How to power it all
But heres the key issue for the tar sands project. It requires something on the order of 10,000 Mw of electricity to power this huge project. Wether its nat gas or electricity generated from nuclear power plants, the tar sands is going to require huge amounts of power. Its very likely that Canada will limit or stop nat gas exports to the US as the project ramps up. In fact syncrude could be used to power the project as nat gas supplies reach peak production. Proposals to build Pebble Bed Nuclear power plants (PBNR), 18 of them at 500Mw each, to power the tar sands project. Advocates of PBNR cite the needed steam for bitumen extraction, and the electrical generation is just a bonus.
So there have it, at a minimum, 7 pipelines we know of, up to 18 Pebble Bed Reactors, or some combination of nuclear reactors and nat gas is needed to power up the desire for gasoline.
Our existing oil, coal and nat gas needs to be used to build the next generation of energy supply, wind, solar, renewables, and the High Voltage DC systems to move power on a continental scale to where its needed. Using 3 gallons of gas to make 4 or 5 gallons of gas is just silly, and will leave Canada with a hole in the ground that can be seen from orbit.
UPDATE: Its been pointed out to me that one might infer from this diary that TransCanada owns the oil, and refines the oil, as well as generates electricity. I apologize for the poor wording, and I spent more than a couple of minutes considering making an edit to clear that up. I decided not to make any edits, to allow readers to sort thru the accusation of being misinformed on their own.
ORIGINALLY POSTED TO DK GREENROOTS
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