They recently came out to explain the process since they had to apply for patents, etc.

The Shell process consists of drilling holes into the ground with heating elements. There are perimeter holes that freeze the surrounding ground to avoid seepage into the ground water supply. The shale oil then actually runs out of the rock and into a middle hole, where it can be easily pumped out, and it is a very high quality oil, as well.

Shell estimates that this process would be profitable if gasoline were only $2/gallon, so it's certainly efficient enough.

Shell is building a refinery on site. The estimated time to bring this to market is around 8 years.

A lot of water will be needed, for sure, but the same can be said for algae biodiesel production, which hopefully will supplant most oil use down the line.

As far as oil being a renewable energy source, as research like this continues, we may find out that oil is more renewable than we expect now. After all, oil is basically sunlight energy trapped and concentrated through pressure and heat. If oil shale, which is basically crude oil that is a million years too young, can be turned into crude oil by speeding up the process, who is to say there won't be other advances that do more than that?

Although I intended to emphasize the oddity of seeing an oil-shale themed article in a publication from the branch of the DOE in charge of renewable energy, I can see by the above discussion — of the actual processes, economic feasibility, and environmental impacts — that the substantive issue is much more important to folks.

As a Colorado resident, I am all too aware of how precious of a resource water is. Everyone has heard the old adage: "In the West, whiskey is for drinkin' and water is for fightin'. It is my understanding that developing oil shale can use anywhere from 2-5 barrels for every barrel of oil produced. Can the already over-burdened Colorado River basin handle this kind of water use? As it stands currently, the mighty Colorado is barely a trickle when it gets to the Sea of Cortez.

As far as oil-shale infrastructure only taking two years, I'm just not seeing those type numbers anywhere – especially considering the oil companies are still real leery about diving in full-bore because of the costs.

Both sources of usable fuels require heating, additional hydrogen, and excavation of enormous quantities of rock in order to produce. Unlike conventional oil and gas that flows of its own accord, this stuff requires a lot of work. Work is defined as the integral of power.

Since Power is Energy/Unit time, it takes a lot of energy to wrest the energy in shale and tar sands from the ground. It is only economical if there is a cheap source of energy available.

The tar sands developments have been made possible because there was stranded natural gas that could not get to market due to lack of pipelines. It is easier to ship liquids than it is to ship gas so it made some economic sense to use the gas to produce even a relatively small quantity of liquid fuel.

Unfortunately, Colorado shale may be subject to the same economics where a cheap, stranded source of natural gas makes it economical to put in the work necessary to produce oil from shale – for a while. Once as is becoming more apparent in Canada, when the cheap gas is no longer available…

What happens then? Who restores the land that was torn up? Who pulls the excess pollutants out of the air that were injected during the boom times?

I do, however, understand the desires of those who would rather put a lot of work into producing oil from North America and employing North Americans rather than sending 700 billion a year to people that often do not like us very much. Definitely a dilemma.

Good thing there is a reliable, emission free, low cost alternative or two. (Nuclear fission is my favorite, but large scale wind can work for some needs.)

The Nazi's used oil synthesized from coal to fuel their war machine, and that was over 50 years ago. Of course, they were using slave labor (the interred Jewish population) at the I.G. Farben plant that was producing the synthetic oil; however, that was over 50 years ago. The coal/shale to liquid process has to have come a long way in that time, also with the current price of a barrel of oil, I'm surprised we haven't been making use of CTL (Coal to Liquid) technology earlier. Coal is the one thing we're not running out of anytime soon in this country.

Oh wait, I'm not surprised. Because the oil industry owns the coal too, and they'll squeeze every last dollar out of natural oil before they present an alternative.

I'm not at all for fossil fuels, but if we opened up CTL plants around this country, we could cease our need for foreign oil, and bring the price way down. At least until we can build the infrastructure to run on renewables.

But I think we know how likely it is that the oil companies will present an alternative to their product in their most profitable period in history.

JT
http://www.FireMe.To/udi

The biggest source of oil in America is actually the oil sands of Alberta, Canada, which are similar and part of the same geologic feature as the oil shale. We could in fact extract usable oil from the Colorado shale, at considerably less than what we pay other countries now. It would take at least two years to build the infrastructure, and it will have an effect on the environment; however the oil shale is strikingly ugly, looking like giant piles of chunky poop, and it's removal would only improve the view. Nothing grows on the oil shale except the occasional weed, no trees, no wildlife.

Using oil shale would actually save us quite a bit of money, and additionally keep us from having to fund our enemies. When the Arabs dropped the price of oil, shortsighted economic policies dropped the project. With the knowledge learned from the Canadian oil sands, using the oil shale should be considerably less injurious to my lovely state's environment than it would have been 30 years ago, and economically even more efficient.