Ken Salazar Eviscerates Bush On "Oil" Shale - Great Op-Ed Piece!

[hatrack]

To hear Bush touting Western oil shale as the answer to $4 per gallon gasoline, as he did again yesterday in the Rose Garden, you would think it was 1908 . . . or 1920 . . . or 1945 . . . or 1974. Every couple of decades over the past century, the immense reserves of the oily rock under Colorado and Utah reemerge as the great hope for our energy future.

Bush and his fellow oil shale boosters claim that if only Western communities would stand aside, energy companies could begin extracting more than 500 billion barrels of recoverable oil from domestic shale deposits. If only the federal government immediately offered even more public lands for development, the technology to extract oil from rock would suddenly ripen, oil supplies would rise and gas prices would fall. If only.

Since the 19th century, we in the West have been trying to extract oil from the vast oil shale riches that lie under our feet. It is no easy task, and past efforts have failed miserably. Commercial oil shale development would require not only immense financial investments but also an undetermined quantity of (scarce) water from the Colorado River basin and the construction of several multibillion-dollar power plants.

EDIT

This time, though, the technologies that companies such as Shell Oil are developing are far more promising. Thanks in part to a research and development program that Congress created in 2005, energy companies are starting to devise a way to heat the rock that holds the oil and force the oil up and out of the ground. Still, that oil would not come easily. It would take around one ton of rock to produce enough fuel to last the average car two weeks. Furthermore, energy companies are still years away -- 2015 at the earliest -- from knowing whether this technology can cost-effectively produce oil on a commercial scale.

EDIT

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/14/AR2008071401846.html

[Captain Angry]

1. I just wish he'd stop voting Republican.

As they say, talk is cheap. Right Harry, Nancy, et. al.?

[nels25]

2. I have a question??

Does this mean that research in this technology should be terminated??

Would it not be a better idea if as a comprehensive approach to energy independence that this technology be perfected for safe use and then utilized??

After all Colorado would surly have a financial benefit from utilizing this resource as would the nation.

Plus the public wants the fuel crisis attended to, and the polls show that developing oil shale and drilling are popular, I fear we are on the wrong side of this issue.

And we come across arrogant and lecturing to a public that simply does not understand why numerous other nations are developing oil deposit (including Cuba with China's and Venezuela's assistance just 60 or so miles of our mainland, that one is going to be hard one to justify as this issue moves forward) and we will not.

Just my 2 cents.

[hatrack]

4. I saw a guy from Shell do a presentation on in situ shale extraction

To fully exploit the Western Slope kerogen deposits would require duplicating the entire generating capacity of the state of Colorado.

By way of example, Duke Energy's latest proposed coal-fired plants came in at about $2.25 million/megawatt constructed, and natural gas plant construction costs (per Edison Electric Institute) were averaging about $550,000/megawatt constructed, and that using a 2000 - 2006 average as their baseline, with costs rising sharply in the final year. I dare say gas and coal plants are both a bit pricier to build now.

http://www.eei.org/industry_issues/electricity_policy/state_and_local_policies/rising_electricity_costs/Rising_Utility_Construction_Costs.pdf

According to EIA, Colorado had a total installed capacity of about 11.2 gigawatts back in 2006.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/fig2p1.pdf

So, using an extremely favorable split of the difference between the gas and coal totals given above ($1.4 million/megawatt constructed), that's about $15.7 billion in power plant investment just for the electricity to run the project - and that figure is probably very lowball.

Add in the actual technology to extract the kerogens - the pumps, electrodes, ice-wall refrigeration units, platforms, rigs, communications gear, roads, vehicles, to say nothing of the coal or gas (or nukes or wind turbines or whatever) to power the system, and you're talking about a whole lot of money, money that even oil companies might think twice about spending, though there is interest in this as an "alternative" energy source - even though it's really more "Extreme EOR" than anything else.

[nels25]

8. Thank you for educating me

I must admit to being totally clueless to the financial underpinnings of the energy industry.

[hogwyld]

5. Let me ask you this

Should this generation leave absolutely no energy reserves for future generations? I see shale as a reserve for people that will live long after you and I are gone. We don't need to strip the world bare in our lifetimes. And if we really blow it and become extinct, at least that will be there for the next species to come along.

[Javaman]

7. Our great grandchildren will be farmers. nt

[XemaSab]

10. Our great-grandchildren?

After the peak oil video, I'm thinking about digging up more of the back yard, while the weather is only 87 degrees. :P

[Javaman]

12. I mean as a vocation not out out of necessity. :) nt

[nels25]

9. Okay but we need to do something

most americans will take a dim view of having their life style radically altered without sufficient explanation/reason.

[Nihil]

13. There's plenty of reason ...

... and there has been a surfeit of explanation to support it
so your "most Americans" can take their "dim view" and stick it
as they simply have NOT been paying attention.

The only compensation you can offer them is that they are not alone
in their ignorance. This will not affect the fact that their lifestyle
*will* be radically altered with or without their permission.

[NMDemDist2]

14. China is NOT drilling off Florida, Crashcart (and George Will) lied again

http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/are_the_chinese_drilling_off_the_coast.html

Drilling is going as fast as men and equipment are available. I live in the Oil Patch and have friends working the drilling rigs. They are booked over a year in advance and are turning down work right and left. No rigs and no roustabouts to work them.

we are at our drilling capacity now. and yet we still manage to ship 33% MORE fuel out to other countries overseas than we did a year ago.

You need to read this forum daily if you want to keep up on what's really going on and not listen to the MSM lies.

As for the shale oil extraction, Colorado is a beautiful state and I don't blame the people there for not wanting the massive and intrusive mess that oil shale extraction would do to their state.

how would you like this in your back yard, on your favorite hiking trail?



people want a solution to their energy needs, true. but they don't care if their car runs on oil or marshmallows. we need to invest in sustainable alternatives, the R&D funding needs to be diverted there, not to more of the same.

[pansypoo53219]

3. oil is yesterday-20th century.

not tomorrow.

[XemaSab]

6. When oil is $300 a barrel

an lot of stuff that don't make no sense now is going to START making some sense. :(

[depakid]

11. From a pure economic standpoint, maybe

but in terms of energy economics, the EROEI on shale oil will likely remain in the negative side, so as a source of energy (as opposed to petrochemicals) it's a losing prospect.