Fossil FuelsFossil FuelsThe Alberta Tar Sands

Learning Goals:Learning Goals:

•Today I will learn about fossil fuels and the Alberta Tar Sands

Agenda:Agenda:•Introduction Lesson to Fossil Fuels•USSR

Fossil Fuels:• 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 CO2, which cause pollution

• The burning of fossil fuels is the biggest cause of climate change!

CoalCoal• 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?

OilOil• 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 GasNatural 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 SandsTar Sands• Alberta has Tar Sands

(also called Oil Sands)• Tar 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

Alberta Ingenuity, Imperial Oil & CMASTEThe Oil Sands Process

1. the overburden is stripped from the mineable oil sand (<75 m)

2. the oil sand is mined with large shovels and trucks 3. the oil sand is crushed and mixed with hot water and a

base (to increase pH) before being hydro-transported in a pipe to the extraction plant (This starts the extraction of bitumen.)

4. the oil sand and water mixture is transferred to a large separatory funnel/tank—bitumen froth, water, and sand are separated

5. 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

6. the bitumen is upgraded to synthetic crude oil by cracking--large aromatic molecules into smaller aromatic and aliphatic ones

7. 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

8. 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