Talk:Oil sands

message: According to Robert Litterman (Kepos Capital), the expensive oil dug from oil sands, undersea deposits, ... will never be used, due to the fact that only 1/3 of all fossil fuels can actually be mined any more, due to the 2°C limit. As such, only 1/3 of those deposits is still financially of value, and the rest will have no value any more. Things are hence becoming a race to mine everything, at the lowest cost, and expensive oil extraction methods will hence fall out of the boat.
Seems important to add this info to the article, so please do.
: That's just his opinion, rather than fact. Litterman is a former New York investment banker at Goldman Sachs and a member of the board of the World Wildlife Fund so his opinion may be somewhat skewed. He is now promoting shorting coal companies, which may or may not be a good investment strategy. In my experience New York investment bankers and the WWF know little or nothing about oil so I try to avoid their advice on the subject.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 21:15, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree and also think that citing such articles is prohibited crystal ball gazing.  Governments might decline to implement 2°C limits or changes in technology & energy prices could result in effective use of remaining deposits.  No one really knows.--Rpclod (talk) 14:33, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

text: I think it's valid to include the best information available about what the likely consequences for hydrocarbon extraction would be if measures to limit global warming to 2°C were implemented.  Probably the best academic research now available on this subject (published in one of the most prestigious peer-reviewed academic journals) is already cited and summarized in the last two paragraphs of Oil sands#Production forecasts. Layzeeboi (talk) 17:14, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  If you want the best information available, here's a document published by the Canadian government: Oil Sands GHG Emissions. Bottom line: Canada accounts for about 2% of global GHG emissions, and oil sands account for 7.8% of Canada's emissions, or less than 0.1% of global GHG emissions. As in other countries, burning coal - mostly to generate electric power - accounts for most of Canada's GHG emissions and much more than the oil sands. Globally, China, the US, and India are prodigious coal-burners and account for over half of global GHG emissions. That's the biggest source of GHG, and what Litterman is talking about. From the Canadian perspective it is more effective to meet its GHG targets by shutting down its coal-burning power plants and steel mills, and converting them to wind, hydro and nuclear power than to shut down the oil sands - especially from a government revenue standpoint. Canada accounts for over 40% of US oil imports these days and it is a huge source of export and tax revenue. Canada has lots of alternatives to coal but the world has few alternatives to oil. Just a reality check based on the data.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 20:55, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Oil from expensive oil extraction: never to be used

message: This is more of a statement than a complaint, but, it looks like copy-paste from the "Canada Oil" Wikipedia article, rather than using generic wording, it gives details that should have their own page.
There's nothing wrong with having a page that deals with a country's industry, just look at how many pages there are for confectioneries or carbonated cola drinks. But, I'll try to come back sometime within a fortnight or two, and amend the information. That is if another editor doesn't beat me to it.
I hope you have a nice day. 49.183.10.84 (talk) 17:28, 20 May 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: The article frequently mentions the Canadian deposits because they are among the largest in the world, and are the site of the only large-scale extraction operations. Major deposits in Venezuela are discussed in detail, and deposits in other parts of the world (Kazakhstan, Russia, US, Madagascar, Republic of the Congo) are mentioned briefly. Meters (talk) 17:51, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

text: I agree with user:SunDawn's concerns over the IP's changes. My response to the IP's original post in this thread was not an agreement that the page should be gutted. Yes, the page can use some work, but it needs to be discussed, and removing large chunks of sourced material and replacing it with largely unsourced content is not appropriate. Please discuss proposed changes. And don't attack other editors. Meters (talk) 20:43, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

text: Hello  based on the discussion here and on my talk page it is obvious that your deletion, no matter how good it is, does not have a consensus, especially massive removal of content such as in this edit. Please stop working on this article for a while, gain consensus, as per WP:BRD your work can be reverted again if you don't work with other editors to gain consensus. You have attacked other editors many times:  and in . Also you are calling me a fascist. Your (or mine) real world authority have no meaning at all on the Wikipedia. Please discuss with us instead of continuing to working on the article, as me or other editors will revert it to stable version so we can have proper discussion. ✠ SunDawn Ω (contact) 12:57, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

text: Is it relevant to the discussion at hand? What I use for my signature is my concern, and you should not be casting aspersion that I am a fascist. ✠ SunDawn ✠ (contact) 01:54, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  This is very biased and Alberta-centric article. 

message: Desperately needs updating 85.110.253.108 (talk) 14:40, 9 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tar sands 

message: These are factually tar sands. Here is a great video from the oil industry about the "oil sands" which inadvertently makes the case extremely well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJzseWUFE4g&t
Petroleum, or "oil" as we commonly refer to it, is a wide spread of hydrocarbons which includes the light compounds. In the sands in question, the light compounds have been eaten out, leaving behind just "bitumen". From wikipedia's own definitions bitumen is "sticky, black, highly viscous liquid or semi-solid form of petroleum. In the U.S., it is commonly referred to as asphalt."
Within the oil industries own video, they acknowledge that the sands in question contain high amounts of "asphaltenes", in fact even more asphaltenes than conventional heavy oil. 
In other words, they are predominately tar. By their own admission, by every definition, that is the correct name for them. Other correct names would be "bituminous rich sands" or "asphalt rich sands", but that is just fancy ways of saying "tar sands". They do not contain the full spectrum of petroleum compounds. We need to remove the PR white-washing of these compounds which does not have any base in reality. 98.167.182.142 (talk) 20:59, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that "tar sands" is more apt. Coretheapple (talk) 21:22, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: This has been extensively discussed before. "Tar sands" is a historic name, but "Oil sands" is much more common now. WP:COMMONNAME applies. Meters (talk) 21:52, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: We can always revisit it. I've always had qualms about the current title. Coretheapple (talk) 22:19, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  We really need to change the name back to tar sands 

message: Aside from needing a fair amount of reorganizing and improvements, these sections cite seemingly unfounded figures. I am unable to find a source detailing the actual yearly oil consumption of the North American continent and a source is not linked for this figure. Why is the North American continent’s oil consumption even used as a benchmark here? It feels like an excuse to include a sensational and unnecessary figure (unless I am missing the significance of “ supply […] for over 100 years at 2002 consumption levels”) in the article. Also, the total recoverable oil figures for Alberta and Saskatchewan included in the “Major Deposits” paragraph are in direct conflict with the figures included in the “Size of resources” paragraph; 350 million recoverable barrels compared to 467 million recoverable barrels. I am not very familiar with Wikipedia and not sure exactly how one would go about fixing these discrepancies, but I feel like something should be done.  GiddyGlomph (talk) 15:58, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  ”Size of Resources” and “Major Deposits” Need work