On 12/23/2013 3:33 PM, Bloatus wrote:

Keith W


Transforming coal to oil is OLD technology, the Germans and to a
lesser extent the British did it in WW2 and the South African company
SASOL has it down to a fine art. Then there are the tar sand reserves.

Keith

How much oil is used extracting and purifying that tar sand into more
oil? That's the part the oil industry doesn't like to talk about.


Most of the energy input in tar-sand oil extraction is the process heat
that drives the oil out of the sand. The source of process heat isn't
oil but gas. It's not clear that the net energy of tar sands oil is
positive. But it is a source for high-energy-density liquid fuel.

Paul