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Question: As conventional sources of crude oil are depleted, unconventional sources such as oil sands (also known as tar sands) are being utilized. Oils sands contain bitumen, which can be processed into a synthetic crude oil. A region of boreal forest in Alberta, Canada, that covers a deposit of oil sands will be cut and removed during the process of bitumen extraction. It is estimated that the deposit contains 73 billion barrels of recoverable bitumen. The rate of extraction from the deposit will be approximately 1 million barrels of bitumen per day. 1. Assuming the above extraction rate, calculate how many days will be needed to extract the recoverable volume of bitumen from the oil sands. a. Set up the equation in a way that will get you the answer you are looking for. b. What is the final answer including the proper units? c. Briefly explain why your set up got you the correct answer and correct units.
a. To calculate the total number of days needed to extract the recoverable bitumen, the equation would be the total amount of bitumen divided by the rate of extraction per day. In mathematical terms it will look like this: Total Days = Total Amount of Bitumen / Extraction rate per day b. Plugging the numbers into the equation gives: Total Days = 73,000,000,000 barrels / 1,000,000 barrels/day = 73,000 days c. The set up of this equation is correct because we are trying to determine the number of days it will take to extract a fixed amount of bitumen. Each day, 1 million barrels are extracted, so by dividing the total amount of available bitumen (73 billion barrels) by the daily extraction rate (1 million barrels/day), we are able to determine how many days it will take to extract all the bitumen. The units also make sense, as the barrels in the numerator (of the total bitumen amount) and the barrels in the denominator (from extraction rate) cancel out, leaving us with the unit of "days". This is indeed what we're looking for, as we want to know how many days it will take to complete the process.
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