<DrumBeat: June 27, 2006 The Oil Drum DrumBeat: June 28, 2006>

57 comments on Shhh is for oil shale

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oilmanbob on June 27, 2006 - 4:59pm Permalink | Subthread | Comments top
  I wonder why there never seems to be a comparison with converting lignite to liquids. It strikes me that since brown coal is a richer source of kerogen it would be more economic than shale for liquids production
  Also depleted shale source rocks may make a better prospect. A lot of the wells in the Barnett Shale are making 10 to 20 barrels a day plus gas that levels out from 500 to 2,000 mcfpd. I know the costs are high-about $5 million to drill and complete-but they seem to pay out in 3 or 4 years and have a long-lived level production. This beats coal or shale for liquids production. Compare that to your 10,000 bbl/day flowing wells you silly Saudis!
   It sure isn't the cheap oil and gas we all grew up with. I think the next trillion barrels is going to cost a whole lot more than the first trillion.
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Berkeley on June 27, 2006 - 6:10pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
This is exactly what I have asked repeatedly.  Why shale and not coal?  The only answer I've been able to reach (on my own) is that Big Oil and Big Coal are separate worlds. Oil people just don't do coal.

I'm also curious about how the shale manages to find itself conveniently broken into 3-inch pieces in the top of the retort - when it was last heard of as a solid stratum 2000 feet underground - and also what exactly comes out the bottom of the retort, and where this subsequently is put?        

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Mad Maxout on June 27, 2006 - 6:48pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
And to add a little to the shale debate, it can be used as-is (though busted up first) in powerplants like Estonia does. The coal can thus be saved for making liquid fuels for where it's really needed. While ground transportation can be electrified (trolley buses, electric rail, etc.) but liquid fuel is needed for things like the airplanes - which we'll use a lot less of except for warbirds. Shipping at sea can use shale in otherwise coal driven freighters. Until the freighters are converted, enough liquid fuel can come from coal. The vast majority of liquid fuel goes into the zillions of cars.
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LevinK on June 28, 2006 - 10:47am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I think it is more vice versa - coal people do not do oil.

It will be uncomparatively easier for a coal company to go down that road as the coal mining technology is well developed and they just need to build the liquification factories. The only way for an oil company to develop coal would be to buy some existing coal mines and pay the cost of convergation, which will make the total bill prohibitively high.

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TJ on June 27, 2006 - 7:33pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Mine the residual oil?  Is that possible, or just wildly expensive?
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oilmanbob on June 27, 2006 - 10:44pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
  There have been a few oil mines. Oil is mostly at depths below 2000 ft, although there are a number of shallower prospects. The oil at shallow depths is generally low gravity (extra thick) and not as valuable.Tar sands are oil sands where all the light components have evaporated or were never formed.
  A horizontal hole is in essence a type of oil mine. After the main pressure in the formation is depleted, a lot of oil will still seep into the borehole from gravity and can be pumped out. The horizontal wells can be drilled up to a mile in length through oil productive rocks which increases the well's exposure to the formation by a huge amount.
  So the answer is that oil mining is already being done. Good idea, though.  
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davebygolly on June 28, 2006 - 1:48am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Actually, this is wrong. There is a tendency toward sharing hardship: when a corporation suffers hardship, it not only shares the hardship, it tries to donate it entirely to its employees in cut wages, lost pensions, etc.

Silly me.

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p on June 28, 2006 - 5:41am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Somewhere I read that the total daily coal production could be converted to 10 million barrels of oil. Lost the link though. I would be very grateful if someone could find it. I do not know if that number is based on the actual conversion or just caloric comparisson. I could imagine that actual conversion would not be 100% effective though.
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57 comments on Shhh is for oil shale

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