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Science/Tech See other Science/Tech Articles Title: Can Royal Dutch Shell's Shale Extraction Technique End 'Peak Oil' Paranoia? Over the past few years, more and more apocalyptic stories have been popping up about a supposed phenomenon known as "peak oil." The theory is that we're running out of oil, the big powers are keeping it quiet, and as supplies dwindle, world-wide economic chaos will ensue. This is hardly a new theory. According to the Chicken Littles of the world, we've been "about to run out of oil" for over thirty years. Obviously it hasn't happened yet. With the recent upswing in strife in the Middle East, however, the notion has gained in popularity. The thing is, this theory is utterly false, and can be laid to rest with a single well-established fact: there is more oil in the Colorado shale fields than the entire Middle East had at its peak. The only reason we're still importing oil is that, at present, it is cheaper to do so than to extract it from shale. Until recently, getting oil out of shale has been a nasty and expensive business. That's about to change, though, as engineers at Royal Dutch Shell have applied for a patent on a new method of extracting shale oil cheaply and cleanly. (As an interesting side note, it is the largest patent application in U.S. history.) Amazingly, this method: * Is cleaner than conventional drilling * Generates the highest grade of light-sweet crude oil, which burns cleaner than other varieties * Becomes profitable with oil just north of $30 a barrel (which we've already blown past) In other words, with Shell's new technique, it actually benefits the environment to switch to shale oil. I found this hard to believe at first, but seeing as I am a patent lawyer, I decided to pull the patent application to see for myself. When I saw the invention laid out on paper, I was convinced that it would work. As with most great ideas, the basic concept is simple. In brief, engineers dig holes around the extraction area, into which they insert giant cooling rods. The water in the soil freezes, and forms an "ice-bowl," which traps the oil and prevents seepage. The center of the formation is then heated, causing the oil to bubble up through the rocks, from which it may then be extracted with ease. The ice-bowl prevents all the nasty chemicals released by this process from getting into the water table. This Wikipedia Article provides more details. Shell has been granted rights to a small patch of shale field in Colorado to make an experimental run with its new method, and all present signs suggest it will be a success. Make no mistake, however. Even if Shell's idea is a disastrous failure, existing technologies can get oil out of the shale — it's just expensive. Other new extraction methods are also being tried by a number of companies. Here's a partial list: # Petrobras (NYSE: PZE - News) # Shell Frontier Oil and Gas # Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM - News) # Chevron Shale Oil Company (NYSE: COP - News) # EGL Resources # Milennium Synfuels # Oil Shale Exploration, Inc. The absolute worst case scenario I can fathom is that oil prices could get high enough to make existing shale extraction techniques economically feasible (some estimates put the break-even point at about $75 a barrel). At that point, we could tap our shale reserves and continue on, whether any of the new methods work or not, without any significant changes in infrastructure. Sure, gas would be more expensive, but probably no more-so than Europeans pay now. The economy may go through a rough patch during the transition, but the theory of a global economic meltdown over peak oil just isn't credible. In fact, once shale production takes off, we could easily become the world's biggest exporter of oil, with China as our biggest customer. Strange as it may sound, it is quite possible that, within our lifetimes, Chinese government officials may take to fretting about their dependence on "Middle-Western" oil. In short, don't buy into the peak oil paranoia. It is nothing more than a fairy tale, and is dangerous in that it distracts attention from the real impending crisis within our energy policy: global warming. It makes no sense to waste our time fretting about running out of oil when we in truth should be concentrating on figuring out how to curb our usage of it. After all, even if we were running out, wouldn't the best solution be the same?
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#2. To: Indrid Cold (#0)
The Shale Oils are Going to Save Us game plan has been around since the late 1970s. There are two reasons they haven't been widely harvested. One is environment. The other is cost. In Canada, they're called Sand Tars, and Canada has been harvesting them for over 20 years. Under typical harvesting, mass quantities of shale or sand are processed to extract the petroleum within them. Canada's shale oil or sand tar reserves make it one of the best long term sources of non renewable energy. I'm not one who thinks the world revolves around peak oil. When demand goes up, as it has been, and production is impaired by war and threats of war in the mideast, the price shoots up. Our current price is part demand, part fear premium, part speculator premium, and part war premium. In real dollars the price of oil has still doubled since Bush started the Iraq war. If we can get to January of 2009 without Bush starting another war, oil will drop back down to a more reasonable figure.
In 2001, I was paying $1.00 a gallon for gasoline. Just last year, we were paying upwards of $3.00 a gallon or more. This year, we're paying close to $2.60 a gallon. The price of gas hasn't doubled, it's nearly tripled. The thing is, in 2001, they were making hefty profits at a buck a gallon. Now they might as well own the goddamned mint. You're right, all of the prices of oil are based on speculation, but you better believe there is a healthy dose of LIES AND TREACHERY there too. If you think it's bad now, just wait til those idiots in congress pass that Global Warming UN Tax. Expect to be assfucked like nobody's business once that happens.
I used the term "more than doubled" because oil has just dipped some in price, and I was allowing for inflation, which accounts for a small portion of the increase. Gasoline is the consumer product, and the AVERAGE nationwide has more than doubled since Clinton was president. It was about $1.35 a gallon on average in 2000, and it's a little more than twice that now, on average, nationwide. Right now, California is paying significantly more than most of the US for gasoline.
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