* * * * *
                                        
                                Competative oil
                                        
> Since 1981, Shell researchers at the company's division of “unconventional
> resources” have been spending their own money trying to figure out how to
> get usable energy out of oil shale. Judging by the presentation the Rocky
> Mountain News heard this week, they think they've got it.
> 
> Shell's method, which it calls “in situ conversion,” is simplicity itself
> in concept but exquisitely ingenious in execution. Terry O'Connor, a vice
> president for external and regulatory affairs at Shell Exploration and
> Production, explained how it's done (and they have done it, in several test
> projects):
> 
> Drill shafts into the oil-bearing rock. Drop heaters down the shaft. Cook
> the rock until the hydrocarbons boil off, the lightest and most desirable
> first. Collect them.
> 
> They don't need subsidies; the process should be commercially feasible with
> world oil prices at $30 a barrel. The energy balance is favorable; under a
> conservative life-cycle analysis, it should yield 3.5 units of energy for
> every 1 unit used in production. The process recovers about 10 times as
> much oil as mining the rock and crushing and cooking it at the surface, and
> it's a more desirable grade. Reclamation is easier because the only thing
> that comes to the surface is the oil you want.
> 

Via Instapundit [1], “SHELL'S INGENIOUS APPROACH TO OIL SHALE IS PRETTY SLICK
[2]”

I've said before I'm bullish on energy futures [3], and it's nice to know
that we have a few more years yet to perfect oil from garbage [4] (which I
personally would like to see, if only to reduce the amount of landfills in
use).

[1] http://instapundit.com/archives/025313.php
[2] http://ww2.scripps.com/cgi-
[3] gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2005/01/19.1
[4] gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2003/04/18.1

Email Sean Conner at sean@conman.org

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