Oil from Ancient Peat Beds Could Fuel the Future

"Mr. Stanton's theory begins with a simple premise: the source of the oil, whatever it was, must be comparable in dimension to [Alberta's] tar sands themselves. Ancient sea-bed sediments could not have existed in the quantity implied by the oil in the tar sands, he says -- not by a factor of a hundred times.

"By his calculations, more than 650 billion tons of coal in the western Alberta plains are of the same Jurassic age -- say 200 million years -- as the heavy oils. These coal beds have direct access, through channels in rock formation, to the tar sands. The 'organic profile' of this coal reveals exceptionally high levels of carbon, suggesting there was once 'gigantic tonnage of coal and shale capable of producing huge volumes of liquid hydrocarbons.'

"As immense as the tar sand reserves, with trillions of barrels of oil captured in them, Alberta's coal reserves are larger still. Alberta's Energy Resources Conservation Board says the province's mountain region holds 24 billion tons of coal. In the foothills, 14 billion tons. In the central plains, 2,000 billion tons, a quantity of carbonized peat that is almost beyond calculation, almost beyond imagination."