Fossil Fuels The Alberta Tar Sands Learning Goals

Fossil Fuels The Alberta Tar Sands

Learning Goals: • Today I will learn about fossil fuels and the Alberta Tar Sands Agenda: • Introduction Lesson to Fossil Fuels • USSR

Fossil Fuels: • Fossil Fuels are natural substances made from the remains of ancient plants and animals • Over time heat and pressure turned decomposing remains into fuels, which release energy • Examples: § Coal § Oil § Natural Gas • What kind of resource are fossil fuels?

Problems with Fossil Fuels: • People are using fossil fuels 100, 000 faster than they are being replenished • When people burn fossil fuels it releases energy and greenhouse gases like CO 2, which cause pollution • The burning of fossil fuels is the biggest cause of climate change!

Coal • Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock composed mostly of carbon and hydrocarbons • Started out as fern and tree like plants over 400 million years ago • The first fossil fuel to be used • Can last up to 200 more years!

What type of Resource is Coal? Oil? Natural Gas? Why?

Oil • Started out as tiny plants and animals called Plankton 500 million years ago • First drilled in 1859 • Crude oil is refined into gasoline, kerosene, tar etc • Provides 40% of world’s energy • Little or none will be left in the next 100 years

Natural Gas • Started out as Plankton • Natural gas is made up of four gases mixed together • Methane is the one that’s removed and a smell is added to it • Provides 23% of world’s energy

Tar Sands • Alberta has Tar Sands (also called Oil Sands) • Tar Sands are murky areas of sand mixed with oil • Tar sands in Alberta are larger than Florida • 174 billion barrels of oil

Tar Sand Oil

The Oil Sands Process 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Alberta Ingenuity, Imperial Oil & CMASTE the overburden is stripped from the mineable oil sand (<75 m) the oil sand is mined with large shovels and trucks the oil sand is crushed and mixed with hot water and a base (to increase p. H) before being hydro-transported in a pipe to the extraction plant (This starts the extraction of bitumen. ) the oil sand water mixture is transferred to a large separatory funnel/tank—bitumen froth, water, and sand are separated air is added to help float the bitumen froth to the top of the mixture and to be skimmed off by a large rotating paddle the bitumen is upgraded to synthetic crude oil by cracking-large aromatic molecules into smaller aromatic and aliphatic ones the sulfur, nitrogen and oxygen atoms and double bonds are eliminated from the sour synthetic crude by hydro-treating separate fractions of the cracked bitumen with hydrogen the synthetic crude is shipped to a refinery to be refined into gasoline and other petroleum fractions

Mining - truck and shovel

Crushing, mixing & hydro-transport

Frothing—floating the bitumen

Problems with the Tar Sands: • Foreign Investment rather than Canadian investment • Very destructive of the environment • Destroying the land of the Cree people in Alberta ▫ Amnesty International has cited the Canadian and Albertan government for destroying the land of the Cree people

Today’s Class: • USSR (Silent Reading) 318 -320 • Answer Questions 1 -4 on Page 320 • Be prepared to share your answers with the class