Practical Method for Getting Oil from Oil Shale? 854
ConfigurationManager writes "An article in the Rocky Mountain News describes how Shell has demonstrated a practical way to extract oil from the shale deposits in Colorado. Since it describes those deposits as "the largest fossil fuel deposits in the world," that could be a very good thing for those of us who are currently paying anywhere from $3 on up for a gallon of regular unleaded."
I feel so sorry for you! (Score:3, Insightful)
Dw
Re:I feel so sorry for you! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I feel so sorry for you! (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe if the EU didn't tax gasoline so much to line the governments pockets you wouldn't have this problem. Remember, you are subsidising public transportation systems with it.
UK Gas Tax: $2.80/gallon
US Gas Tax: $1.01/gallon
As of May, 2004. Exchange rates have changed since then.
Source:http://transportation.northwestern. [northwestern.edu]
Re:I feel so sorry for you! (Score:3, Insightful)
And I'm aboslutely fine with it. If the US adopted a similar approach, then maybe that guy from Dallas a few posts up wouldn't have to drive just to get to public transportation.
Re:I feel so sorry for you! (Score:4, Insightful)
I have several expatriate friends from Australia, New Zealand and Europe. All of them say the same thing : you don't realize how much Americans truly NEED their cars until you move to a location like Texas where public transportation doesn't cut it.
Re:I feel so sorry for you! (Score:3, Insightful)
yeah we europeans have high fuel taxes (Score:5, Insightful)
but afaict most of the high fuel prices at the moment are due to catrina knocking out refining capacity not oil prices.
typo (Score:2)
Re:It's a big mix of things (Score:5, Informative)
* Ethanol: Studies by everybody but Pimentel (who gets way too much press, as pretty much the sole dissenter) says that it gets 30-70% more energy than goes into it. Furthermore, you can use any sort of heat for the fermentation process, be it burning ag waste or power plant waste heat.
* Coal liquifaction: Last I heard, it took long-term prices of 30-40$ a barrel to make it economical. Well, we've got that.
* Biodiesel: Expect long-term economics similar to ethanol - only, it'll support the soybean industry instead of the corn and sugarcane industries
* Tar sands: Becoming very profitable. According to my father (a pres of Shell), they recently ordered the 5x-ing of production from their pilot plant in Canada. Vast tracts of tar sands available.
* Shale: Now becoming profitable, as the article mentioned, and very, very widespread. Again, Shell is a big leader on this front.
* Methane hydrates/clathrates: No major companies harvesting yet, but there's a lot of research on it. Monstrous natural gas deposits trapped in ice-like structures deep sea. Even better, harvesting them (cleanly) would eliminate a potential global warming runaway heating scenario (climbing temperatures cause the release of trapped methane, which is a greenhouse gas)
These are just hydrocarbon fuels being discussed here. There are countless ways to generate electricity as well.
Re:I feel so sorry for you! (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally i'd like to see the price of fuel in the states double from it's current level and the extra can go to finding clean technologies and bringing them to market. But you know we'd all like the impossible.
Re:I feel so sorry for you! (Score:5, Interesting)
Just make the minimum required fuel efficiency far lower than it is currently. It's possible to build a 4x4 around an efficient engine, why not make it compulsory and if you feel the need to pay 150% for the fact your car is 3' taller and makes you feel 'safer' on the road then more fool you.
Alternatively, just make SMART cars compulsory.
Re:I feel so sorry for you! (Score:4, Funny)
"Protecting my Kids... Fucking the Environment!"
"MY kids are safe... YOURS aren't!"
Re:I feel so sorry for you! (Score:3, Insightful)
America is to blame for a lot of things pollutionwise, but it is always easier to blame the others while were are almost equally bad.
In the city where I live we have good public transportation, yet the general public prefers to use the car as well, because it is just a tad more convenient, even with findin
Re:I feel so sorry for you! (Score:4, Insightful)
Because I was 6-12 years old at the time with a busy road to follow and no bike paths or side walks meaning I'd have had to ride in the road you fucking troll.
Re:I feel so sorry for you! (Score:3, Insightful)
High fuel prices in europe are less of a disadvantage than they are in the US.
Personally i'd like to see the price of fuel in the states double from it's current level
Al Gore could have really used a few thousand people like you in Florida.
