Submit your own images by sending them to Margot at
margot.gerritsen@stanford.edu.

Images by Margot, unless otherwise noted, taken on various trips.

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Alberta, Canada

One of the 60+ trucks in the Syncrude mine near Ft McMurray, Alberta, that drives up and down the mine to haul oil sand to the producing facility. Each truck load contains 400 tons of oil sands, the equivalent of 200 barrels.

The truck is around two stories high. The mine pit is rather deep and vast. Hard to get your head around these dimensions.

400 ton trucks are being filled by a massive digger. Four scoops to fill the truck, 100 ton per scoop, 50 barrels of oil contained in each scoop.

View of the Suncor mine from the air.

A mine reclaimed. Cameramen on the media tour apparently fascinated by the flowers!

Another way to produce the bitumen: Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage. This is one well pad with 10+ well pair. We will explain this process in a future post.

North America

Offshore oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of New Orleans.

Safety manager on an offshore platform in the Gulf of Mexico, with a sense of humor.

Europe

Bikes, used as mode of transport, in Amsterdam. High density housing allows the Dutch to use their bikes very effectively. Traffic is fully adapted to bikes and bike lanes, priority lanes and traffic lights allow safe cycling throughout the country.

Bus engine running on fuel cells in front of Central Station. Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Just a few miles from the village where I grew up windmills are a distinct part of the landscape. The Dutch are quite used to exploiting wind for energy, and generally welcome wind turbines. Some of the larger ones can be seen many many miles away thanks to the very flat Dutch country.

On my way from London to Amsterdam. Offshore windfarm spotted from the plane somewhere in the North Sea. Fly from Amsterdam to Norway or Sweden and you can see many of these offshore farms in the North Sea and the Danish waters.

I just really liked this sign in London, UK.

Geese taking off in the Campsie Hills near Glasgow, Scotland. Various wind mills are scattered through the Scottish hills. Quite a few new wind farms are planned in coastal areas. Wind is a very fast growing energy resource in Scotland.

South America

Ethanol sales in Brazil are high, although total volume used still low. The ethanol is derived from sugar cane and sugar cane plantations are all over the place. Although sugar cane does not directly threaten the Amazon region, it does push other crops in that direction.

Sugar cane plants, Brazil.

Asia

Making yak butter tea at the Sera Monastery in Lhasa. Photo submitted by Leigh Johnson, Woods Institute, Stanford

Typical view from my Beijing hotel room in June, 2008. Not fog, but smog. After a rainy day you may see more than a block or two. Smog caused by coal fired power plants and ever increasing car traffic.

Car traffic is growing rapidly in China. Beijing now has around 3 million cars on its roads, and saw its car park grow with 0.5 million cars just last year. As a result, biking is more perilous in the city.

Many bikes in the city of Beijing are equipped with electric motors. Little bike repair places are all over town, such as this one.

How much can you transport on one bike? Note the cellphone the biker is using in the last picture. The blend of old and new in China was fascinating.