Yeah, we've heard that for three decades now. I don't know anyone active in the industry who agrees with that conclusion.
But as long as we have people who tell us what we can't do economically, or whatever profits we make will be taken from us to distribute to Democrat voters, it just doesn't matter.
The liberals are determined to make us into a Peak Oil situation. It disturbs me that you're a willing ally.
In general you are accurately characterizing the process. I guess I see this process as potentially helpful, but not something that is going to replace conventional oil anytime soon.
Not that Shell shouldn't try, but I saw the pictures of the pilot and it did not look simple. The very small pilot had more than a dozen pump jacks and what appeared to be the heat source plumbing made the entire surface of the place [maybe a couple of acres?] look like a solid mass of metal. Around the heated area is more infrastructure to support the freeze wall to keep the oil that has been cooked from the kerogen from migrating into ground water. To make the process work at scale would require massive amounts of electrical generation capacity that would have to be built. If if gets done, I hope its nuclear, but whatever it is, it needs to be built pronto.
Water constraints? I just don't know. I know there isn't much excess water in the Green / Colorado, but if it comes down to shale production versus decorative ponds in Las Vegas / raising alfalfa in Yuma / cotton in Maricopa, I hope the water rights issues can be worked out. I have read the popular press reports of water requirements and they made no sense to me. In one paragraph the reports indicated that the water was necessary to upgrade the stuff that cooked out of the kerogen, and the same paragraph described the unprocessed stuff as a fine light crude oil that could be piped out the area without upgrading requirements. Who knows?
The point is that the Green River Formation oil shales shouldn't be equated to four or five Ghawars just waiting for a drill bit [or even a drill bit, sea water injection facilities, GOSPs, oil pipelines etc. etc. etc.] One Ghawar would get the U.S. back to its conventional crude peak. Three incremental Ghawars to balance domestic production and consumption without further growth.
I hope Shell is successful, but I also want everyone expecting a miracle to get the picture about scale required to make a big difference, the investment required even for the first pilot, and what is likely over the next five of ten years [a period which if we are at or close to peak is going to be nasty.]