You think you don't like the US no
Too right. This is not a good thing (Score:4, Insightful)
Gulfstream Liberals (Score:5, Insightful)
The alcoholic murderer is just another example of the Gulfstream Liberal [michellemalkin.com] hypocrites, sneering down at flyover country from 35,000 feet, clucking their tongues at all those selfish SUV drivers below.
Teddy, his nephew RFK Jr., Michael Moore, Al Gore, Laurie David, Ariana Huffington, Barbara Streisand, and the list goes on and on and on. They live lives dripping with decadence and luxury. They live in 10,000 sq. ft. Malibu mansions with six or eight air conditioning subsystems. They go hither and yon in their Gulfstreams and Learjets. They drive around town in their limousines and Maybachs and S600 Mercs. I have two kids, but Al Gore has four, and the Kennedys breed useless mouths like rats. Their footprint on Mother Earth's limited resources is ten or twenty times my own. Yet these pampered hypocrites have the gall to criticize me for driving a Jeep? Fuck them. Fuck them hard.
-ccm
Re:Food or Fuel (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Good idea.... except (Score:3, Informative)
Besides, it's not like that matters - nobody is proposing that you use ethanol to produce ethanol. You burn, say, biowaste, natural gas, use coal waste heat, etc, and you're converting something that you can't put in your tank to something that you can.
Re:I feel so sorry for you! (Score:5, Insightful)
It is not that we americans can't afford higher gas prices, it is more that we can't adjust our spending habits quick enough to adjust for the change in price.
Re:I feel so sorry for you! (Score:3, Insightful)
As for "lifestyle change," lots of people pu
Re:I feel so sorry for you! (Score:5, Funny)
And they say Americans are stupid for not adopting the metric system. Look at how much we save by using Imperial measurements!
In Growth we Trust (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed, $3 per gallon or even $4 per gallon as it will likely be soon is not a big problem. We complain about $3 per gallon. At the same time we enjoy some of the lowest prices in the world. Our energy bill, which is a free for all 1700 pages, does little to curb mileage. They have designed diesels that can exceed 100mpg. We give tax breaks for large vehicles over 8.5k lbs based on weight alone. The breaks are specifically targeted at these large vehicles so that their extremely privelaged drivers can be compensated for their higher gas consumption. This class of vehicles was in a list in this bill that mandates small improvements in mileage for these vehicles in the future but it was removed by the administration. If you think we are making progress then just look around. Look at what people are driving, where they are driving to, what they are driving for, how they are driving, etc. You might see a few Priuses or some Mercedes Benz diesels running on SVO. Maybe one hydrogen powered honda in your life if you are lucky. Do it in Europe, Russia or Japan and compare that with the US.
To think that this new oil shale techniqe will drop your price of gas is probably delusional. First off, by Shells own words, they won't know if it is profitable or feasible until 2010. If the going price for oil is $69 per barrel and there is a demand for it then that is what Shell is going to sell it for. If demand goes down then all oil will go down. The only thing that would likely cause this is major economic collaps or "demand destruction". Shell isn't out for your best interest, they don't make money off charity. To the contrary, eventhough big business is firmly entrenched in the goverment, pushing bills that rule the citizens with it's vast powerful lobbying power, it is illegal by corporate law to make any business decision that will create a loss. This rules out charity for consumers.
The administration has just admitted that global supply hasn't been able to keep up with demand for three months before Katrina hit. We currently are living mostly on old mega-field oil discoveries. We use 4-5 times as much oil as we discover. Discoveries are going down at a rapid pace, they are smaller and smaller and Saudi Arabia has finally admitted that it cannot currently increase supply anytime soon. The anti-peak oilers will argue that this is all hype when the new wells come online and drop the prices this year and perhaps a little next year. But look at the facts with the mega discoveries and the capacity that we are using - this will be a shortlived peak. There is a lead time for these wells to come online; we know about these and we know about the years where there will be no wells comming online. Once they are used up there are few others to take their place. The world uses well over 75 million barrels a day. How long would a "mega-field" of 500,000 barrels last?
As people are so accustomed seeing important, high payed people on tv talking positively about economic growth they tend to lose sight of the real problem with regards to energy: growth. Business depends on it. Anything less than 3% growth in Japan is considered a recession. Domestic or global sustainability is not a topic for discussion, as there is there is more money in consumption and growth. And money is what rules business strategy and business is what rules governments, at least to a large effect.
