the Alberta tar sands, greatly impacting First Nation communities who are heavily reliant on the local ecosystem for their livelihoods and food.
Tar sands oil currently makes up less than 5% of global oil production. The industry and its proponents want to significantly increase that figure by expanding access to the global market through pipelines which can carry diluted bitumen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilbit) to coastal ports. A number of pipelines are being built or are under consideration, primarily connecting Alberta to West Coast ports and Gulf of Mexico ports.
However, resistance to these pipelines (and the commitment they represent to increased dependence on one of the world’s dirtiest sources of energy) has grown — particularly to the proposed Keystone XL pipeline in the United States and the Northern Gateway Pipeline in Canada.
- See more at: http://www.energy-reality.org/action/syncrude-sulfur/#sthash.t52gqGQ0.dpuf
http://www.energy-reality.org/action/syncrude-sulfur/
Massive sulfur mountains at Syncrude’s Mildred Lake tar sands mine.
The Alberta tar sands in Canada are the largest industrial project on the planet, and quite possibly the world’s most environmentally destructive. The bitumen extracted from the tar sands is 5-7% sulfur, which needs to be removed since sulfur in transportation fuels is a major contributor to “acid rain” and has a direct bearing on nitrogen oxide (NOx) levels.
Click here (http://energy-reality.org/tar-sands/) to learn more about tar sands.
tar sands
Tar sands (sometimes referred to as “oil sands” or, more technically, bituminous sands) are sand or sandstone that contain a very dense and extremely viscous form of petroleum known as bitumen. Bitumen is considered an “unconventional” source of oil (http://energy-reality.org/unconventional-oil/) because significant processing is required to transform it into commercially useable oil. The current primary source of bitumen is the vast tar sands deposits of Alberta, Canada.
Typically, tar sands are strip-mined and the bitumen cooked out, making the greenhouse gas and energy footprints of tar sands oil far larger than that of conventional oil. The energy returned on energy invested (http://energy-reality.org/net-energy/) of tar sands is between 3:1 and 5:1 (http://www.scribd.com/doc/126063765/Drill-Baby-Drill-Can-Unconventional-Fuels-Usher-in-a-New-Era-of-Energy-Abundance#page=130) – much lower than conventional oil — making tar sands an exceptionally high-cost and low-net-energy oil.
Tar sands oil production also requires great quantities of water, causes deforestation on a massive scale (compounding global warming as a result of the removal of the boreal forest ecosystem, one of the world’s most effective terrestrial carbon sinks), and leaves behind toxic lakes of wastewater slurry. Levels of carcinogens in regional waters have been found to be significantly higher (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=oil-sands-raise-levels-of-carcinogens-in-regional-waters) near the Alberta tar sands, greatly impacting First Nation communities who are heavily reliant on the local ecosystem for their livelihoods and food.
Tar sands oil currently makes up less than 5% of global oil production. The industry and its proponents want to significantly increase that figure by expanding access to the global market through pipelines which can carry diluted bitumen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilbit) to coastal ports. A number of pipelines are being built or are under consideration, primarily connecting Alberta to West Coast ports and Gulf of Mexico ports.
However, resistance to these pipelines (and the commitment they represent to increased dependence on one of the world’s dirtiest sources of energy) has grown — particularly to the proposed Keystone XL pipeline in the United States and the Northern Gateway Pipeline in Canada.
- See more at: http://www.energy-reality.org/action/syncrude-sulfur/#sthash.t52gqGQ0.dpuf