Is this true about US oil resources?

RAND: U.S. Oil Shale Resources Are Three Times Larger Than the Current Oil Reserves in Saudi Arabia
http://www.americansolutions.com/General/?Page=1c1a10c1-15fd-4ad8-a426-b9a87f635903

Any more questions?
BHN

You lost me.

Speak more slowly or give me more details. Thanks!

http://www.eogresources.com/home/index.html

Here is there web site- link above.
The cast of characters are all Ex-Enron boys.

Their stock has gone through the ceiling.
Check out their 52 week range...
More than doubled in a year.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=EOG

AND their insider investors.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ir?s=EOG

BHN

worthwhile if a barrel of oil costs at least 95 a barrel. that is why it was never extracted before. I prefer to leave it in the ground, use solar energy and electric cars and get oil back down to 30.00 a barrel by ending the speculation and the demand, and then it would not be worthwhile to look for oil inside sand or rock.
Remember, there is a ton of oil in Iraq NOT being drilled to keep the prices artificially high.
That makes it look like all this drilling is worthwhile. It is not.

I don't have the numbers in front of me, but the actual amounts of petroleum in our shales/limestones in the west isn't the issue at all.

Here are some of the issues with mining oil shales for petroleum (this goes for the Canadian tar sands as well):

1. Very low EROEI (energy returned on energy invested). Its like using a gallon of oil to produce 1.1 gallons of more oil.
2. Very expensive to do with huge amounts of infrastructure to do it, although at these oil prices it probably is feasible to do it.
3. Requires *vast* quantities of fresh water. Perhaps the biggest overall obstacle.
4. If you think strip mining is bad for the environment, just wait til BushCo goes tearing up the land in the west for the oil shales.

If you really want to follow the world energy situation, read The Oil Drum on a regular basis.

oil supply and demand analysis and dissemination.

And all your points are correct. Shale is dead on arrival.

Although John Hodgman had a hilarious line on John Stewart tonight on the topic. Something about squeezing shale into your carborator to feed your oil habit...lol.

If it's really 1.1, it's pointless. You will run out of the liquid oil getting a 10% energy return from the shale.

Liquid oil EROEI - 12:1 to 4:1.

I have no idea what the actual EROEI for shale oil/tar sands is, but its very low compared to the stuff that comes out of the northern fields, saudi, texas etc.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3839

According to that: Enormous environmental costs, expected low limit on rate of extraction regardless of total reserves. But energetically viable without a doubt.

In other words, its like having batteries buried in the ground, it won't produce energy, just carry it.

ON EDIT: In addition, daily production for such fields is extremely low for the size, because of the statement I made above. Its only a small fraction of daily consumption.

... to gushers like we saw in "There Will Be Blood".

The era of cheap and easy oil is declining.

there are more efficient ways to produce energy and to travel that don't need to involve fossil fuels at all. Unfortunately, it would require an adjustment to our style of living, but I feel it would be needed.

If a tar sand formation (like in Alberta) is a dead oil field - i.e. one that was lifted to the surface and depressurized - leaving only heavy tar residues behind, then a kerogen formation - i.e. "oil shale" - is an oil field that never was.

It's a rock formation containing the precursors to oil and natural gas that was never carried into the earth and subjected to the temperature and pressure conditions that would create oil as we understand it in Texas or the North Sea or Saudi Arabia.

What never gets out in these breathless press releases is that the process of removing tar from sands or kerogens from shale is extremely energy-intensive and demands huge amounts of water.

Example #1 - if we decided to fully exploit the Athabascan formation in Alberta, where all those yummy tar sands are, it would necessitate creating a toxic wastewater lagoon between 20 and 30 feet deep with a surface area roughly the size of Lake Ontario.

Example #2 - if we decided to fully exploit the Green River formation in Colorado and Utah to produce "shale oil", it would require duplicating the entire electrical generating capacity of the state of Colorado. I heard this in person from a Shell engineer who was working on an in situ extraction method to get the stuff out of the ground.

Again, it is NOT oil, it will be extremely expensive and dirty to extract and is NOT equivalent to the system we employ today.

Exactly ... there isn't any "oil" in oil shale.

I live in Colorado, grew up in Wyoming, and have watched the oil exploration industry most of my life.

I do not believe oil shale will ever be able to produce a sufficient energy source to justify its exploitation.

All of this hype from the right-wingers is solely to score political points -- but it is dangerous because it leads people to believe that there is "oil" in oil shale that we should be 'drilling' right now to get gasoline back down to $1.50 a gallon.

She's a trip and a half.

http://chatterboxchronicles.blogspot.com/

Hey Hatrack! :hi:

somebody give about what shale "oil" is and how bad it is to extract it.

Oil shale is like a pre oil stage. If it were to sit in the earth's crust under p ressure and heat for a long time it would become oil. It's very bad for the environment.

...its just finely disseminated in the matrix of the rock.

Do a google search on Minnekahta limestone. Its a formation that outcrops at the surface in the Black Hills, SD. Its also in places like Wyoming, North Dakota and who the hell knows elsewhere.

Anyhow, if you strike a piece of that limestone with another rock and smell it, you can smell the petroleum in it. Smells just like oil.

(lol on edit: I used the word outbeds when I should've used outcrops)

The oil derived from oil shale does not directly substitute for crude oil in all applications. It contains higher concentrations of olefins, oxygen, and nitrogen than conventional crude oil, as well as higher viscosities. By comparison with West Texas Intermediate, the benchmark standard for crude oil in the futures contract market, shale oil sulfur content ranges up to 9.5% by weight, where West Texas Intermediate's sulfur content has a maximum of 0.42%.<49><50> The higher concentrations of these materials means that the oil must undergo considerable upgrading before serving as oil-refinery feedstock.<51> Shale oil does not contain the full range of hydrocarbons used in modern gasoline production, and could only be used to produce middle-distillates such as kerosene, jet fuel, and diesel fuel.

from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_shale

Light sweet crude, could damn near put it in your crankcase as is:



vs. Heavy Sour Crude which requires special attention to make it useful.