We don't have just growth, we have exponential growth. A number that has exponential growth of 7% will double itself every 10 years. Carter said once that every new decade consumes more oil than all the previous years combined - going back to the first drop that was ever consumed. If you need another example think of the one from Professor Bartlett that explains the exponential function. There is a mostly empty jar. You drop in a few organi
Quit yer whinin' (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Quit yer whinin' (Score:2)
Re:Quit yer whinin' (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, but my SUV only gets a quarter of the mileage your little Peugeot gets. Looking at the real math,
you pay (US-Gas * 2)
but (Mileage * 4)
making my costs per mile DOUBLE yours in Europe. I'm amazed you can't understand why we are complaining.
Now that I have made it clear, we are paying twice as much as you are.
Re:Quit yer whinin' (Score:2)
Re:Mass transit closes (Score:3)
It's true that in the 'states there are vast swaths of populated land where cars are the only alternative, but there are also a lot of places in the U.S. where public transit makes
Re:Quit yer whinin' (Score:5, Insightful)
So who pays for roads, traffic police, pollution control, and other traffic-related costs in your country then, if it's not coming from fuel tax? Do you just share the cost between all motorists regardless of how far, how often, and what car they drive?
Heck, who pays for the stabilisation of the oil-producing middle-east countries, if it doesn't come from fuel tax? Does the government just assume that everyone is interested in funding that? Do they take taxes from cyclists and pedestrians to pay for the steady supply of oil?
Re:Quit yer whinin' (Score:3, Funny)
[*] so they can spend it on genetically modifying chickens to speak, and be 14 foot high, and eventually be bread into a super police, to control every aspect of our lives
NOTE: this post may contain peanuts^H lies, damn lines
Re:Quit yer whinin' (Score:4, Interesting)
BTW, I am under the impression that in Europe, fuel taxes go to pay not only for roads but also for rail infrastructure; not so?
Re:Quit yer whinin' (Score:3, Insightful)
I would qualify that as many Americans, as I for one do not wet myself every time a politician speaks. Most of the really bad decisions that affect how the rest of the world perceives America come from our federal government. Personally I'm of the belief that democracy is "broken" at the federal level. The politicians do whatever they want, and when voting time comes around, people have either forgotten what their representatives did (or never k
Re:Quit yer whinin' (Score:3, Insightful)
Military is less than a quarter of the federal budget. Most of the remaining 3/4 is wasted.
Re:Quit yer whinin' (Score:3, Insightful)
Nice of you to pidgenhole all of the country. We're just the "easily scared, fundie dipshits" who invented damn near every single significant convenience of which
Re:Quit yer whinin' (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Quit yer whinin' (Score:3, Insightful)
You bent over and spread your cheeks for them by buying the SUV in the first place; quit bitchin about whatever they decide to stick in there.
It's not like SUVs are the cheaper alternative. SUV owners made a conscious decision to spend more money up front for a vehicle that they knew would cost the most to drive. I have no sympathy for anyone who is complaining about the costs of driving the most option that has always been th
My Solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead of finding a more difficult technique to the problem, I simplified the problem of purchasing gasoline for a motor vehicle almost out of existence.
Won't work for everyone, but it worked for me. Some people may need to change the way they live much more than I have had to, but then again, it's been an ongoing process that's been worked on by myself for years, not overnight.
Re:My Solution (Score:2, Insightful)
I think the easiest solution would be to just vote Democrat. Once the United States has a sane foriegn policy, as well as a sensible foreign policy, oil prices will come down.
Re:My Solution (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:My Solution (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:My Solution (Score:4, Insightful)
Now since most cars in America are driven by 1 person 99% of the time, you could go for a small car and get 65 mpg out of it.
So they can even reduce their fuel bill without doing anything too radical with their lifestyles.
The point is that Americans shouldn't be complaining about high fuel prices, those are here to stay, even if they can start extracting loads more oil in Colorado. There is a rising demand for oil and by the time more oil is extracted in Colorado China and India would have probably more then doubled their demand.
Btw. I cycle daily and I don't own a car, but that's my personal choice and I know very well it's not for everyone; hence I'm not even suggesting a bike to a SUV owner.
