sandgk;1202211; said:2 - Drill Here, Drill Now -
2a - Rocky Mountain Oil Shale - there are copious articles describing the benefits to the US of opening up and exploring oil shale. Most are scam like promotional pieces for paper companies.
Some, instead examine the real challenges to getting oil out of oil shale.
You could call the arguments heated, for the real soft underbelly of oil shale is that it takes a huge amount of energy to extract the kerogen from oil shale. Then, as if that were not sufficient obstacle, the material must be cracked and converted in yet another high energy intensive process to yield petroleum like grades of product.As pointed out on "The Oil Drum," the price point at which Oil Shale becomes viable is often tantalizingly out of reach. Why? Because the huge cost of the energy to extract and then process the kerogenous compounds also rises.
Oil Shale Reserves - A Daily Reckoning White Paper Report
"Most of the petroleum products we consume today are derived from conventional oil fields that produce oil and
gas that have been naturally matured in the subsurface by being subjected to heat and pressure over very long periods
of time. In general terms, the In-situ Conversion Process (ICP) accelerates this natural process of oil and gas
maturation by literally tens of millions of years. This is accomplished by slow sub-surface heating of petroleum
source rock containing kerogen, the precursor to oil and gas. This acceleration of natural processes is achieved by
drilling holes into the resource, inserting electric resistance heaters into those heater holes and heating the
subsurface to around 650-700F, over a 3 to 4 year period.
This white paper is somewhat difficult to read but is loaded with information. Shell has a process that is thermally conductive and requires a lot of power. In addition, there's a concern about freezing the ground to contain the oil that is released and to prevent it from entering the ground water.
I say we get T Boone Pickens to generate the power needed with one of his wind farms, send the power to the oil shale locations and make it a dedicated oil reclaim process. It takes 3 to 4 years for the resistance heater to work so we better get busy. T-Bone better start those wind mills. Beam me up Scotty. We have some serious work to do.
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