Really interesting -- the low-down on shale oil

This is very interesting stuff in light of our current oil situation.  From Mark in Mexico, a few excerpts:

Oil companies have spent billions of dollars, and heretofore lost all of it, in attempting to overcome these significant obstacles. At $66.00 a barrel, however, the expense might now be worth it. The environmental concerns and challenges are gargantuan and are only now beginning to be addressed.

The proven oil shale deposits in the US total 33,400,000,000,000 tonnes (multiply by 1.2 for US tons). That's 33 trillion 400 billion tonnes. And estimated undiscovered reserves are about the same number, so the total is about 67 trillion 800 billion tonnes. The estimated yield of synthetic oil per shale tonne is 57kg, or about 125 pounds of oil per tonne of shale. A conventional barrel of oil weighs about 250 lbs., so about two tonnes of shale is required per barrel of synthetic lower grade oil. Therefore, US known deposits of oil shale should yield about 1.675 trillion barrels of oil with the possibility of doubling that number.

(shale tonnes x 57kg x 2.2) / 250 = conventional barrels

Try to imagine the hole a 33,400,000,000,000 tonne excavation would make. Hello, China. Try to imagine the mountain of waste rock (carcinogenic) because the rock expands, kind of like popcorn, when it is heated to remove the kerogen, so more has to go back than is removed. Hello, Icarus. Try to imagine the poisons produced by the processing of all that shale if it is done above ground, or all the dead fish if it is done in situ. Hello, King of the Wasteland - the Ayatollah of rock-'n-rolla....

However, all is not doom and gloom. Shell Oil believes that its in situ process can be profitable at oil prices above $30 per barrel and its process, theoretically, is fairly clean. It is also fairly efficient, using about 1 unit of energy for every 3.5 units produced. This is far, far more efficient than any other technology that anyone is talking about. Shell has tested and, at least to their satisfaction, has proven the process on a very small scale. The process is, in a word, amazin'. Here is how Shell does it.

I encourage you to read the whole thing.

Comments

[j.l.savage]

how does in-situ affect fish?