Re:My Solution (Score:2)
Hurrah! Someone else who has seen the light! I too ride my bike in conjunction with riding the bus across town for my transportation. Sure, it might not be quite as convenient, but when you consider all of the costs of a car (the car itself, gas, insurance, etc.) it far outweighs the extra time it takes for alternative transportation (because time is money). Not to mention the healthy exercise and environmental brownie points for cutting greenhouse gas
Re:My Solution (Score:4, Interesting)
i walk to work every day right now, and have a bicycle when i need it. i don't accept involvement in any business or company (workplace) which requires heavy commuting; i eschew all forms of long-distance car-only commuting; if i can't take the train somewhere, or walk somewhere, i don't get there. simple enough, and i would say my quality of life is superlative as a result.
every day i see people arriving at work in that 'just wasted an hour of my life on the freeway' zombie mode, for which they have all sorts of quick fixes and snake-oil remedies, like 4cups of coffee, bitchin' out their co-workers, etc. i say to them, walk to work; enjoy your health, fight your own personal laziness at all fronts. it really does improve ones life, to abandon cars altogether.
that said, if i want to go on a trip somewhere inaccessible, i do use cars. my vacations in the australian desert wouldn't be nearly as fun if it weren't for the (proper) use of a 4WD/SUV to get to certain long-distance places
3 dollars a gallon isn't that much... (Score:5, Insightful)
The US needs to learn to use energy more efficiently. Experts suggest that current prices are driven by growth and demand, rather than a supply shortage causing a spike as has happened in the past. This means that prices are not likely to drop quickly. Interestingly The Economist (not generally in favor of big government, taxes, or other impediments to business) says:
From:
http://www.economist.com/printedition/displaystor
(You have to pay for access...sorry).
Indirect benefits of cheap gas. (Score:3, Insightful)
Cheap gas enables speed and distance for both good
Distances, Fuel Efficiency (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, it's a compromise, like most things are. It's nice to have a big back yard, at times. But that compromise begins to look less favorable when you have to drive 5 kilometers to even get food or go to otherwise basically available services. At some point, maybe it's good enough to have an appartment of your own, and a common green area that you can share with others...
Your point about who gets hit first is a good one, however, at some point, you've got to start changing, even though that means some pain. Perhaps the next time you are in the housing market, you will give some consideration to whether you could use the car a little bit less. Perhaps you will start appreciating politicians who do something about implementing changes making it easier to do more with less car use. Perhaps you will pay attention to vehicle fuel efficiency when you buy one...
As the article states, fuel efficiency in the US has been *declining*, which is absurd, considering that technology continues to improve energy usage in vehicles.
Um, the economics... (Score:5, Insightful)
wrong (Score:5, Informative)
Re:wrong (Score:2)
First misconception " Oil Shale Will Save Us" (Score:3, Interesting)
First misconception " Oil Shale Will Save Us" [blogspot.com]
I worked with a major oil company for 2 years trying to develop a way to commercialize oil shale. Trust me on this, it ain't going to happen. Most oil companies know this. The few (one??) that don't are totally deluded.
Oil shale is not oil. Oil s
Re:Um, the economics... (Score:3, Insightful)
Look. If it costs $30 to extract a barrel of oil from the ground they're not going to bother to produce it and sell it on an international market at $10/barrel. That would be what's called
climate and pollution (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:climate and pollution (Score:5, Informative)
This would allow us to stop short circuiting the carbon cycle and use atmospheric CO2 (via biomass) as a source for oil.
The cost per barrel of this oil has historically been around $100, which made it a hard sell. The combination of a spike in oil prices and a $42 per barrel biofuel tax credit (to be enacted at the end of the year) will make it much more attractive.
The remaining issue then is production - getting enough plants online to start making a dent in our fossil oil use.
While I believe this is not the ultimate answer, it is a step in the right direction.
Alternative headline (Score:5, Funny)
You insensitive (american) clods... (Score:2, Redundant)
... $3 for a gallon is nothing.
In Europe, the prices are twice as high. [www.spi.se]
(Here [google.com] is the Google conversion between units and currencies.)
Re:You insensitive (american) clods... (Score:2)
It's actually much worse than that. Here in Poland, auto gas is about 4.5 Zloty/liter. This works out to about $5/gallon.
