Funny you mention shell! Shell Australia was formed by amalgamating Shell with John Fell and Co. who operated a shale oil plant in the mountains behind Sydney. They experimented with in-ground extraction with little success. Industrial problems and the advent of cracking eventually closed the plant altogether. I'd heard there are only really two significant shale oil fields, one in Australia and one in Southern America. They simply haven't been big enough to make the technological investment worthwhile

Hello 123youdname

Canada has been doing this type of oil extraction in different locations for many years, with good success.

The main problem appears to be environmental issues, which have not been fully addressed at this stage.

Kind Regards....

There is no geological or supply-demand reason, but the control of oil prices decoupled from both supply and demand at least 36 months ago.

So the reasons for high prices no longer reflect either supply or demand, then they must reflect some other function/desire.

Current prices appear driven by large financial concerns who are interested in driving up prices as much as possible, undoubtedly for their own benefit.

What those motives are, exactly, depends upon a number of unknowns--who controls the money, what their personal goals are and how they intend to achieve them.

As is common in this society, the stated goals and motives of the players are seldom the only or even the main ones held by them.

Note that you always hear about "running out of fossil fuels" based upon "known, extractable reserves." Begging the question about the amounts which are yet to be discovered or which are currently not considered recoverable.

The world economy sucks and has been in bad shape for several years, and yet the prices rise--with this economy our demand is only a percentage of what it could rise to if the economy were running 'hot.'

One main goal appears to be to remove asset value from the average people by inflation.

Another is to control the vital areas of people's lives (i.e. energy, food, water.)

Oil shale, like oil and coal, is a manipulated factor in a much larger game.

Wiz, I agree with your assertion that the DOD wants to keep the US oil shale "in reserve". Of course, that is speculation, at least on my part, but makes sense.

I grew up in Utah, and I now live close to a large air force base (Hill Field). That gives me the opportunity to see first hand some "minor" details which are very interesting. For example, I usually can tell when the Air Force is going to a major engagement, because great numbers of F-16 and other fighters come and go 24/7. The place I am renting now is smack in the middle of the flight path for taking off, and the noise can make me crazy when they are taking off every few seconds.

Well, that is "off topic", so I'll get to the point: I recall that there was talk about oil shale and oil sands when I was in grade school through high school, so that would have been in the late fifties and early sixties! It seems that Utah has quite a large quantity of one of them; I can't recall whether it is oil shale or oil sands. For a long time, the talk centered around the economics of extracting the oil, which then were much different than they are now. Oil was "dirt cheap" then; I could buy gas for my car for 20 cents a gallon. The important thing that I recall was that even the teachers in Junior High and High School, who taught a class in "Utah state History", would tell us that the oil in Utah was too expensive for commercial use BUT it would serve as a "last ditch" reserve for the military should the US ever get into a real shooting war, etc. This was from about 1959 through 1967 or so; I don't know if they continued to teach it after I graduated but I suspect they did, unless they were told not to, etc.

Funny thing is, until you mentioned the military aspect here, I had completely forgotten about it. But, it is good to know that we could get by on our own reserves until we could figure out what else to do to obtain our energy needs.

Larry

Probably an infinite amount....as the price of oil goes up, the price of construction goes up also. Oil Shale facilities are horrifically expensive, and the shale cannot be shipped from the site for processing (like coal or oil). So that means constructing the refinery (processing) system in the middle of nowhere. Energy demands will be huge, as will water consumption, and waste (rock) disposal. My guess is that when oil is $N per barrel, the cost of oil shale extraction is 1.3xN. So it may never close.

I guess you didn't read my first post? Oil shale was being processed profitably in the 70's, until the price of oil crashed and the oil shale business closed. It is being revived now, and the advantage of doing oil shale processing insitu is that the waste rock disposal problem is eliminated. You are correct, the energy demand is large, but can be overcome at a crude price much less than we have now.

The Only Way to Drive Prices Down is to Reduce Dependence on Them- caused me to give a GA rating for the post.

Think for a moment about the US Congress and Senate passing a windfall profit tax or plow-back reinvestment option in the harder to get harder to process oil reserves. They have their choice, the Big Oil Companies do. Now what do you think they would do? Pay the windfall tax? Wrong!

It's our fault because we're not demanding a solution by the Congress and Senate who are holding the reins! Or more crudely stated, they've got us citizens by the family jewels and they're taking graft from OPEC lobbyist! The speculators are only doing what's natural and taking advantage of the situation. The US dollar is weak because we're spending ungodly amounts of money on a stupid war created by fear then compounding it by attacking the wrong country. Iraq and Sadam Hussein did not bring down the World Trade Center. Radical Muslim Osama Bin Laden did.

So did we get confused or lost on our way over to the Middle East? I'd blast Osama's area and the poppy fields right out of existance! There wouldn't be a pi$$ant living in Afghanistan when I was finished! Setting a presidence is only way to show thugs like Osama where to get off!

