Oil sands cost explosion

peakoil.com -> timworstall.typepad.com -> business.timesonline.co.uk :

Shell is facing a cost explosion in the expansion of the Athabasca Oil Sands Project, a mining venture that extracts oil from bitumen deposits in the Canadian province of Alberta. The first phase of expansion, intended to add 100,000 barrels daily to the current 155,000 barrel per day output was budgeted at C$7.3 billion only a year ago. It is now expected to cost as much as C$11 billion, according to estimates published by Shell's project partner Western Oil Sands.

The Dutch oil giant is the leading player in an overheated market where the high price of steel, cement and a chronic shortage of skilled labour is weighing on investors. The tar-soaked sands of northern Alberta, Canada, are reckoned to hold reserves as large as Saudi Arabia, but the costs of operating in the harsh and remote environment are weighing on the industry. The extraction of bitumen from sand requires heat and steam and the oil sands companies use vast amounts of natural gas to fuel their plant.

- Looks like things have changed a bit from the enthusiastic "wildly profitable" write-ups not too long ago (see below). I have doubts about the EROEI (energy return on energy invested), the environmental impact is horrendous, and all that natural gas could surely be put to a better use. I think I will take these tar sands companies off my portfolio watch-list.

(2006-07-10 13:05:49 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

Peak oil has arrived / crisis imminent

peakoil.com (thread) -> opednews.com -> informationclearinghouse.info :

ABC Australia has just produced a 12 minute video which makes a very effective case, by interviewing oil experts throughout the world, that peak oil "is probably here and at best we are within three years of a major oil crisis."

This is a must watch video - courtesy of ICH.

(2006-07-10 07:38:54 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

G8 plan for global nuclear expansion revealed

peakoil.com -> sundayherald.com :

World leaders are planning a massive expansion of nuclear power in their own countries and across the developing world, according to leaked documents drawn up for the G8 summit. The plan aims to spread nuclear power stations around the globe, while keeping sensitive nuclear facilities that can be easily diverted for making bombs within the G8. Other countries would not be allowed to enrich uranium fuel, or to reprocess spent fuel to extract plutonium. They will be permitted to run reactors to generate electricity but will have to buy fuel enrichment and reprocessing services from G8 countries.

At the same time, G8 leaders are proposing to bring back fast breeder reactors. They are designed to create and burn plutonium and are much less reliant on imports of uranium. This is a dramatic change, because of the risks it poses for efforts to control the spread of nuclear weapons. Russia, the US, Japan, Canada, France and the UK see great potential for increasing nuclear business. The drive for nuclear power is being led by Putin, who is keen to maximise Russia's technology expertise.

(2006-07-10 07:35:41 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

Asia going nuclear amid rising oil prices, global warming concerns

peakoil.com -> planetsave.com :

18 reactors - about 70% of the world's total under construction - are going up in Asia, and another 77 are planned or proposed, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute. China plans to increase its nuclear capacity from 6.6 GW to 40 GW by 2020 with the addition of 30 nuclear plants. India intends to go from under 3 GW to 20 GW by 2020 with 31 plants. Japan plans to double its nuclear capacity by 2050. Australia wants to build its first plant, and even Indonesia has vowed to go nuclear, despite earthquakes, floods and landslides.

Every 1,000 megawatt reactor, the Nuclear Energy Institute says, saves 7.9 million barrels of oil or 3.4 million tons of coal a year and eliminates 34,000 tons of polluting sulfur dioxide and 11,000 tons of nitrogen oxide. Asia's biggest problem isn't new reactors, but what to do with the spent fuel. Britain, France, Russia and Japan have opted for fuel reprocessing, which can extract plutonium and combine it with uranium to create oxide fuel, or MOX. But the extracted plutonium can be weaponized and is vulnerable to theft for misuse.

(2006-07-10 07:26:06 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

Vehicles can be more energy efficient

A modern car's engine, idling, driveline, and accessories dissipate seven-eighths of its fuel energy. Only one-eighth reaches the wheels. Of that, half heats the tires and road or heats the air that the car pushes aside. Only the last 6% accelerates the car (then heats the brakes when you stop). And since about 95% of the mass being accelerated is the car, not the driver, less than 1% of the fuel energy ultimately moves the driver - unimpressive, considering it is the fruit of 120 years of engineering effort. Thus, making cars radically lighter has huge fuel-saving leverage.

Lighter weight formerly meant costly metals such as aluminum and magnesium. Now, ultralight steels can double a car's efficiency without extra cost or decreased safety. Advanced polymer composites are even stronger and lighter. They can halve a car's weight and fuel use, yet increase safety, because carbon-fiber composites can absorb up to 12 times as much crash energy per kilogram as steel. A new manufacturing process can even make a carbon-fiber car cost the same to produce as its steel version.

Meanwhile, adding more batteries to conventional hybrid cars, if cost effective, could displace fuel now used for short and perhaps medium trips. Hybrids, invented by Dr. Ferdinand Porsche in 1900, were reengineered nearly a century later by Japanese automakers with strong leadership and balance sheets. These popular hybrids now offer up to doubled efficiency.

(2006-07-10 07:10:37 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

HP starts plan to cut real estate costs

business-times.asia1.com.sg :

Hewlett-Packard is starting a 4-year programme to cut its real estate costs by combining operations in several hundred locations to fewer sites. The announcement expands on chief executive officer Mark Hurd's plan to reduce annual costs by US$1.9 billion and simplify HP's corporate structure.

The company, which is eliminating 15,300 jobs, said in May that it will close 84 data centres worldwide and run IT operations out of 6 centres in the US to save an additional US$1 billion. HP owned or leased about 65 million sq ft of office, manufacturing and research space worldwide as of Oct 31, according to the company's annual report.

(2006-07-10 06:55:27 SGT) [Biz] Permalink

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