"This would be the technology that would crush peak oil for several decades and allow an orderly transition to a post oil world".

It´s called the CAPRI system and it´s been designed to do the job of a refinery at the bottom of Petrobank´s patented THAI (toe-to-heel air injection) wells at the company´s pilot project near Christina Lake in northeastern Alberta. In the THAI system, an air pressure-driven combustion front loosens heavy oil as it slowly works its way forward, and the freed oil flows under gravity through slots in horizontal collector pipes, then is gas-lifted to surface processing systems. . .

For the CAPRI pilot, the horizontal pipes have been uniquely configured such that after passing through the slots, the hot crude will pass through a bed of catalyst and on through slots in a concentric inner pipe before being lifted.

The cracking to be achieved by CAPRI will be a step further in the upgrading process already occurring with THAI.

To put that in perspective. . .

If the Capri/Thai processes are successful then Canada's oilsands, other oilsands and heavy oil deposits around the world will have higher recovery rates using a more economic process and the oil will be upgrading in the ground to a higher and more valuable quality. . .The processes would enable trillions of barrels of oil to be economically accessed. In a few months the Capri process could be proven out and the energy world would be changed. Oil technology would change the world by unlocking the oilsand and heavy oil around the world. Trillions of barrels of oil would become economically feasible. It would be a game changer.

It would change the game in a couple of ways. Oil would not only be more abundant, there would be more sellers, making it less of a political weapon.

In my view, even if this particular technology is glitchy another will be developed. The idea that all of that heavy oil and oilsands will not be used is just silly. The only question is when. Given the trouble in the world about oil I suggest that this is a technology that we should be working to develop quickly.