The Oil Drum

Shannon Arvizu at Triple Pundit has an article on the dilemma facing the good citizens of Fort Collins in Colorado (and home of Colorado State University--note the advert in the sidebar)- choosing solar or nuclear power.

The New York Times reported today an intriguing article on what's happening in Fort Collins, Colorado - a city that prides itself on being a bastion of green living. The town's motto, "Where renewal is a way of life," is more than just a metaphor. The city is heavily involved in promoting carbon-free energy production. They currently have two proposals on the table - an innovative solar panel production plant and a uranium mining project for nuclear power. Although the energy that wil be generated from each project will be carbon-free, the processes of production and/or extraction each have their own environmental hazards. Should the town support nuclear, solar, or both? And what about the NIMBY factor? Should the town expose itself to possible health hazards for the sake of local job creation and global carbon-free energy production?

Cross-posted from Peak Energy

The Australian Financial Review today has a report on a plan by the Ziff brothers to revive Queensland's defunct shale oil industry (subscription required) - "a mining project worth as much as $14 billion near the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park". The report predicts the development would bring 16,000 new residents to the Whitsundays region and is already facing opposition from local groups like "Save Our Foreshore" concerned about damage to the environment and the tourism industry.

Bloomberg has a much smaller version of the story - "Ziff Seeks to Develop Australian Oil-Shale Project, Review Says".

Queensland Energy Resources Ltd., a closely held company backed by Ziff Brothers Investments, is seeking to develop an Australian oil-shale project valued at A$14 billion ($12 billion), the Australian Financial Review reported.

Consultants from New-York based Ziff recently met the Queensland government to discuss development of the project, which would require the relocation of a nearby airport, the paper said, citing government documents. The project, located in Queensland state near the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, may contain as much as 9.7 billion barrels of oil resources, the Review said, citing a document lodged with the state's government.

Queensland Energy is scheduled to complete an initial study into possible development of the project within six months, the Review said, citing Simon Eldridge, the company's director of corporate affairs. The company acquired the project from Southern Pacific Minerals NL in 2004, the report said.

The original Stuart shale oil development in the area was done by Southern Pacific Petroleum.

Hmmm! Well the tone of some the comments on my last post -dealing with nuclear development of oil shale, helps illustrate one of the points that I want to make in this, a continuation in the posts on oil shale. The tone was quite negative, in general, with a number of folk being disturbed at my even bringing it up. It points to the fact that, as a political reality (bearing in mind that I tried to stick to technical matters) the use of nuclear adjustment to the local geology is not likely going to be popular. As tstreet noted, there is an article in the Colorado Constitution (article XXVI) that he helped put in there.

Section 1. Nuclear detonations prohibited exceptions. No nuclear explosive device may be detonated or placed in the ground for the purpose of detonation in this state except in accordance with this article. (Adopted by the People, November 5, 1974 Effective upon proclamation of the Governor, December 20, 1974.)

Section 2. Election required. Before the emplacement of any nuclear explosive device in the ground in this state, the detonation of that device shall first have been approved by the voters through enactment of an initiated or referred measure authorizing that detonation, such measure having been ordered, proposed, submitted to the voters, and approved as provided in section 1 of article V of this constitution. (Adopted by the People, November 5, 1974 Effective upon proclamation of the Governor, December 20, 1974.)

While I did not know about that as I initially planned this series, I had intended just to point out that the unhappiness of just one Senator with a nuclear program (and I was thinking of Senator Reid and Yucca Mountain) can delay its implementation potentially for decades. In this case it is likely that there would be at least eight, and I think the point is made. However, since I do think it is useful for folk to know these things, I thought I would continue with the rest of the story from a technical point of view.

So, there we have all this oil, sitting in these nice thick oil shale beds out West and just waiting to turn some local in Colorado into the next "world's richest person". All they have to do is to figure out how to get the oil out of the ground cheaply enough to make money from it. (And if you remember from the last post there are over 2,000 patents on ways to do this - if it were that simple there would not be nearly that many). Congress thinks so too, since the Energy Policy Act of 2005 called oil shale a strategically important domestic resource (pdf file).

What's the big deal? Drill a hole down there and it flows it - isn't that how it works? Well not in this case. As I said the oil is really a waxy kerogen that does not want to flow at all. And there is also a problem with the rock. About 40 years ago a guy called Brace (Ref 1) found that the cracks in a rock are related to the size of the grains of the material that make up the rock. A rock with large grains has large cracks, and this gives it a permeability which is the joining of these cracks to give a path through which oil (or water or gas) can flow through the rock. It also gives the rock its porosity which are the holes in the rock into which the oil can collect. Unfortunately the grain size of the average particle in oil shale is around 5.8 microns. This is about a tenth of the thickness of a human hair, medium human hair being about 60 - 90 microns wide. As a result the typical oil shale has very poor porosity, and it is only when it has a high oil content (above 50 gallons/ton) that permeability can be easily measured (Ref 2) , below 20 gal/ton it becomes very difficult, because it is so small. The average grade is around 25 gal/ton.

"Buried underground in western Colorado are a trillion tons of oil shale. For a century, men have tried and tried again to unlock this energy source. But the rocks have proved stubborn, promising much, delivering little." (link)