WOW! What if this works?
Wow! If this report from the Rocky Mountain News bears out and Shell Oil has figured out a way to get oil out of shale at about $30/barrel in a very environmentally sound way, this will change everything. Shell's Ingenious Approach to Oil Shale is Pretty Slick
Shell's method, which it calls "in situ conversion," is simplicity itself in concept but exquisitely ingenious in execution
I remember, but am not sure of my facts, that the size of U.S. shale oil deposits is about four times that of the oil deposits in the Arabian peninsula.
UPDATE: Did I mention that most of the oil shale is on federal land managed by the Bureau of Land Management? Private companies will bid for leases with lease revenue going to the federal government.
Having worked at the Department of the Interior, I can tell you that revenues from oil leases is the 2nd biggest inflow of revenues to the federal government after the Internal Revenue Service.
Technorati Tags: Shell, oil shale
Posted by Jill Fallon on September 4, 2005 at 2:09 PM | Permalink | TrackBack
Jim Cramer of "Mad Money with Jim Cramer" CNBC mentioned that gasohol may be viable again. Again it has to do with the ppb of oil.
Which leads me back to the thought of alcohol fuels. From the grain belt... Essentially the variety of combustion technologies would remain virtually the same. You still get heat emissions but toxic emission is greatly reduced.
Then there is vegetable oil lubricants. From the grain belt... Now I would assume you couldn't make pharmaceuticals, plastic and fertilizers from vegetable oil because it wouldn't be as mineral rich as crude. But it could work. Somebody markets a veg. oil for cars/trucks, I'll have to search it again because they appeared several years ago.
Less is more but the meek won't inherit the oil rights.
Right?
Posted by: JTP at September 22, 2005 1:34 PMGasohol is the econut's dream. In reality, it's a crock.
If you don't have an engine designed to use it, it chews it up by eating up seals and adding to metal corrosion.
The energy per volume is lower than gas, and the energy input required to make it (including costs of farming!!!) is debatably more than the value added by using the food-derived alchohol to supplant a measure of oil.
It uses food stocks, which, while plentiful in supply for us, also, as a surplus, represent a notable portion of our food aid for other countries... you going to starve people to make lots of this stuff? That'll go over well, yeah, sure.
As usual, if it's subsidized, it's because the market doesn't support it.
Posted by: OhBloodyHell at September 23, 2005 3:27 AM