Note, however, the cost of living is much lower here. A family of four can live comfortably on the equivilent of $9,000/year.
$5/gallon here is a much higher percentage of gross annual income than $3/gallon in the U.S.
Re:You insensitive (american) clods... (Score:2)
Re:You insensitive (american) clods... (Score:2)
Oh my God (Score:2, Informative)
Everyday UK price = Very near GBP 1 / litre = GBP 3.78
When is the US going to wake up to just how much oil COSTS, and top subsidising their country's SUV's?
Every country in the EU pays prices near the UK ones (maybe not quite as much). Nobody really moans (except a little if they go
Re:Oh my God (Score:2)
They know that they can gouge as much for gas as they want and no one in the EU will moan. Not really something you should be bragging about.
Re:Oh my God (Score:2)
Re:Oh my God (Score:2)
Re:Oh my God (Score:5, Informative)
Except that the US is not 'subsidising' oil, and oil does not 'cost' $6.96/gallon even in the UK. The British public pay that much because their government imposes a tax on them.
Ask someone from British rural areas what he thinks of the oil tax. One of the primary uses of the oil tax is to build public transport systems, but most rural taxpayers see very little of that benefit, making it more sensible to live closer to town. Unsurprisingly European city centres are more densely packed than similarly sized American cities.
Maybe if you said the US should tax oil to reduce demand (like the Economist said), that'd be fairer. However, the 'city spread' I mentioned above, coupled with the fact that there's more to this country that the urban centres (exurbs, thinly populated states in the Midwest) for whom an oil tax would be very bad news make an oil tax highly unlikely -- especially for an economy that wants to grow at about 4-5% a year *and* a respectably growing population (as against Europe, which grows at 1-2% (if at all) and has a slightly declining population).
I am not saying being fuel efficient is a bad thing, but I wonder how much of the 'cut oil consumption' brigade are aware of the second-order effects of their tax-driven (some may call it 'artificial') energy-prices regime.
Re:Oh my God (Score:2)
Er... that Europeans don't mind paying much higher gas taxes than Americans will tolerate?
It's the volitility (Score:3, Insightful)
In the long term, the cost of energy gets rolled in to the cost of doing business, and is budgeted for. But if the price more than doubles in a very short amount of time, it HURTS economically, since there's often no quick way to reduce your energy usage overnight.
Hurrah! (Score:2, Insightful)
Anyone who likes economic disincentives towards buying peniscars is Un-American!
Google Calculator is Awesome (Score:3, Informative)
Type in "1.30 aud per litre in usd per gallon" and get "1.30 (Australian dollars per litre) = 3.76065521 U.S. dollars per US gallon".
Re:Google Calculator is Awesome (Score:2)
1 (British pound per litre) = 6.95304439 U.S. dollars per US gallon
Thank god I use public transport!
Just when prices go high enough (Score:5, Interesting)
Just place solar energy/wind energy systems on these shale places instead. It will yield more than oil in the long run (Break even point wind power: 6 years at current US energy prices).
Re:Just when prices go high enough (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm willing to mess with my fuel injection system, air intake and computer to get things just right.
Thanks in advance!
High energy cost (Score:3, Informative)
Where a conventional extraction of oil through drilling into the ground yeilds about a 1:80 energy ratio (1 barrel of oil worth of energy expended gets you 80 barrels of oil out of the ground) on average, the average energy ratio for tar sands is about 1:5 (or 16x less return). I do not imagine that the energy ratio for the extraction of oil from oil shale will be much better.
This poses the same fundamental problem that alternative energy supplies pose, the energy extracted vs the energy spent is MUCH lower then conventional oil drilledout of the ground, and even if such a system where today instantly implemented, where most of americas oil was from tar sands/oil shale, there would still be a MASSIVE jump in price, due to the expense of production.
Re:High energy cost (Score:4, Interesting)
Where did you get that figure from? In the 'fifties and early 'sixties, the energy ratio was around 1:50, now it's closer to 1:5. Given that TFA states;
you'd have to say extracting from tar sands will be ballpark with existing or near future conventional supplies.
Re:High energy cost (Score:3, Informative)
That said 80:1 is clearly and exaggeration for any kind of oil.
