What is really needed is for the government to ask for bids on a million barrels of shale oil, promising to buy from the lowest bidder. That will help industry get started producing the stuff big-time.
Lacking that, I'm afraid inertia (or worse) on the part of the big oil companies will stymie the effort.
I suspect that if Shell simply went to some major consumers (say, the airlines or the states) and offered to sell forward this production at somewhere closer to the cost of production rather than the market rate that they could guarantee themselves some business for quite a while.
Perhaps you didn't read the article. Who is doing the R&D on this? Or perhaps you don't consider Shell Oil a "big oil company."
Perhaps you didn't read the article. Who is doing the R&D on this? Or perhaps you don't consider Shell Oil a "big oil company."
Well, yeah. They will lose money in direct proportion to how much we all will save, and the independence we'll gain.
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?
"What is really needed is for the government to ask for bids on a million barrels of shale oil, promising to buy from the lowest bidder. That will help industry get started producing the stuff big-time."
Isn't the current price of oil incentive enough?