Oil Shale: Energy Wimp
We passed the continental US peak of oil production some time back; there are more of us now; we use more energy per capita than ever, and we cannot wean from our oil dependence. We're planning to dirty-bomb our air and water with thirty years of accelerated coal burning for electricity. There's plenty of coal in the National Sacrifice Areas of several eastern states. But what will we do for oil to power our cars, transport our essentials and energy-subsidize our agriculture? Voila: we are sitting on a motherlode of 'oil shale.' But what exactly is this stuff, and where?
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, half of the planet’s oil shale lies within 150 miles of Grand Junction, Colorado. The shale is contained in the Green River Formation, which is famous for its wonderful fossils, imprints of sycamore leaves, dragonflies, extinct birds, crocodiles, and strange fish which lived in ancient lakes. These thick layers of shale were created by a million-year drizzle of fine clay and dying algae. The energy in oil shale is preserved pond scum, algal ooze.The term 'oil shale' is a misnomer. The rock is a marlstone, the hydrocarbon a waxy molecule called kerogen. Kerogen is a proto-petroleum, an energy-wannabe. Oil and gas are generated when kerogen is exposed to heat deep in the Earth’s oven. If the Green River Formation had been buried deeper, time would have cooked the kerogen into petroleum. But since it wasn’t buried deeper, to extract energy from these rocks, you have to put them back in the oven and supply the heat Nature failed to furnish during fifty million years. link
But is it feasible to extract this stuff and should we expect this to solve our mounting shortfall of domestic oil? link:
Probably not. Its energy load is very low. Oil shale is said to be "rich" when a ton yields 30 gallons of oil. An equal weight of granola contains three times more energy.
But there's a net energy yield, right? Well, sort of. Look at this in-situ project proposed by Shell oil:
...it requires a mind-boggling amount of electricity. To produce 100,000 barrels per day, the company would need to construct the largest power plant in Colorado history. Costing about $3 billion, it would consume 5 million tons of coal each year, producing 10 million tons of greenhouse gases. (The company's annual electric bill would be about $500 million.) To double production, you'd need two power plants. One million barrels a day would require 10 new power plants, five new coal mines. And 10 million barrels a day, as proposed by some, would necessitate 100 power plants.
Could oil shale production be done in an ecologically wise way with no lasting effects on Colorado?
The DOE casually dedicates all of western Colorado's surplus water to oil shale, proposes enormous open-pit mines 2,000 feet deep, and advocates retorting up to 6 billion tons of shale each year. That's twice the tonnage of all coal mined in the U.S. and China. This is not a vision, it is a nightmare.
Given these costs to benefits, consider: US oil shale may produce 100,000 barrels of oil a day in ten years. But the nation currently consumes that much oil every seven minutes. Improving the efficiency of our automobiles by 2 miles per gallon would save 10 times as much fuel, saving consumers $100 billion at the pump.
Comments
That's why I bought a Toyota Prius, which averages 46mpg for us in mixed city/highway use. Of course of our other two vehicles, one is powered by a 345HP Hemi and another by a 303HP V10 :) So our fleet average is only 24mpg ;)
We have a neighbor whose brother, as the story goes, was a key engineer/designer behind (if memory serves) the stealth bomber engine. So much so that the engine is named after him. He made quite a bit of money during his career, and is now currently tucked away on some small WV mountain which I understand he owns in its entireity. He's completely self sufficient, and to generate power he has a whole bunch of these micro-turbines planted in spring-fed creeks that travel down the mountain. Each generates a trickle of electricity but cumulatively they're enough to run his whole compound. He may be a real wack job, but I thought the micro-turbine concept was interesting.
Sean
Posted by: Sean Pecor | January 24, 2006 6:23 AM
It looks like there is quite a cost to this endeavor. To be fair, let's look at some of the benefits:
No discovery risk in these geo-politically uncertain times, stable economic growth and employment, reduced oil imports, and increased govt revenues. Basically, a village would develop around this mining operation with housing, schools, hospitals, roads, and utilities.
At least that's what this probably not the most objective article had to say
(http://www.fe.doe.gov/programs/reserves/publications/Pubs-NPR/40010-373.pdf).
We could just work from home and save crazy amounts of energy at the expense of the auto and energy industries. Fine with me but I don't work in these fields.
My question is if there are more efficient sources of oil such as crops, etc., then why don't the major producers use those before shale or bitumen?
Posted by: Jim | January 24, 2006 10:50 AM
I'm afraid the powers that be will drag their feet in allocating dollars to development of new energy sources as long as oil is "affordable". What is it they say? Necessity is the mother of invention? Maybe the situation is going to have to get impossible before something is actually done.
Also, being the old mama that I am, I want the national speed limit lowered to 55 again (and enforced) - but no one else does! :-)
Posted by: M. Lawless | January 24, 2006 3:44 PM
I actually vividly remember the new stories covering the great promise of Colorado oil shale during the seventies gasoline crises. In fact, a lot of work was started out there. Sadly, the "investors" will plug the numbers into the spreadsheet and it will make sense to extract the oil. Was is missing is a greenhouse tax. That would make the economics more in line with reality. So, where is responsible government on this?
Posted by: Carl | January 24, 2006 10:16 PM
Boy, that oil shale development is really scary and crazy. Thanks for doing all the math for us.
Posted by: Kathy Barron | January 25, 2006 12:40 AM
Better late than never on the "alternative energy" tag, right? Forget it all. The First Law of Thermodynamics says energy can't be created or destroyed and the Second says that energy only is degraded (gets closer to absolute chaos, i.e. entropy)each time used. You can't make machinery, grow crops, process them, transport them, and re-transform back to energy and get more energy than you put in. No way. Same for oil shale, hydrogen,fission, fusion, wind etc. Because of a couple of hundred millions of design green plants, with their built in solar transform, self-design, and self maintanence are the most efficent system we have or are likely to have in the next couple of decades and to be "sustainable" we have to "lose" 9/10 of the population. Sorry. Michael
Posted by: michael | May 26, 2006 8:08 PM