The Oil Drum | Denver Post: Oil shale may be fool's gold

44 comments on Denver Post: Oil shale may be fool's gold

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westexas on December 19, 2005 - 6:00pm

From the article: "Using coal-fired electricity to wring oil out of rocks is like feeding steak to the dog and eating his Alpo."

This reminds me of a comment by a big industrial gas user in Canada, "using natural gas to obtain oil from tar sands is like burning $100 bills to light candles."

Having said that, the engineers at Shell claim that they think the underground oil shale process is energy positive. One of the things that was not mentioned in the Post article is that (at least insofar as I understand the process) they are going to freeze the underground perimeter of the sites in order to keep groundwater from leaching out the contaminants, i.e, a "freeze dam."

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LJR on December 19, 2005 - 8:48pm

That adds the energy to run the world's largest freezer requiring yet more electricity.

They are heating up cubic miles of dirt to 700 degrees and freezing the perimeter.

I love their great environmental concern about the groundwater but I think it's typical horseshit. What they really want is to keep the oil from leaching away from their drill holes and also to keep groundwater from leaching IN to cool their heaters.

What are they going to do on the surface? Foam it with heat insulating plastic? Gets pretty cold in the winter.

My hunch says this dog won't hunt. It's hilarious that we're even discussing such a ludicrous and 'on the face of it' Rube Goldberg proposal.

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Catskill on December 19, 2005 - 9:09pm

Hey LJR-

You were mighty quick on the draw with those comments - they're exactly what I was thinking .

I'm sure they will conveniently leave out the small matter of the energy required to make their big ole hockey rink but it will surely cost a fortune...

Hello Oil Drum - thanks for checking out my first comment on your site.

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44 comments on Denver Post: Oil shale may be fool's gold

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