However, the EROEI for tar sands is about 1.5:1 but US shale yields EROEI less than 1.0:1! That means that regardless of the price of a barrel of oil, the shale will
Re:High energy cost (Score:2)
Though I could see ways of how Colorado to East Coast by truck would still be more expensive than Mid-east/Norway/etcetera to East Coast USA by boat.
Ice Wall (Score:2)
Sounds like a fairly destructive process... (Score:2, Funny)
(Are you listening Captain Planet?? We need your help!)
Re:Sounds like a fairly destructive process... (Score:2)
Distance is Important (Score:5, Insightful)
In North America, people need personal vehicles due to the design of the infastructure, and the placement of essential services. This is particularly true for rural areas, and small cities to a lesser extent.
Gas prices have a greater direct effect on the average American or Canadian consumer than their counterparts in Europe.
It always confuses me when; (Score:2, Informative)
Here in Europe, we're between 5 and 7 USD a gallon, and we've never had gas prices so low as they are in the US. And averages wages in most EU countries are less than they are in the USA, so how in the hell can Americans find 3 or 4 USD a gallon as impossibly high prices?
Even the difference in Fuel economy of US and European cars can't be that much of a factor! So what gives?
Re:It always confuses me when; (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, yes, and high fuel tax is partly intended to dissuade you from doing that. In "old" Europe, the roads wouldn't be able to take many more commuters, and we don't have the space to just build more roads.
"gas in europe..." myth/misunderstanding (Score:5, Informative)
In Britain, the government takes 75 percent, and raises taxes by 5 percent above inflation every year (though it has forgone this year's rise in view of rocketing oil prices, and the French government has promised tax rebates this year to taxi drivers, truckers, fishermen, and others who depend heavily on gasoline.) On August 8, for example, the price of gas in the US, without taxes, would be $2.17, instead of $2.56; in Britain, it would be $1.97, instead of $6.06.
Given that, I'm not sure it's a fair comparison to make: Europe has decided to tax the hell out of gasoline, a decision the government can undo should there be a need, while the USA is paying higher prices to the oil companies, which can't be controlled as easily.
Not really sure what my point is, really,
robert
Re:"gas in europe..." myth/misunderstanding (Score:3, Interesting)
Damn. I need to make a tin foil hat now, but all they sell is aluminum these days. Something veeeeeerrrrrrrry suspicious about that....
Don't complain... (Score:2, Interesting)
Why don't the big networks talk about that in the long term it could be cheaper do seriously do something about global warming than give up a third of the northamerican continent due to increasingly hostile climat?
What? Only $3 per gallon? (Score:2)
Stop whining, you've still got dirt cheap fuel.
Bye!! (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, but we will have to buy the oil from China (Score:2, Insightful)
Since we will be buying Colorado-extracted oil from the Chinese, will this shale extraction technique benefit us? Are the Chinese going to sell this oil to us cheaper than the Arabs? I guess they will be able to sinc
taxes / services (Score:2)
So the EU subsidizes health care and the US subsidizes automobile culture. Europe has been around longer than the automobile, American suburbia was designed around the automobile. Without cheap transportation, much of America doesn't work as layed out.
I want rolling roads. (excuse me, flying cars)
punish SUVs (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't bet everything on this... (Score:3, Informative)
What scares me about this idea is the environmental impact. Anything growing in the ground in (or near) the affected region will die. How much "gunk" does the steam-cleaning process generate, and what will we do with it? How much is the targeted plot of land permanently altered by the process, and in what ways? There are all kinds of ways this could go wrong.
Still, I very much like the idea of the U.S. not depending on foreign sources of oil. Economic entanglement turns into political entanglement, and political entanglement has a nasty habit of turning into military entanglement. Maybe someday we'll have enough troops rested, trained, equipped, and ready to stop genocides and maintain order during natural disasters, like we used to.
How about Oil from Coal. Cheap, Proven, Simple (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think this is a good thing. (Score:3, Insightful)
From the article, it's not clear whether the "wall of ice" is taken into account when doing the energy calculations. If it's not, then it may be even less efficient, closer to a 2:1 yield perhaps.
