Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[langostino]

Frido

Don't have the breakout, but there is energy used to ...
-- superheat the raw bitumen (steam for separation) -- this is the lionshare
-- run the machinery (either buckets or trucks) carting the stuff from the part of the strip mine to the point of processing
-- run the pumps to move the water

As you can imagine, when you're mining "fresh" or in small quantity, you aren't moving "weight" far, so your energy budget is only poor instead of awful. But the moment you move to expand, your costs go up exponentially, as your mines get deeper and broader and your water has to be pumped from further and further away.

Another part of the problem is that the heavy crude type raw product that the oil sands produce in situ is not suitable to burn as the power source for the on-site needs -- for that there must be a supply of natural gas. At current small quantities, there is generally enough nat gas available, but at the dreamed of levels, there simply isn't enough nat gas nearby ... meaning more trucking to get it there.