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[st-bum]

The oil in Canada isn't oil shale, it's tar sands. There is a big
difference. Tar sands are an especially viscous type of oil. I don't
know of anyone anywhere getting oil out of "oil shale".

Maybe Alberta is getting profits from conventional wells. From what
I've read the tar sands haven't produced that much yet.

[Gord Beaman]

"st-bum" <kennykabuki@yahoo.com> wrote:

[C. E. White]

"st-bum" <kennykabuki@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1132628133.589194.79480@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...

[C. E. White]

"st-bum" <kennykabuki@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1132694847.373641.11280@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...

[st-bum]

No, it's completely true. The shale oil thing was a disaster. It
wasn't close to being economically profitable. The paper you cited was
published in 1978, before large scale shale mining was attempted. It's
just wrong.

Shale oil contains a very small amount of energy. You have to put so
much into it, in the form of heat, that it's almost pointless. It
also uses a tremendous amount of water and is environmentally damaging
to say the least. Maybe in 1978 they thought it would work, but they
were wrong. Notice how you haven't heard any stories of shale oil
coming back into play. How about China, they have shale oil too, why
aren't they doing it? At today's prices it should be worthwhile. And
the Saudis have opened their spigots full blast, so there's not much
they can do to bring prices down.

[st-bum]

It doesn't contain oil. And you have to heat it to 450C to get any
energy out of it. Gee I wonder why it didn't work?


http://www.worldenergy.org/wec-geis/publications/reports/ser/shale/shale.asp

The term "oil shale" is a misnomer. It does not contain oil nor is it
commonly shale. The organic material is chiefly kerogen, and the
"shale" is usually a relatively hard rock, called marl. Properly
processed, kerogen can be converted into a substance somewhat similar
to petroleum. However, it has not gone through the "oil window" of heat
(nature’s way of producing oil) and therefore, to be changed into
an oil-like substance, it must be heated to a high temperature. By this
process the organic material is converted into a liquid, which must be
further processed to produce an oil which is said to be better than the
lowest grade of oil produced from conventional oil deposits, but of
lower quality than the upper grades of conventional oil.

There are two conventional approaches to oil shale processing. In one,
the shale is fractured in-situ and heated to obtain gases and liquids
by wells. The second is by mining, transporting, and heating the shale
to about 450oC, adding hydrogen to the resulting product, and disposing
of and stabilising the waste. Both processes use considerable water.
The total energy and water requirements together with environmental and
monetary costs (to produce shale oil in significant quantities) have so
far made production uneconomic. During and following the oil crisis of
the 1970’s, major oil companies, working on some of the richest
oil shale deposits in the world in western United States, spent several
billion dollars in various unsuccessful attempts to commercially
extract shale oil.

[st-bum]

One more:

http://www.standard.net/standard.php/51200?printable=story

It's always been a 'chicken or the egg' situation where you have to put
so much energy in to get some out. It just hasn't been economical."

[C. E. White]

"st-bum" <kennykabuki@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1132787209.135494.71950@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...

[st-bum]

I cited history and one from a current oil company working to get oil
from shale.

Yeah, oil company execs have desperately want to post on meaningless
message boards like this one to convince illiterates like you.

You don't know what you're talking about. I'll give you a hint. You
have to put alot of energy into shale to heat it to 450 celsius. How
much energy do you get out? About 1/3 of the energy per ton that's in
coal. And you don't have to heat the coal to get it out. Get it now?
It's like a very, very poor source of coal.

It's "just out of reach" of harvesting because it uses cheap energy to
harvest it. As soon as energy prices go up, the price of mining it
goes up too.