From an environmental standpoint, it doesn't sounds downright scary. Drilling a shaft every ten feet around the perimeter of the site, freezing it, then heating the bedrock to 700 degrees? That's going to take a lot of equipment and manpower, and produce a lot of waste. Nor am I as confident in this "wall of ice" as the author. So they may have to scrub the groundwater once they're done, if there is any chance of contaminating drinking water. Finally, I do believe that most bedrock contains extremophiles, and while I don't want to be an alarmist or a eukaryote-rights activist, we can't be sure of the environmental impact of burning them away.
Can't we just agree to not do this? Our country has an energy addiction, and this article just goes to show how far we are willing to go to avoid facing the problem (Exhibit B being the way our lustful eyes keep falling on the ANWR). If we start the transition away from fossil fuels now, we could quickly become the leaders in alternative fuels and energy efficient technology. If, on the other hand, we use this process as a crutch to keep us strung out on oil for a few more decades, then it ends with us having the same energy-inefficient infrastructure we have now, a much more serious global warming problem, and no expertise in alternatives. We'll have to buy all our fuel efficient vehicles from the French.
C'mon, Republicans. You hate the French. Hop on board with this.
Rather than eliminating this option entirely, I think it would make more sense to put a tax on it, so that the break-even point is around to $7/gallon, not $3.50. The revenue generated would go to subsidize alternative fuels research and to mitigate the environmental damage from this process.
Also, if we're going to do this come hell or high water, it seems sensible to pursue the idea of using geothermal to provide the heat for this process, rather than heaters powered from the surface. Hydrocarbons are good heat carriers; that's one reason we use oil to cool and lubricate our engines. The oil is down there, the energy is down there. It seems like all you would need to do is heat it long enough to distill out a small amount of oil, then use that oil to circulate heat up from the hot bedrock below. Of course, that means deeper holes. Like I said, maybe this idea should just be scratched altogether.
Why high Oil and Gas prices have a good side too (Score:5, Insightful)
or
The best way to force people to change is making them wanting to change
First of all - I live in Europa, Germany.
Today Fuel prices have reached 1.43 Euro / liter, this is about 7.9$ / gallon. Yes, driving is EXPENSIVE here.
In the last few years, cars with a high efficiency have become very high in demand - of course, when fuel is expensive, people want cars that use little fuel.
And the same thing is going to happen to the USA.
People will look at the prices, look into their purses and the next car they buy won't be a 15 miles per gallon SUV, but perhaps a 30 / 35 miles per gallon car. Or they might grab one of the ultra fuel-efficient cars (many of them are from Germany - guess why...) like the VW Lupo [google.com] - 78 miles per gallon (Diesel) - well, truth to be told, it ain't a beauty, you've got no real storage space, and acceleration isn't, but if you want fuel economy, there you go.
And this is the positive side of the high prices - there will be a demand for fuel-efficient cars, thus the industry will build them, and people will buy and drive them. And overall, less Oil will be used, causing less pollution and conserving it for more important uses [wikipedia.org]
Re:Why high Oil and Gas prices have a good side to (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I do grumble a little bit now that it costs over $30 to fill up the gas tank even in my fairly fuel efficient car, but it doesn't bother me too much because neither my wife or I drive on a regular basis. It means that we'll have to budget a little bit more when we go on long driving trips, but that's about it. Over all, i think high gas prices that we are seeing right now are a) inevitable, and b) good for us.
And lastly, as an aside, I always find it amusing how much more Americans complain about gas prices compared to other people in the world, considering that our gas is still among the cheapest in the world. I guess that's what happens when you are brought up in a society where it is assumed that the only way to get from point a to point b is to drive.
Re:great link... calls streetcars pollution free.. (Score:3, Insightful)
There are a lot of hidden costs with cars. The cost of building, maintaining, and policing the roads. Unless you are on a private highway, those are subsidies. As well, cars are much less economical than centralized energy production for mass transit. Trai
Real gas prices (Score:5, Interesting)
Out here in California, prices surged as people bet the price would sky rocket and bought gas no matter what the price. The local 7/11 had people topping off their tanks because their price, usually the highest around, was 10 cents lower than in town. Most of the people buying gas didn't need it but figured the price was going higher so they bought while it was "low" at $2.90.
If the price stays high for the next few years, people will get out of their SUVs and move into more efficient vehicles. The oil markets will respond, just as it did in the 80's, and prices will drop in real terms. Eventually, people will forget and they'll buy gas hogs again. People do that - they forget.
