More Libertarian facts about oil

TithonusSyndrome · Post by **TithonusSyndrome** » 2008-06-10 03:22am

Phantasee wrote:How applicable are nukes to getting oil out of the Alberta oilsands?

Man, nukes solve everything!

Considering the plant is to hastily erect a reactor or two in Peace River, I'd say it's on the minds of those who need to consider extraction costs.

Phantasee · Post by **Phantasee** » 2008-06-10 12:27pm

TithonusSyndrome wrote:
Phantasee wrote:How applicable are nukes to getting oil out of the Alberta oilsands?

Man, nukes solve everything!
Considering the plant is to hastily erect a reactor or two in Peace River, I'd say it's on the minds of those who need to consider extraction costs.

Well, yeah, but I'm wondering how they will use them for the oilsands. Like the above description of how they would be applied to the Colorado oilshale.

aerius · Post by **aerius** » 2008-06-10 01:21pm

Phantasee wrote:Well, yeah, but I'm wondering how they will use them for the oilsands. Like the above description of how they would be applied to the Colorado oilshale.

Right now there's 2 basic ways of getting oil from tar sands, we dig it out of the ground in big jumbo dumptrucks and then wash & boil the oil out of the sands, or we use steam injection to heat up the tar sands underground so it flows and then pump out the oil and condensed water.

After that, the oil is still more like tar than oil so they have to upgrade it, they crack it with steam & catalysts and some other stuff, then they have to stabilize the ends of the hydrocarbon chains with an extra hydrogen atom.

Right now, they're using natural gas to heat all the water to make steam, boil the oil sands mixture, and provide hydrogen to stabilize the upgraded oil. Unfortunately Canada is running out of natural gas, once it's gone, no more oil from tar sands unless a substitute is found.

In short, they want to build nuke plants to heat water, make steam, crack water into hydrogen, and maybe even provide desalinated water since they're running out of fresh water.

TithonusSyndrome · Post by **TithonusSyndrome** » 2008-06-10 01:39pm

What's the significance of using desalinized water in oilsands extraction? Is it that much more expensive to sift salt from oil after the separation than it is to desalinize it beforehand?

aerius · Post by **aerius** » 2008-06-10 02:36pm

Salt water corrodes the crap out of everything and drives the equipment & maintenance costs through the roof. Desalinate the water first and everything becomes a lot easier.

Post by **Surlethe** » 2008-06-10 09:42pm

Canada is running out of natural gas? Has it even peaked there yet?

TithonusSyndrome · Post by **TithonusSyndrome** » 2008-06-10 10:04pm

aerius wrote:Salt water corrodes the crap out of everything and drives the equipment & maintenance costs through the roof. Desalinate the water first and everything becomes a lot easier.

Duh.

Ask a stupid question...

J · Post by J » 2008-06-10 10:34pm

Surlethe wrote:Canada is running out of natural gas? Has it even peaked there yet?

Yes. Peaked in '02 or '03 and has been declining ever since.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2008-06-10 10:56pm

Let's just skip straight to the part where we crack the Earth's crust for infinite magnetic energy!

Stile · Post by **Stile** » 2008-06-10 10:58pm

I'm wondering when we'll have people prospecting the Sun.

Of course, it will have to be done at night.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2008-06-10 11:04pm

At night?

There's no oil on the dark side of the Sun, you moron!

Phantasee · Post by **Phantasee** » 2008-06-10 11:52pm

Stile wrote:I'm wondering when we'll have people prospecting the Sun.

Of course, it will have to be done at night.

Guardsman Bass · Post by **Guardsman Bass** » 2008-06-11 03:29am

The day the oil companies decide to do the Shep or Aerius plan for getting oil out of the Green River Shale would be the beginning of a glorious Golden Age of Sloth in Utah. They could probably just use the rent alone on that much oil to pay every Utahn Christ knows how much money - we would never have to work again (or until the near future)!

PeZook · Post by **PeZook** » 2008-06-11 04:42am

How about the US downsizes it's army massively?

Scrap half your carriers, disband the Marine Corps, scrap the amphibious assault ships, gut the Army, kill all those ridiculous programs like the Stryker and the FCS. Retain the Air Force and concentrate on nukes as a deterrence.

In other words, gut the US power projections capabilities completely, reduce spending to 2-3% GDP or even lower, invest the massive savings into nuke power plants. You can work on getting back into the power projection business after the crisis is solved.

