Tar Sands - their nature, their importance, their effects: Outlook 2030

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Oil sands (also named: tar sands or, more technically, bituminous sands) are a kind of unconventional petroleum deposit, i.e. represent fossil energy deposits. From their structure oil sands form a loose sand or partially consolidated sandstone containing naturally occurring compositions of sand, clay, and water, saturated with a dense and extremely viscous form of petroleum technically referred to as bitumen (or colloquially tar due to its similar appearance, odour and colour). Oil sands have been exploited since Paleolithic times but the modern industrial (i.e. commercial) mining of this type of fossil fuel deposits has begun in the 1920ies [1].

Since that time the mining has continuously risen and has experienced a dramatic increase in the most recent years [2], [3]. Accordingly, today the total production volume of tar sands amounts to about 1.9 million barrel per day [4] and is estimated to continue to rise drastically until 2030 to 9.4 million barrels per day [4]-[8]. Key consumers of oil from tar sands are the United States and China [9]-[11]. Especially the Asian market (China, India) with, in particular, its booming car and road (infrastructure) sectors [12] forms one corner stone of the tar sand business.

One of the key challenges, however, associated with the mining of oil sands represent the interactions with water, both surface as well as ground water. The mining technology of oil sands implies a significant demand of water to separate the tar (i.e. the oil) from the sand [13], [14]. The subsequent processing of the process medium 'water' however, hasn't been solved sufficiently so far and remediation is typically eliminated from the mining companies business scope. How problematic the situation is might be, among others, demonstrated by recent contract resignation [15]-[14].

References: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18]

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