Fuel for the Future: Unlocking New Fuel Resources

With worldwide production of light crude oil reserves expected to last ~50 years, a global energy crisis may ensue. In fact, a recent report by the UK Energy Research Centre stated that ‘conventional oil production may peak before 2030 with a significant risk of a peak before 2020’ (October, 2009). Therefore, there is an increasing need to look towards the use of alternative fuel resources like the heavy/ super heavy crude oils and oil sands. In Canada and Venezuela there are vast oil sands (containing 2,100 billion barrels) that are already being exploited (Clemente and Fedorak, 2005). During oil sand refining, bitumen is extracted, which results in large amounts of contaminated waters (known as tailings pond water, TPW) being generated.