Friday, November 5, 2010
Good morning,
I've seen an awful lot of articles on the
Internet about an untapped oil field in
the Wyoming-Montana area that holds more
oil than the rest of the world oil fields
all put together. These stories seem to be
swept under the carpet or disappear. Is
this so oil companies can keep the prices
jacked up or just BS stories. I'd like to
know. Thanks, Bill Boyle
Thanks for the comment, Bill. I have read about these huge
deposits in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. But it is not oil.
It is called oil shale and is one of the (if not the) most
expensive and dirty fuels to extract and process. Please
scroll down for a few details I looked up on the subject.
Thanks for reading,
Your Living Green editor
Email the Editor
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Do you love wearing sunglasses?
http://pd.gophercentral.com/u/1160/c/186/a/578
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What is Oil Shale?
Oil shale is any sedimentary rock that can form petroleum-
like substances after a chemical heating process. Oil shale
can be mined and processed to generate oil similar to that
from conventional oil wells - but it is more complicated
than just drilling down and pumping it out. This is because
the oil substances in shale are solid, meaning the rock must
first be mined and then heated to such a high temperature
that the oil melts in a process called retorting.
Cost
Extracting oil from oil shale is more complex and expensive
than conventional oil recovery. In fact, no company has yet
in the forty years they have been researching oil shale,
found a way to make it profitable. It simply costs too much
to mine and extract.
Water Usage and Quality
Each barrel of shale oil produced by the conventional mining
method consumes between 2.1 and 5.2 barrels of water, a
commodity already scarce in the region. Runoff from mine
tailings - 150,000 tons a day; 55 million tons a year - would
threaten water supplies used by cities, farms, and wildlife.
Energy Intensity
A 2005 study by the RAND Corporation estimates it would
require a 1200-megawatt power plant just to unlock just
100,000 barrels of shale oil a day (less than 1 percent
of our total oil demand). Large enough to serve half a
million people, the power plant alone would burn 5 million
tons of coal each year and release 10 million tons of
global warming pollution.
http://www.sierraclub.org/dirtyfuels/oil-shale/