Not exact matches
The boom in unconventional fuels — such as bitumen extracted from Alberta's tar sands and
oil extracted from North Dakota's Bakken
shale formation by hydraulic fracturing («fracking»)-- has swelled global reserves even as climate scientists issue ever - sterner warnings that
burning more than a small fraction
of these reserves would be suicidal.
We can not
burn all
of the fossil fuels (
oil, gas, coal and unconventional fossil fuels such as tar
shale and tar sands) and release the CO2 into the air without creating a different planet.
... Finally, in spite
of depletion concerns in regards to
shale oil wells — that they
burn out fast and furious — they do
burn faster upfront but they continue at a «normal» production rate for up one, two and possibly three decades.
Company documents discovered during an eight - month investigation by InsideClimate News show that Exxon Research & Engineering estimated that producing and
burning oil shales would release 1.4 to 3 times more carbon dioxide than conventional
oil, and would accelerate the doubling
of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere by about five years.
The roasting process generally involves
burning oil that has previously been extracted from the
shale, so
shale oil results in a very large net level
of carbon dioxide release to the atmosphere.
(1) Putting aside actual so - called fossil carbon (i.e.
shales, coal,
oil, gas tar sands) which are all relatively unreactive geologically overall (unless those pesky humans dig them up and
burn them) there are in fact (today) substantial pools
of potentially more reactive «fixed» carbon other than the active biosphere's biomass.