Sand into Oil

from Bloomberg Markets, I found this . . . . 

. . . .  at Fort McMurray's pit mines, it takes 2 tons of sand, 250 gallons (947 liters) of water and 1,400 cubic feet (39.6 cubic meters) of natural gas to produce one barrel of synthetic crude, says Peter Wells, director of research firm Neftex Petroleum Consultants Ltd. in Abingdon, England. That's enough water for a day's use for a U.S. family of four and enough natural gas for 5.6 days. The gas is burned to power a process that extracts a tarry substance called bitumen from the sand and then refines it into synthetic crude.

In turn, each barrel generates as much as 110 kilograms (240 pounds) of carbon dioxide equivalents, the same as refining three barrels of traditional light crude.

"When you're schlepping around two tons of sand for a barrel of crude, it shows that conventional oil is already well into depletion," says Jeffrey Rubin, chief economist at CIBC World Markets Inc. in Toronto. "Price will ultimately ration demand. People won't be able to afford to drive."