Thursday, May 19, 2022

Oil Sands


We just learned about the Crude Oil.

One type of oil found in the ground is Oil Sands, also called tar sands, crude bitumen or bituminous sands.

In places like Canada, the oil is not a runny liquid like in other places, it is more like a chunk of sticky clay that is mixed up with sand.
That chunky type of clay without the sand is called bitumen or asphalt.
When you see a road or parking made using hard black chunky stuff that is rolled over with a steamroller, that is ashphalt.

If you want to use that sandy bitumen oil for something like a car engine, it takes a lot of work and uses a lot of other things like natural gases, acids, salts, other chemicals, water or heat to try and change it.
Because it is harder to get liquid oil from it, these oil sands are very expensive to refine, and it can cause a lot of pollution changing it into liquid oil.


(from: wikipedia - oil sands)


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