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17 comments on In Situ retorting of oil shale

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LevinK on July 5, 2006 - 3:05pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Never mind, this is an interesting information.

The vision if fuel rods plugged in the rock riminded me of the natural fission reactors that existed back in the time when U-235 was more abundant. I wonder if something similar could be feasible for oil shale, with kerogen acting as a moderator and a coolant, but this sounds too much a pie in the sky to contemplate with.

A safer bet would be a dedicated reactor producing steam or molten metal for the heaters.

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Whitehall on July 6, 2006 - 12:56pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Reactors making steam for direct injection has the expense of using high purity feedwater - figure $1 per gallon.

Probably electrical heaters would be the method of choice but I'm sure both methods would need detailed engineering studies for the particular site before a clear decision would be made.

As to embedment of spent nuclear fuels in rock, Yucca Mountain spaced the assemblies to keep rock temps below 300 deg C (if memory serves) but it took decades to reach that temp.  The key is that rock in mass is a poor conductor of heat.

Spent fuel assemblies give off heat of maybe 1 kW-thermal after a year or so.  I suspect it would liquefy the kerogen but it would take decades and that would make it non-commercial.  Plus you would be expected to retrieve the assemblies and move to someplace permanent.

Better to reprocess the spent fuel and return the unreacted uranium and plutonium to the power reactor fuel cycle.

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17 comments on In Situ retorting of oil shale

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