Quote:
Originally Posted by Winter
Oh I dunno. Let's get grounded. A billion is a thousand million. A trillion is a million million. The Department of Energy estimates that the shale deposits constitute a reserve of two trillion barrels of oil. Two trillion here and two trillion there and pretty soon it adds up.
Winter
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Couldn't find a DOE estimate. Their site sent me to EIA. From a report found on that site:
Shale oil. The term “oil shale” is something of a misnomer. First, the rock involved is not a shale; it is a calcareous mudstone known as marlstone. Second, the marlstone does not contain crude oil but instead contains an organic material, kerogen, that is a primitive precursor of crude oil. When oil shale is heated at moderate to high temperatures for a sufficient period of time, kerogen can be cracked to smaller organic molecules like those typically found in crude oils and then converted to a vapor phase that can be separated by boiling point and processed into a variety of liquid fuels in a distillation process. The synthetic liquid distilled from oil shale is commonly known as shale oil. Oil shale has also been burned directly as a solid fuel, like coal, for electricity generation.
The global resource of oil shale base is huge—estimated at a minimum of 2.9 trillion barrels of recoverable oil [
55], including
750 billion barrels in the United States, mostly in
Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado [
56]. Deposits that yield greater than 25 gallons per ton are the most likely to be economically viable [
57]. Based on an estimated yield of 25 gallons of syncrude from 1 ton of oil shale, the U.S. resource, if fully developed, could supply more than 100 years of U.S. oil consumption at current demand levels.
There are two principal methods for oil shale extraction: underground mining and
in situ recovery. Underground mining, followed by surface retorting, is the primary approach used by petroleum companies in demonstration plants built in the mid to late 1970s. In this approach, oil shale is mined from the ground and then transferred to a processing facility, where the kerogen is heated in a retort (a large, cylindrical furnace) to around 900 degrees Fahrenheit and enriched with hydrogen to release hydrocarbon vapors that are then condensed to a liquid. There is some risk that, despite its apparent promise, the underground mining/surface retorting technology ultimately will not be viable, because of its potentially adverse environmental impacts associated with waste rock disposal and the large volumes of water required for remediation of waste disposal piles.
A comprehensive
in situ process is currently under experimental development by Shell Oil [
58]. Shale rock is heated to 650-750 degrees Fahrenheit, causing water in the shale to turn into steam that “microfractures” the formation. The
in situ process generates a greater yield from a smaller land surface area at a lower cost than open-pit mining. The technology also avoids several adverse issues connected to mining and waste rock remediation, minimizes water usage, and has the potential to recover at least 10 times more oil per acre than the conventional surface mining and retorting process; however, it could take as long as 15 years to demonstrate the commercial viability of the Shell
in situ process.
For a conventional mining and retorting process, $55 to $70 per barrel (2004 dollars) is the estimated breakeven price. That estimate is based in part on technical literature from the late 1970s and early 1980s, however, and thus may no longer be relevant today. The older estimates are likely to understate the cost of waste rock remediation. Advances in equipment technology over the years could increase operating efficiencies and reduce costs. A 1 million barrel per day shale oil industry based on underground mining/surface retorting would require mining and remediation of more than 500 million tons of oil shale rock per year—about one-half of the annual tonnage of domestic coal production. The process would also consume approximately 3 million barrels of water per day [
59].
A 2005 industry study prepared for the National Energy Technology Laboratory estimates that
crude oil prices (WTI basis)
would need to be in the range of $70 to $95 per barrel for a first-of-kind shale oil operation to be profitable [
60]
but could drop to between $35 and $48 per barrel within a dozen years as a result of experience-based learning (“learning-by-doing”). In the
AEO2006 high price case, assuming the use of underground mining with surface retorting, U.S. oil shale production begins in 2019 and grows to 410,000 barrels per day in 2030.
I'm not against all drilling. It should be part of a rounded energy policy. It will NOT bring down gas prices in the short term.
Re: Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay Less.
