tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post7565955915387723465..comments2024-03-24T11:01:27.668-04:00Comments on Resource Insights: Geology beats technology: Shell shuts down oil shale pilot projectKurt Cobbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05330759091950742285noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-90237467746281978522013-09-30T13:49:45.222-04:002013-09-30T13:49:45.222-04:00Last year, the Institute for Energy Research expla...<b>Last year, the Institute for Energy Research explained that the United States had 1,442 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil.</b><br /><br />"The reality is that the U.S. has enough recoverable oil for the next 200 years."<br /><br />I wrote this comment.<br /><br />"But using this oil is unrealistic. <br />American oil shale is estimated to hold more than 1.8 trillion barrels of recoverable oil. <br />Oil shale must be heated to temperatures between 400C° and 500C°. According to Shell, to produce 100,000 barrels per day, 5 million tons of coal and at least 4.6 billion gallons of water are needed each year.<br />The largest deposit of oil shale in the United States is near the Colorado River basin, which could run out of water in 2050.<br />As U.S. is using 18,8 million barrels a day..."<br /><br />It seems that I was right.<br /><br />Exposing the 2 percent oil reserves myth.<br />http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2012/03/13/exposing-the-2-percent-oil-reserves-myth/Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-27218327780698565082013-09-30T12:35:46.090-04:002013-09-30T12:35:46.090-04:00Shell also wanting to sell Eagle Ford Shale (Texas...Shell also wanting to sell Eagle Ford Shale (Texas) sector:<br /><br />http://blogs.marketwatch.com/energy-ticker/2013/09/30/shell-plans-to-sell-eagle-ford-stakes-wsj/Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-33321356747787273762013-09-29T23:57:54.474-04:002013-09-29T23:57:54.474-04:00Your article prompted me to switch from my phone t...Your article prompted me to switch from my phone to my laptop so I could make a couple comments I feel add to the discussion.<br /><br />Note, I am not trying to push an agenda here, rather I am promoting what I see as an obvious solution that may in the future become the only solution no matter ho many people yell about it.<br /><br />Your article states: "The ratio of energy outputs to inputs for oil shale is estimated to be about 2 to 1, according to a study by Cleveland Cutler who has long examined energy return on energy invested. Shell claimed a ratio of around 3 to 1 (though that claim no longer appears on the project site). That seems good until you realize that we are currently running the world on crude which has a ratio around 20 to 1."<br /><br />This is very true but does not mean that oil cannot continue to be used at ratios even less than 3 to 1 and still be useful on a large scale.<br /><br />See, oil is VERY profitable for a small group of people. Corporations make moves that make the most profit for those people, not moves that make the most sense for promoting the general welfare of the population of this planet. When the opportunity for profit is gone, so are the corporate sponsors.<br /><br />This does not mean that the technology or product is any less useful to the general public than it once was, only that it is not producing as much profits as some other approach does. We see this in the pharma industry with every new generation of drugs that can be kept under patent and thus out of generic production.<br /><br />When such thing happens to something that is as essential as oil is to our society it is time to start considering the nationalization of the resource to prevent shortages occurring simply because the corporate will is not there to continue. Many of the technologies that would improve the quality of life for the general public the most are not very good goals for those who's primary goal is to make the most money.<br /><br />As for the water problem, that is another that can easily be resolved with some different thinking.<br /><br />I have an idea that could provide unlimited drinking water to virtually any place in the world at a much cheaper rate of return and extremely low environmental impact. However no one seems interested because I am not interested in the least in making a very profitable business from it. I'm only interested in solving the problem and providing jobs for the people necessary to manage the projects, some of which would be quite large although much of the work could probably be done by robotics so the employment impact would be small.<br /><br />Fusion seems to be coming along at a snails pace but advances are being made and I suspect that e may see a commercial reactor within the next 20 years. On the other hand there are nuclear technologies that have been largely ignored and I can't understand why.<br /><br />Thorium for example. For the life of me I can't understand why safe thorium reactors have been largely ignored throughout the world in place of the dangerous reactors we are using today. There are working thorium reactors online today and they seem to be working exactly as advertised, and yet there is no push to move away from the dangerous reactors we are using to these safer reactors that are also cheaper to operate and produce very little waste product.<br /><br />Something is really wrong with the way the world is ran today. I suspect that all conspiracy theory aside that the people who make the most money off the way the world is today are hindering the push to change to more beneficial technologies that may not be as profitable as the technologies they themselves control. It is a cynical way of looking at the world at large but I invite anyone to prove me wrong.Elvenrunelordnoreply@blogger.com