Posted on 06/17/2008 6:17:58 AM PDT by Moseley
The United States has as much as 8 times as much oil in the form of "shale oil" as all of Saudi Arabia's oil. America could end all imports of foreign oil if these shale oil resources were developed.
The Wall Street Journal editorial page then picked up the theme of accessing America's shale oil resources, shortly after publication in the New Media Journal.
America's vast supplies of shale oil has not been tapped because it was too expensive when oil was trading at $19 per barrel. And no one has taken action now that oil has exceeded $137 per barrel out of inertia.
Environmentalists oppose all success in the economy and all use of energy. And about 80% of all shale oil is on land owned or controlled by the Federal Government. Therefore, Congressional action is needed to access the 1 to 2 trillion barrels of oil currently residing in the Mid-West.
Shale oil currently supplies about 90% of the electricity and 76% of the total energy for Estonia, in Eastern Europe, on the Baltic Sea. An oil shale demonstration plant in Queensland, Australia produced 700,000 barrels of oil between 2001 and 2003.
SEE --
http://www.NewMediaJournal.us/guest/j_moseley/2008/06092008.htm
New energy solutions will appear in the New Media Journal every Tuesday throughout the Summer.
http://www.NewMediaJournal.US
Jon Moseley studied physics at Hampshire College and the University of Amherst, with a Finance degree from the University of Florida. Moseley promoted the Strategic Defense Initiative at High Frontier and at the Center for Peace & Freedom at the Heritage Foundation.
(Excerpt) Read more at christiannewswire.com ...
Sen. Salazar is a putz.
Oil may seem expensive, but that is only because it has been too cheap in the recent past.
For years and years Saudi Arabia and the OPEC have been dumping oil on the market at lower prices than production costs in an attempt to suppress competition from alternative energy supplies.
They reap the benefit during the period (now) when supply cannot meet demand.
Economically (and I speak as an outsider to the United States), the USA is in a very good long term strategic position.
When the economies of China and the developing nations come into fruition, the oil of the Middle East will have been used up.
The only developed countries (other than Norway) with ample energy reserves (coal, oil, nuclear) will be the United States and Canada.
In Israel, the arab papers have been filled for years-and-years with the theory that this result was a “grand conspiracy” by the evil Jooos that run America to leave the arabs with nothing.
The only arab country doing anything about this is Egypt and Quatar, both of which are trying to make sure they will have a developed non-oil-dependent economy in 25-50 years. (Egypt more out of necessity than Quatar -— Eqypt has some oil, but not like the other countries.)
The odd thing is that Canada, which is in many ways more to the left than the US, is moving full speed ahead to develop tar sands and shale oil and other natural resources. Some of it depends on the province. I believe Alberta is a bit of a problem. But Quebec is generally a safe place for mining companies to operate.
One company I’ve been watching is BQI, Oilsands Quest. In general the Canadians have been pretty active in this area, and in uranium. Canada is, I believe, one of our biggest energy suppliers. And Mexico would be as well, if they weren’t having the usual socialist problems with Pemex. But the US has been sitting on its hands, and the politicians have been blocking development, for the past 40 years.
Ironically, China is about to start drilling by invitation off Cuba, 50 miles from the Florida Keys. I’m sure they’ll be much more careful than American companies not to spill or pollute!
Actually, a bit more than half is in the North Dakota/Montana shale formation, which is hardly as dry as the Southwest (and Wyoming isn't, as another poster mentioned, in the Southwest).
Further, there are (again, as others mentioned above) other methods of extraction that don't use anywhere near as much water. Oh, and BTW, if fresh water is a problem, just build a damned pipeline from the Great Lakes to where the oil is. It can be built on the same land as the pipeline bringing oil to Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh, etc. (one pipe brings water one way, the pipe 10 feet away brings oil the other way). If a pipeline can be built across Alaska, so can one be built across the Great Plains, and a good deal more cheaply.
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.
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.
That would be one trillion barrels of oil.
The mere threat of opening US federal lands to drilling will drop the international price of oil by $25 a barrel or more. The price of oil today is driven by 3 factors...
1) Speculation
2) Currency fluctuation
3) Supply & Demand
As soon as the Fed opens up govt owned land for drilling...watch the speculators run for the hills.
The price will drop without a single hole being drilled.
Git a rope!
i made a post similar to your thoughts not long ago and was attacked as being crazy.....i had suggested that this was exactly what our gov’t may be thinking....not really absurd at all...
I don’t know if it is on purpose, or a blessing of God, or both.
People need to learn how to play chess again. Everyone is playing video games. There are many moves ahead.
And the way to be energy independent from arab oil is to drill our own oil in our country. Sticking it to big oil is just foolish. Big oil is keeping you on the road. If they were allowed to drill here, drill now, we would pay less. It’s very simple. More supply, means lower price. Oil profits are no higher as it relates to total revenues than any other corporate profit. They take in a lot but they have to pay a huge amount of federal taxes on their oil. The government is the biggest freeloader of all in the price of oil. How about having them give up their taxes they impose on oil revenues.
Oh I know. You’re preaching to the choir there. I don’t see the point in putting off energy independence in order to further enrich the leaders of hostile nations.
Maybe. It'll drop, yes, but prices locked in via contracts by futures traders will also be a factor.
Eventually those futures contracts HAVE to be delivered, and meanwhile, the hedge funds are trading for cheaper and cheaper oil further up in the future.
I too have thought along these lines for years. Our strategic military decision is to wait for the rest of the world to use their oil first, before we use ours.
Not nearly possible. How many bpd can they produce?
It’s time to start hanging them from lamp posts.
Where can I buy me one of them oil shale licenses?
So if I read this right most of this Oil Shale/Sand is on BLM land is which owned by this collective enterprise called the United States of America.
So the licenses go out to contractors (Big Oil-Small Oil- Mom and Pop Oil)who produce this oil and then the resulting royalty shows up every year as a check made out to John Q Public - like in Alaska now?
Or does the Congress get together and figure out how to steer this "taxpayer profit windfall" into their more deserving projects?
The object here is not to be energy independent from foreign Countries. The object here is to STICK IT to BIG OIL!
I think it is way beyond that.
In concert with anthropogenic global warming, the idea is to squeeze the United States, which is undeniably an energy and prosperity hog, into the same economic realm as the rest of the world.
The fact is that any other nation, society, or citizen, of the World, no matter how much of an "ally" they may declare to be, will not object to this strategy.
Thank the Council on Foreign Relations.
That is why I want a list of names provided to the public.
How many are there? 20...200...2000...2,000,000?
How many are controlling the world?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.