In situ is breakeven at $38/bbl. Breakeven is uncertain so far on microwaving, because current thinking is that using a combination of frequencies may be more productive than the current single-frequency (harmonic) process.
Will they be implemented? Only if/when the political class tell the environazis to suck wind. What company is going to risk X billion on anything at all if some jackass tree-hugger might get lucky with a BS lawsuit and shut the project down, eh?
But, 35 years in the ''awl bidness'' or not, you're not paying attention. New technologies, as well as new adaptations of old technologies, are out there aplenty right this minute.
Care to add a bit of commentary, gents?
Good points, by the way, what part of Canada are you from?
I have dealt first hand with assembling a rig and all the crews, with just days before spudding the well and have a court order shut the whole thing down.
The latest was in Utah where a sacred Indian arrow-head hunting ground managed to put over 100 people out of work. Of course, we quickly went some where else and our paychecks didn’t see any difference, but the real losers were the indians. They stood to get huge royalties off the mineral rights.
Not a day goes by without at least a few threads getting posted related to energy related breakthroughs. More oil found, more ways to extract oil, more ways to convert substances 'X' to fuel, more ways to produce increasingly energy efficient devices, more ways to produce solar energy cheaper, and on and on and on.
The technology has been around for a long time to extract the oil from the Green River Shales.
All we are seeing is variations on the basic theme of: Heat the shale and get the oil out.
WIll it be extensively developed/implemented?
The last time someone invested a chunk in that, Unocal (iirc), eventually left Parachute, CO with their tail between their legs.
Even now, I wouldn't put out money past prototypes and research, without some sort of guarantee the government wasn't going to turn around and bite me as soon as it was ramped up for production.
With the environazis still screeching about anthropogenic climate change, and shrilly howling for shutting down more solutions to the energy problem, I'd be d@mned cautious about doing any more than I needed to to hold the leases.
That includes Juan McCain, who has not done anything to show me he has seen the light in re: anthropogenic Global Warming, which it turns out, simply does not exist.
This is the time the new tech from the last slowdown is implemented and refined, and the time money is spent on R&D, but without some serious reason to believe there will be a ROI to cheer about, it isn't going to show unless it produces immmediate results.