Can the Canadian oil sands save us from peak oil?
Can the perpetual sliver ever be anything else? It is difficult to see how Canadian oil sands production will expand very much, very quickly. According to the Master’s thesis of Bengt Söderbergh, natural gas availability is likely to limit oil sands production in the long term. With or without the natural gas limitation, there are many other concerns, including environmental impact, greenhouse gas emissions, and very high continuing investment. Optimistic estimates of production are about four times current production by 2030. This would be about 5% of current world production–still not very much. It is possible that one of the new production techniques, such as Toe to Heel Air Injection, will prove to be effective. If this happens, oil sands production may increase by even more than that forecast in the current optimistic target. If such an increase does occur, much of the benefit is likely to be after 2020. Such an increase could theoretically help mitigate the downslope after the p
