Posted on 09/03/2005 1:58:07 PM PDT by Mount Athos
When oil prices last touched record highs - actually, after adjusting for inflation we're not there yet, but given the effects of Hurricane Katrina, we probably will be soon - politicians' response was more hype than hope. Oil shale in Colorado! Tar sands in Alberta! OPEC be damned!
Remember the Carter-era Synfuels Corp. debacle? It was a response to the '70s energy shortages, closed down in 1985 after accomplishing essentially nothing at great expense, which is pretty much a description of what usually happens when the government tries to take over something that the private sector can do better. Private actors are, after all, spending their own money.
Since 1981, Shell researchers at the company's division of "unconventional resources" have been spending their own money trying to figure out how to get usable energy out of oil shale. Judging by the presentation the Rocky Mountain News heard this week, they think they've got it.
Shell's method, which it calls "in situ conversion," is simplicity itself in concept but exquisitely ingenious in execution. Terry O'Connor, a vice president for external and regulatory affairs at Shell Exploration and Production, explained how it's done (and they have done it, in several test projects):
Drill shafts into the oil-bearing rock. Drop heaters down the shaft. Cook the rock until the hydrocarbons boil off, the lightest and most desirable first. Collect them.
Please note, you don't have to go looking for oil fields when you're brewing your own.
On one small test plot about 20 feet by 35 feet, on land Shell owns, they started heating the rock in early 2004. "Product" - about one-third natural gas, two-thirds light crude - began to appear in September 2004. They turned the heaters off about a month ago, after harvesting about 1,500 barrels of oil.
While we were trying to do the math, O'Connor told us the answers. Upwards of a million barrels an acre, a billion barrels a square mile. And the oil shale formation in the Green River Basin, most of which is in Colorado, covers more than a thousand square miles - the largest fossil fuel deposits in the world.
Wow.
They don't need subsidies; the process should be commercially feasible with world oil prices at $30 a barrel. The energy balance is favorable; under a conservative life-cycle analysis, it should yield 3.5 units of energy for every 1 unit used in production. The process recovers about 10 times as much oil as mining the rock and crushing and cooking it at the surface, and it's a more desirable grade. Reclamation is easier because the only thing that comes to the surface is the oil you want.
And we've hardly gotten to the really ingenious part yet. While the rock is cooking, at about 650 or 750 degrees Fahrenheit, how do you keep the hydrocarbons from contaminating ground water? Why, you build an ice wall around the whole thing. As O'Connor said, it's counterintuitive.
But ice is impermeable to water. So around the perimeter of the productive site, you drill lots more shafts, only 8 to 12 feet apart, put in piping, and pump refrigerants through it. The water in the ground around the shafts freezes, and eventually forms a 20- to 30-foot ice barrier around the site.
Next you take the water out of the ground inside the ice wall, turn up the heat, and then sit back and harvest the oil until it stops coming in useful quantities. When production drops, it falls off rather quickly.
That's an advantage over ordinary wells, which very gradually get less productive as they age.
Then you pump the water back in. (Well, not necessarily the same water, which has moved on to other uses.) It's hot down there so the water flashes into steam, picking up loose chemicals in the process. Collect the steam, strip the gunk out of it, repeat until the water comes out clean. Then you can turn off the heaters and the chillers and move on to the next plot (even saving one or two of the sides of the ice wall, if you want to be thrifty about it).
Most of the best territory for this astonishing process is on land under the control of the Bureau of Land Management. Shell has applied for a research and development lease on 160 acres of BLM land, which could be approved by February. That project would be on a large enough scale so design of a commercial facility could begin.
The 2005 energy bill altered some provisions of the 1920 Minerals Leasing Act that were a deterrent to large-scale development, and also laid out a 30-month timetable for establishing federal regulations governing commercial leasing.
Shell has been deliberately low-key about their R&D, wanting to avoid the hype, and the disappointment, that surrounded the last oil-shale boom. But O'Connor said the results have been sufficiently encouraging they are gradually getting more open. Starting next week, they will be holding public hearings in northwest Colorado.
I'll say it again. Wow.
;^)
"Not a problem. They can have political power if we get cheap energy, and if we don't they can run checkout at WalMart. They will get the message."
All have the message. Have had for some thirty years. As for as cheap energy on a national scale. Energy sources and how they are used are only part of the equation. We shall always need petroleum based products, that are not obtainable from other sources. Such as lubricants, jet fuel, heating oil, natural gas for cooking/home heating etc., and the diverse fractions that come from petroleum oil for literally hundreds of thousands of end products, not to mentioned all the required derived chemicals used in so many processes.
We need oil, and I am not talking about plant derived oils such as corn, cotton seed, soybean etc.. They cannot be cracked to obtain the extremely short list I make mention of above. It is all a bit more complicated then many of us understand believe me.
9/1/2005 Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL), a dangerous embarrassment
We went from jungle to rain forest, swamp to wetland... What can "desert" be turned into? "Sun-surfeited biome" maybe?
ping
Bookmarking
The cost of producing Saudi oil is only $3 per barrel but the value of their as yet untapped reserves is more than that by quite a bit. That is why they can deliver oil at a profit.
The prospect of producing oil from shale in the US for $30 per barrel also explains why it is unlikely that world oil prices can remain as high as they are. How much shale oil will be produced if the world price of crude falls to $28? Practically none.
I believe that it is impossible for the US to reduce its dependence on foreign oil as long as the Saudis continue pumping.
TS
I'll say it too. Wow.
BTTT
bump for later
Let the heathen Sa-uds pound sand, PIIINNGGGG
"As asked earlier, how do they prevent an enormous loss of liquid via seepage?"
I don't know. Sorry. I'm sure the pumping system is in place around the localized heating to get the majority, however.
ping
Shale may never overcome the price advantage that the Saudis currently enjoy, but unless they decide to engage in a price war, I think there is plenty of room for profit at $50-$60 per barrel. Shell says their recovery method is profitable at $30 per barrel, and that seemed to be the price break with previous methods too. They were doing a lot of shale extraction in the 1970s, and then it died off when prices fell.
My husband says that they could probably get an operation up and running in three months. Let's hope those hearings go well. This would be a real boon to the economy of the mountain states where most of the shale is located. And we could be calling the shots for once.
It was a small pilot project.
My premise is that they would have to apply for these jobs and be eager to move there. Anyone not cooperating, or misbehaving, would be kicked out.
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