I read an interesting article on Estonia’s oil shale. It’s shallow and loaded so it’s being mined and either burned directly or being processed. This began well before WWII and both the German and Red Armies ran on the product. Of course at different times during the war. These deposits explain a lot about Putin’s obsession with Estonia.
Yes Estonia has has been mining their oil shale for decades. They have the process pretty well worked out—but it won’t fly in the USA because the EPA won’t allow open pit mining and the prices are too high relative to shale oil. There have been a number of projects ongoing for decades to do the job byo insitu heating the oil shale and melting it underground. But the biggest player in that —shell oil —pulled out last year.
I don’t know what’s going to happen now. I’ve read that the plucky estonian company has made some efforts to use their methods in the green river basin but so far their efforts have not yielded much progress. As well, the estonian company is helping the Jordanians who also have pretty big oil shale formation on their lands.
The israelis have the same oil shale formation under their lands. One of the big geologists for shell oil has come out of retirement in texas to help them in that effort. However, the Israeli environmentalists so far have kept that program from getting very far.
There is so much bad luck involved with oil shale over the decades that I’m thinking these days that by the time the world exhausts other hydrocarbon resources—the world will have moved on. Something like nuclear will make energy too cheap for oil shale.
That’s just my WAG. (wild ass guess)