Those of you who are certain that we're running out of oil forget as well. In 1970, it was common knowledge that we'd be out of oil by 1985. Paul Erlich at Stanford made a fortune pitching his dystopian view of the future and we bought it. The futurists who got it right were the economist who argued that the real price of commodities fall over time as producers and consumers become more efficient.
It's worth noting that the shift to SUVs wasn't due to just the cheap price of gas. Congress played a major role as well. Business used to be able to depreciate the price of cars it purchased at an accelerated rate. Small business owners used that to their advantage by buying nicer cars which angered folks who didn't own businesses and hence, couldn't get the same tax write off. Congress responded by eliminating the write off for business-owned cars. The accelerated depreciation schedule remained for trucks which GM and Ford exploited by gussing up what used to be utility trucks for hauling workers around into SUVs. I saw a lot of new SUVs in my neighborhood after my accountant sent out a flyer advising his clients of the tax advantage which was considerable. A very smart friend of mine grumbled that the "I want my children to be safe and so I have to have the biggest car available" crowd just got a tax boost and the only way to retaliate was to drive a Peterbilt [peterbilt.com] to work.
One sentence may tell all: (Score:3, Interesting)
Let's assume that since it's coming from a SHell PR department, they're putting the best possible spin on this. That means for each unit of energy delivered down the hole, they get back 3.5 units of equivalent heat back up, in the form of oil and gas.
But if the heat comes from electrical heaters, the electricity came from coal and oil-fired generators, said plants are only about 30 percent efficent.
So you're burning about 3 units of good oil and coal and gas to get, maybe, if the stuff really is down there, 3.5 units back up. Doesnt sound like a good deal.
I suppose they could do something a bit more efficient, like burn coal down in the hole, or put down a small cleanish nuke down the holes, but those ideas have some non-negligble drawbacks too.. :)
Oooh. Fear. (Score:3, Insightful)
Chill, already.
The world was painstakingly set up so that people depend deeply, emotionally on the flow of oil and money; to connect those things to well-being and the ability to obtain food and shelter.
That's silly.
The world is capable of making just as much food today as it did yesterday, and it has just as many houses and places for people to shelter comfortably in. So why should a few numbers stop people from eating and living?
Are people really going to starve and feel fear just because a few numbers start to change? For goodness sake! There's food and shelter aplenty. All we need to do is work to maintain and share it and everybody will be fine. (We could start by perhaps firing the CEOs and Government officials who throw chairs across board rooms and try to hang on to old family money by way of keeping the people stupid and subjugated.)
The whole confabulation of banks and economic crises, yadda, yadda, was designed in such a way that it was very easy to upset it and thus extract a fine flow of fear and anxiety. Like tapping trees for maple syrup.
News Flash: The economy is ENTIRELY a fabrication of people's belief systems; It is just as healthy as the world believes it to be. Be a part of the solution. Love is the answer.
Perhaps this contrived oil scarcity will give the much-needed kick in the pants to get alternative power sources a boost in acceptance levels. It doesn't actually take that long to implement massive infrastructure changes so long as the people in the driver's seats want them to come about.
-FL
Re:3 dollars a gallon STOP WHINGEING ... (Score:2)
How is "whingeing" actually pronounced? Is it like "winging" but sounds like wine-ging? "Whining" is what I always see this as.
But, tut-tut, mate, no need to make up pet words. It tends to isolate you as being insecure with your language. Yo.
Re:Why the US needs cheap gas. (Score:5, Interesting)
My only major obejection is that a lot of rural Americans making those routine 30 mile drives you refer to, choose to do them in absolutely enormous pickups, or other massively overpowered cars.
My own car, perfectly capable of carrying two people and their luggage in comfort for all-day drives, has a 1.2 litre engine. Yes, it strains a little with passengers in the rear, but the 1.4 model would not.
Whereas, our standard midsize rental in the US was a 3 litre V6, and nobody considers this to be a powerful car. Perhaps the answer to rising fuel prices is to start driving more economical cars.
(Other minor points: Amercicans can underestimate the size of Europe too, imagining the whole continent to be crammed full of dense cities. Although we don't have anything quite like Iowa or Nebraska, we do have some areas of emptiness.
)
Re:But how (Score:3, Insightful)