<New Urbanism and the rebuilding of Mississippi The Oil Drum DrumBeat: May 24, 2006>

55 comments on Can we decide weather to be hopeful?

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Oil CEO on May 24, 2006 - 12:20am Permalink | Subthread | Comments top
Here is a link to a piece yesterday's 'Morning Edition' did on freelance oil-shale refiner Byron Merrell of Utah. They give prices.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5424033

Once you click on link it will give you option of RealPlayer or Windows Media Player.

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ozonehole on May 24, 2006 - 3:22am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Shale oil is still not happening, and could be just another white elephant.

One (related) question I've been wanting to ask some of resident oil experts here on TOD is about Venezuela's heavy oil in the Orinoco basin. We hear so much about Canada's Athabasca tar sands, but almost nothing on Venezuela. Is Venezuela having any success at all extracting and refining this heavy/sour oil? And what are they using as a heat source to process it (natural gas, as in Canada?). In theory, they have lots of oil, but what chance is there that they are going to be able to produce any significant amount?

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ozonehole on May 24, 2006 - 3:24am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Whoops, I also forgot to ask what kind of EROEI is Venezuela getting from their heavy oil. Better/worse than Canada's?
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Oil CEO on May 25, 2006 - 12:50am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Rob McLeod's website has some interesting data on the two.

http://entropyproduction.blogspot.com/

It is a couple of posts down.

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jkissing on May 24, 2006 - 10:48am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Several years ago venezuela lured some big oil companies into the orinocco belt with deals sufficiently attractive to bring their money (it took billions to begin tapping this resource) and expertise, resluting in significant production, maybe 1mm/d?, helping to offset declines in their other fields. However, they are now slapping on new taxes and nationalizing at least parts of all fields, so its not clear that big oil will continue their investments.
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DIYer on May 24, 2006 - 8:32am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I think the EROEI of the whole process revolves around how efficient your retort is. How much of that heat can you scavenge from the byproduct stream and flue... if you can keep most of the heat in one place, and move the shale through it, maybe you could get the energy return up into positive territory.

That, and how cheaply can you build your processing plant?

The key to knowing if it's practical would be to know that he's running the whole operation on energy he has extracted and isn't using vast quantities of water, natural gas, electricity, etc.

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fmuniz on May 24, 2006 - 9:48am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
How about shipping it to iceland, or some such place. They could "export" geo heat!
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55 comments on Can we decide weather to be hopeful?

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