Posted on 09/03/2005 6:46:32 AM PDT by narby
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.
> Yeah right. I pay more because I'm married! I pay more every income bracket I move up into. Constitutionality and taxes don't mix my friend!
Well, yeah. They will lose money in direct proportion to how much we all will save, and the independence we'll gain.
"The energy ratio is 3.5/1. We should use nuclear to provide the energy put into the rock. It's cleaner, abundant, and it can't fuel your car while gasoline can."
Might be able to use the high temperature gas reactor to provide process heat, it could produce electricity as a byproduct.
File under "Al Gore". You won't replace the IC with an "Alternative" until you can replace it with better.
This is a VERY important point. It isn't demand pressure (China) that is pushing oilprices up, it is OPEC and aholes like Sorros dicking around with futures. The Soddies got the ball going, and seem to have lost control of it, Sorros is cheerleading it for political power. I just hope the bubble pops before sorros gets out, and when the Soddies have the spiggets wide open.
Drop some nukes in some of those holes. That would heat the heck out of the rock and build nice big storage cavern at the same time.
Why do this heating process in the ground...unless doing it in the ground makes use of the tremendous pressures under ground in addition to the heat...anybody care to speculate?
Shell is a big oil company....it doesn't look like it wants to stymie this process. I do find it interesting how-ever that Shell is "floating" this proposal in the MSM just as oil prices are reaching a huge high....you don't suppose there's anything disingenuous about this now do you?
It costs 35 dollars now...but given increased volumes of production, the fine tuning and perfecting of the technology, and increased economies of scale the prices will drop substantially. Plus, look at the energy ratio...1 unit of energy in verses 3.5 units of energy out.
Think 1 barrel of oil energy in verses 3.5 barrels of oil energy out. If one barrel of oil=70 dollars and you get the equivalent of 245 dollars back subtracting 70 dollars for a net of 175 dollars...I think it looks very attractive!
Then there is the concept of energy indepedence...even if this is currently a more expensive option domestically...the amount of shale available alone can make our country completely independent and free of Muslim and other foreign manipulation, allow a stability of pricing and supply for the long term. Plus factoring in the costs of transhipping oil via tankers and maintaining security of same...this new process may not be as unprofitable to domestic oil companies as you might think. Plus it restores Shell as an actual OIL PRODUCER and not just a price gouginging middle man!
Reading "depending upon what income bracket" for "depending upon what state" is a curious reading disability.
The U.S. needs to produce enough oil from shale to drive the price down but, Saudi Arabian deposits need to be consumed to eventually remove them as a player.
Much cheaper than strip mining the shale, crushing it, heating it, extracting the oil, and returning it to the ground pretty enough to make the Sierra Club happy.
I'm suspecting that they're doing this with a heat pump. Where they extract heat from the perimeter, causing ice, and pump into the center for the heat.
If they used two sides of the existing ice wall when they moved the production hole, that would save some. And they could also extract energy out of the abandoned hole by running the steam generated by the cleaning process through a turbine. You wouldn't be able to extract all the energy out that you put in, but perhaps enough of a percentage to help out.
Sounds like a good application for a small nuke plant (like we use for our subs). Generate superheated stem and pump it down. For Colorado, they might also be able to use solar mirrors to produce injectable steam.
The $4 oil belongs to the Saudi's, et. al. The $35 oil belongs to us.
Hmm, hard question.
Excellent point.
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