Latest news regarding oil from oil shale

[Roger in Kensington]

Here is an up-to-date article regarding the progress being made to produce oil domestically from oil shale.

[fastTa]

Interesting reading. Not too surprising that the Bureau of Land Management controls the majority of the land being tested with this process. Hopefull Shell will be granted their testing permit.

[Roger in Kensington]

Updated link

Sorry, folks. The previous link no longer takes you directly to the article.

Try this one.

[TraceZ]

I dont get it

If this harvesting of petrolium from oil shale deposits is viable why is the federal government not pursuing it with all their might? This would be a huge turn in US energy resources. If we were able to survive 100% on domestic sources of petrolium it would seriously change our status on the Earth. No more dependancy on other countries for us to survive. We could be self sustaining.

I'd like to see the federal government pursue this as vigorously as they sought the A-bomb during WWII. Lets see some real money get dumped into these ideas now!!!

[Injuneer]

Interesting.... I worked for Exxon (then still called "Esso") Research & Engineering in the 1960's, and spent about a year doing conceptual studies for the above ground recovery ("retorting") of crude from shale. Our goal was a 100,000 bbl/day crude production facility, and it was not economically feasible. But in the 60's gasoline prices were still under $0.50 per gallon. There was a pilot plant near Rifle, CO that was run by Mobil, and funded/staffed by a group of the major oil companies, including Exxon. "In-situ" recovery was an alternative method being considered at that time.

One negative factor in shale oil recovery was the fact that the crude oil product was extremely carcinogenic. Shale oil was actually used in Scotland in the 1800's, as a lubricant in the cloth mills. Male workers often suffered cancer of the genitals from the simple act of going outside to relieve themselves.

Here we are 40 years later, and still nothing.

[Dave M]

Male workers often suffered cancer of the genitals from the simple act of going outside to relieve themselves.

Oh, that's reassuring!

[thomas]

Oh, that's reassuring!

Well, we all have to die from something

[thomas]

Are we the only country with shale deposit?

[94 formula]

Are we the only country with shale deposit?

No, they are also looking into doing this in Canada. My dad has actually invested some into this procedure awhile back and it looks like he did his research right and its going to pay off. The whole reason this wasn't done years ago to make America independent of other countries for oil is the price is not feasible when oil is under 55 dollars a barrel and the Not In My Back Yard attitude. Its not like the shale is just magically taken from the ground very large mining operations would have to be set up to take out enough shale to create the large amounts of crude needed.

[Injuneer]

100,000 barrels a day of crude is "nothing" by todays standards - that's just a drop in the bucket. And that's 4,200,000 gallons per day. As I recall, a ton of shale held 15 - 20 gallons of oil. And not all of it could be recovered, because some of it had to be burned to create the heat required to separate the oil from the rock.

At 17 gallons/ton of shale, you would have to process a quarter million tons per day of rock, or 10,000 tons/hour. It a massive materials handling problem. Then you have to dispose of that 10,000 tons/hr of rock after you get the oil out of it. It involved filling whole vallies in the Rockies with spent stone. Think what fun the environmentalists will have with this one.

Oil shale can be found in Scotland.... that's why they used it in the cloth mills there. I've seen it referenced in parts of England, The middle-East, Australia, China, etc. I think it can be found all over the world.

Canada is know for the Athabasca Tar Sands as well. They have been producing crude oil from tar sands since 1967.

[Roger in Kensington]

But, that's where Shell's process is different.

[QUOTE=Injuneer]

At 17 gallons/ton of shale, you would have to process a quarter million tons per day of rock, or 10,000 tons/hour. It a massive materials handling problem. Then you have to dispose of that 10,000 tons/hr of rock after you get the oil out of it. It involved filling whole vallies in the Rockies with spent stone. Think what fun the environmentalists will have with this one.
QUOTE]

One of the reasons I posted the reference to the article is that it describes a new process for extracting the oil. As stated, Shell's process avoids disturbing the rock so there is no waste to dispose. And they avoid ground water contamination as well.

Environmentalists should be happy. But they won't be, of course, because they don't want any oil to be extracted. Fortunately, the adults are in charge.