And maybe we can get a cool space program or two out of it

Fingolfin_Noldor · Post by **Fingolfin_Noldor** » 2008-06-11 05:12am

PeZook wrote:How about the US downsizes it's army massively?

Scrap half your carriers, disband the Marine Corps, scrap the amphibious assault ships, gut the Army, kill all those ridiculous programs like the Stryker and the FCS. Retain the Air Force and concentrate on nukes as a deterrence.

In other words, gut the US power projections capabilities completely, reduce spending to 2-3% GDP or even lower, invest the massive savings into nuke power plants. You can work on getting back into the power projection business after the crisis is solved.

And maybe we can get a cool space program or two out of it

To the redneck American, this is akin to a castration.

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2008-06-11 05:22am

disband the Marine Corps

Nah, just give them dinghies and bicycles.

PeZook · Post by **PeZook** » 2008-06-11 05:25am

Bounty wrote:
disband the Marine Corps
Nah, just give them dinghies and bicycles.

Or hard hats and hammers and have them join in on the massive reactor construction project. If they object, threaten to show them pictures of the LHSs and LHDs getting slowly cut apart at salvage yards

Phantasee · Post by **Phantasee** » 2008-06-11 11:49am

PeZook wrote:
Bounty wrote:
disband the Marine Corps
Nah, just give them dinghies and bicycles.
Or hard hats and hammers and have them join in on the massive reactor construction project. If they object, threaten to show them pictures of the LHSs and LHDs getting slowly cut apart at salvage yards

You're a bad man.

Post by **Surlethe** » 2008-06-11 10:08pm

J wrote:
Surlethe wrote:Canada is running out of natural gas? Has it even peaked there yet?
Yes. Peaked in '02 or '03 and has been declining ever since.

Huh. The More You Know! ==*

Post by **Surlethe** » 2008-06-11 10:09pm

PeZook wrote:How about the US downsizes it's army massively?

Scrap half your carriers, disband the Marine Corps, scrap the amphibious assault ships, gut the Army, kill all those ridiculous programs like the Stryker and the FCS. Retain the Air Force and concentrate on nukes as a deterrence.

In other words, gut the US power projections capabilities completely, reduce spending to 2-3% GDP or even lower, invest the massive savings into nuke power plants. You can work on getting back into the power projection business after the crisis is solved.

And maybe we can get a cool space program or two out of it

Hey, I was going to post a thread to this effect in N&P. I'll probably still do it, but I like the idea.

RE: castration. This plan involves building bigger and more nukes. I think that makes up for it.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2008-06-11 11:37pm

A six-carrier Navy - which means two carriers on station at any given time - would probably be insufficient for the duties required of it. The US must keep its sea lanes open as we are a trading nation. That probably means we need Marines - and their support - as well for any brushfire conflicts that may arise.

Massive force reductions in the Army could be done (well, if not for certain major commitments we have right now).

EDIT: Incidentially, DOD expenditure is ~3.3% of GDP, though that does not include nuclear weapons, veterans or Iraq+Afghanistan funding.

Post by **Surlethe** » 2008-06-12 01:13pm

phongn wrote:A six-carrier Navy - which means two carriers on station at any given time - would probably be insufficient for the duties required of it. The US must keep its sea lanes open as we are a trading nation. That probably means we need Marines - and their support - as well for any brushfire conflicts that may arise.

The idea is to change the duties required of it. I'll put a full post up in N&P soon, hopefully.

Dark Hellion · Post by **Dark Hellion** » 2008-06-12 01:32pm

My curiosity about decreasing the size of the U.S. Navy is always that someone is going to have to keep the seas civil. If the USN isn't around to do it, other countries are going to have to invest similar scales of money to do so. Now, perhaps it is time for China to have a naval presence and become part of the civility keeping forces, but their questionable human rights practices that continue until today make me nervous about this. Plus I like living in a country that can kick everyone elses asses. Its a reassuring thought that short of alien invasion, there isn't a real enemy.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2008-06-12 02:56pm

Surlethe wrote:The idea is to change the duties required of it. I'll put a full post up in N&P soon, hopefully.

There was an abortive attempt to do this before, actually - I think Stuart posted some requirements here

Post by **Surlethe** » 2008-06-12 05:28pm

phongn wrote:
Surlethe wrote:The idea is to change the duties required of it. I'll put a full post up in N&P soon, hopefully.
There was an abortive attempt to do this before, actually - I think Stuart posted some requirements here

Thanks! I'm pretty sure that is exactly the thread I was remembering when I was thinking about these things.