Posted on 05/13/2012 7:36:35 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
In case you missed it – and you very well might have, since the media was too busy talking about gay marriage to be bothered – a rather remarkable thing happened in Washington this week. An auditor from the GAO testified before the House Science Subcommittee on Energy and Environment on the subject of energy. But instead of hearing about how horrible things are, she calmly delivered something of a bombshell.
“The Green River Formation–an assemblage of over 1,000 feet of sedimentary rocks that lie beneath parts of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming–contains the world’s largest deposits of oil shale,”Anu K. Mittal, the GAO’s director of natural resources and environment said in written testimony submitted to the House Science Subcommittee on Energy and Environment.
“USGS estimates that the Green River Formation contains about 3 trillion barrels of oil, and about half of this may be recoverable, depending on available technology and economic conditions,” Mittal testified.
“The Rand Corporation, a nonprofit research organization, estimates that 30 to 60 percent of the oil shale in the Green River Formation can be recovered,” Mittal told the subcommittee. “At the midpoint of this estimate, almost half of the 3 trillion barrels of oil would be recoverable. This is an amount about equal to the entire world’s proven oil reserves.”
Read those last two sentences again and think about it for a moment. The largest remaining reserves of oil on the planet are not in Saudi Arabia or buried under the frozen steppes of the former Soviet Union. They’re here in the United States. Combined with the massive resources in western Canada, that means that North America is the King of Oil for the future. But what – if anything – will we do about it?
The vast majority of this supply is shale oil, a form which was essentially useless to us only a few decades ago, but now we know how to get it. And if you want to avoid ripping up the entire landscape, that means horizontal drilling and fracking. Unfortunately for us, this is one of those rare areas where the government actually can make a difference, for better or worse. The Obama administration continues to claim that they are pursuing an “all of the above” energy policy, but at the same time they are jumping in with new regulations regarding fracking.
If we move forward on this aggressively, the industry can safely access these resources which would significantly strengthen our hand on the international stage. But with the wrong approach, Washington could hog tie energy developers with excessive, expensive regulations or shut the entire process down by failing to issue permits to develop resources on these federal lands.
The public disclosure of these reserves is good news, but it’s only the beginning. And while I feel some trepidation in saying it, I’m afraid the ball is in Barack Obama’s court.
Fluorocarbons... I can just imagine the greenies screaming “Freon!”
Physically mining the shale and cooking the oil out in batches might be the most energy efficient thing. Heating it in place has the handicap of losing heat to its environment.
If there is a place that solar power (solar cooking in this case) would, er, shine, this might be it. Who cares if it’s “lossy” because the solar would otherwise be wasted on that barren oil shale desert anyhow.
Yes, technology will have to catch up to make it commercially viable at the larger scale.
According the report which this article references, we are not there yet.
That’s still profitable EROI, but conventional gas wells have 8-10 to one ratios. Even .5:1 would be profitable to someone if there are no other sources ... but not many could afford the end product.
All this means is that the shale oil will be more expensive when it is sold.
The "in situ" retorting process will probably always be more expensive than other oil-extraction methods and I think environmental concerns will prevent strip-mining for oil shale
You’re right but it all boils down to how one defines “technology.” I was using the word in the broad sense that shale oil extraction technology is not presently cost-competitive with other methods of oil extraction. I probably should used more specific language.
Of course. But 99.99% of "greens" are technically illiterate (and probably politically illiterate, too), and don't understand that all fluorocarbons are NOT "ozone layer unfriendly", just a select few.
But the real point is that in order to trace the movement of the oil/gas leaks, one needs a "permanent" type of marker species with unique properties not found in nature, and which can be detected in extremely tiny concentrations.
I can't think of anything else that "fits the bill" as well the fluorocarbons. Other halocarbons won't do, as it turns out that there are natural sources of many of them (chlorine, bromine, and iodine analogs).
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considering that large areas of the Western US has much the same geological makeup of that seen in oil producing countries, I have always believe we were sitting on oil.
And no matter WHAT type or how clean the technology becomes available to extract it, “progressives” will always say no to coal, oil, nuclear, hydro, etc.
If a new type of solar panel was invented that would create cheap energy for the US, they’d shoot that down as well.
Geothermal is actually viable; it relies on mature tech. It can’t provide everything, however. It’s a marginal player.
Iceland runs on geo. Iceland is small.
I was there in 1948, when the initial drilling was getting underway (my step-dad was a roughneck on a wildcat rig).
I don't recall any murders at the time. But there was a lot of drinking -- there being, literally, nothing else to do. You could work in Wamsutter...and you could sleep. And you could drink. But there was no movie, no TV, no shopping, no fishing, not even any grass to mow.
I believe you’re talking about different scenarios that those which are upsetting the greenies today about fracking. They’re going around hollering “water pollution right now” about fracking sites... not “water pollution in 3000 years when the slow creep of the residual far underground fluid towards the water table has finished.” Radioiodine would suffice to show that no, the fluid has not leaked into the water table on the way past it on the way down, and no it hasn’t leaked into it as a result of acute backing-up from pressure operations down below. Once the pressure has been relieved, there is no more practical danger of such cross contamination.
“And the key word is “thousands.” Kerogen in nature converts to oil under sufficient pressure and temperature. There is a temperature gradient as depth increases, using present horizontal drilling and fracking technology shale oil is now being produced around the world.”
I am not sure what the temperature gradient is in the Green River area, but I have worked on well up to 24,000 ft deep in the Oklahoma Anadarko Basin and the highest temp we encountered was 260F. That is quite a bit less than the 500 or more required for kerogen conversion, but maybe it would help.
Again the shale oil that is now being produced from shales around the world was exposed to enough temperature and pressure for a long enough time to make the conversion naturally. The Green River just never quite made the grade.
If there was crude oil (not kerogen) in the Green River formation at deeper depths we would already know about it. I am not sure what the thickness of the formation is, but I am sure they have drilled though it.
Otherwise I recall it exactly like you said. Have heard though the size of the town has vastly increased as of late.
All Marathon employees lived in Rawlins at the time was there.
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