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University of Wyoming

Did You Know?

Oil

  • World oil consumption continues to grow unabated while oil production is expected to peak within decades - and perhaps has already peaked.  Production peaked in the United States in 1970.
  • Typically, over 50 percent of the oil in any reservoir remains in the ground after production has halted.

Coal

  • Worldwide coal reserves (many of which lie in Wyoming) are sufficient to last several hundred years at current production rates.
  • Rising concerns over CO2 emissions from coal utilization may require new technology to allow continued use of coal as an energy source.

Tar Sands

  • The tar sands of Alberta, Canada contain oil of an amount comparable to all the known conventional world oil reserves - past, present, and future.
  • Producing oil from tar sands is itself energy intensive and significant research and development is required to overcome technological and economic barriers.

Greenhouse Gases

  • Anthropogenic (human caused) production of CO2 has placed atmospheric levels of CO2 at unprecedented levels in the last 400,000 years - with unknown consequences.
  • Flooding deep oil wells with CO2 captures and stores carbon dioxide while often dramatically enhancing oil production.

Nuclear Power

  • Nuclear power represents a near unbounded energy source to power the world - with no greenhouse gas production.
  • Radioactive waste from nuclear power plants must be securely stored for 240,000 years.  That timeframe is enough to span the last three ice ages seen by the earth.

 

Updated 11/20/2007