I imagine it is already there, as one said it was half and more than the record price of recent times. It is so sad that the transportion infrastructure is so dependent on oil. The world is now urban, and battery to grid highway wires is called for. On Grid and Off Grid machines is categories in conflict. HydroElectric power for the Grid in a system along interstates could well run cars buses & trucks with batteries, sans internal combustion machines. (Wind, and Thermal Solar, and et al are smart and more eligant than Nucelar or Oil, or coal.) Your direction is towards getting the last of the oil. It is not a route I would recommend. Further, to put things in perspective, when I got my first car, my hourly pay was 1.90 an hour, or 2.90 an hour, or whatever minimum wage was. A gallon of gas was .28 cents when I got my first car. It was not that bad in overall quality of life to pay the same sorts of percentages until the Real Estate speculation separated owners from workers so completely.

hello taganan,

i didn't rate your posting. i feel some of this post is good, but you trivialize the environmental damage from energy resource extraction. what happens when the cost of clean up is higher than the profit from the resource extraction. that is the reality. how much water does it take for oil sand extraction. how much polution of water occurs with resource extraction. i have not read one story of resource extraction, that is beneficial to the environment. the first example i remember reading about was coal liquification. the proposed plant would have needed the equivelant of the flow of the colorado river to move the coal from where it was going to be mined to the coal fired plant where it would be used. needless to say, this didn't fly. oil from tar sand uses massive amounts of water to "wash the tar out of the sand". i recently saw something that i consider obscene. during "shrubs" speech calling for more drilling offshore, the followups showed an off shore oil rig, with voice over comentary. you could see the oil slick from the rig right there in videos. and this wasn't even rated as a problem, just normal, business as usual.

there are countless examples of this type, but to you it is just environmental overeaction. the end result of your preferences, is a world that will not support life. so i guess that would finaly dampen demand. the earth will survive this, weather we can is questionable.

so, tell me again why clean energy is so wrong. tell me again why it is wrong for the government to force a switch from fossel fuels. the only thing preventing us from making the switch is the profits of the shareholders of the oil companies.

The water should be contained and reused for coal liquification and to wash oil from tar sand and not released back into the environment until cleaned. If being clean raises the cost to the point it is not competitive, so be it. If there are minor spills despite the best efforts of the companies then don't fine them, just make them do the best clean-up they can. Oil naturally seeps from the ocean floor without drilling. Certainly the rigs should be as clean as it is possible to make them and with regular inspections. There is a balance to be met between our need for energy and a clean environment. You cannot demand perfection, only that everyone try their best.

I do not say that clean energy is wrong, just that it may be insufficient or too costly. One square meter gets an average of 82 watts of solar energy at 100% conversion in 8 hours, that is a constant that cannot be increased. Actual electricity produced is less depending on the efficiency of the collector, weather, season and latitude. So figure out how much land [read as endangered plants/animals] needs to be covered by solar collectors at 82 watts per sq. meter. Research wind turbine sites, geothermal sites and the power losses in transmission lines. Check the costs of doing this and you may find that they are not competitive with present sources or are themselves damaging to the environment. I still have yet to have anyone name an energy source that can replace all of our present energy sources, that is not opposed by some environmental group.

Then you have to consider what increased energy prices will do to our civilization and standard of living. How far back are people willing to reduce their energy use? One LED per room? How few electric appliances? It is not the job of government to force a switch. Only those who believe in the nanny-state think that they and those politicians [mostly hypocrites] who support their view that people do not have enough sense to care for themselves and need to be forced into the behaviors they deem appropriate. Such force is not in keeping with our Constitutional freedoms.

Your politics of hate show when you call President Bush's speech, "shrubs" speech. You also say "the end result of your preferences, is a world that will not support life." which is an absolute untruth except in your extremist view.

If you take the extremist environmentalists, PETA, militant vegans, pro-wilderness supporters, organic food believers and the anti-CO2 crowd and carry their views all together to a conclusion, the world would have a very small population making a small environmental impact or carbon footprint. They would all grow their own organic food, eat no meat or animal products and use no animals for labor, would eat their food raw because they would have no fire and could only use wood and stone tools because working metal needs fire. The new Stone Age. LOL Of course this is poking fun at them, but I doubt you will see the humor.

Sorry. Mistyped. Should read: One square meter gets an average of 82 watts of solar energy at 100% conversion in 12 hours, that is a constant that cannot be increased.

The Canadian tar sands are being mined and refined at about $17.00 a barrel. That's why they have three major properties and seveal small projects coming on line, with another 25 to 35 being planned. The big three: Suncor, Syncrude and Shell produce over 1m barrels a day. They want to be producing 5m/day by 2030 (half of what Saudia Arabia does now).

New tech is coming to seperate oil and sand in a closed loop system developed in Utah: google NEVTAH. This is a much better and cleaner system that what Canada uses now $12.50/barrel.

THe eastern Montana and North Dakota "Bakken" oil deposits that are now being drilled hold 500 b barrels, 10% of which should be recoverable. This 10% could supply all of US need for 40 years with no importation of foreign oil.

The problem is the shale oil is only good for diesel, heating oil, aviation fuel, and natural gas period. It still won't help with the price for gas.

However a lot of the oil that is good for making gasoline is being used to make "diesel, heating oil, aviation fuel, and natural gas". Therefore more shale oil will allow the other oil to be used for making gasoline and will therefore reduce the price or slow its rise by increasing the supply.

Synthetic gasoline from coal can be made for just about the same price as extracting shale oil and that too should be tried to increase the supply and drive down the price. So far environmental extremists and Democrats are blocking all efforts. They want to reduce demand by high fuel taxes so people can't afford to drive.

We as a country import more oil from Canada than from any other, Saudi Arabia in second place. I was surprised by this and got the question wrong when watching Jeopardy.

We are being fleeced because we are not prepared for OPEC gyrations. Big Oil Companies have been profit taking because the U.S. Congress and Senate has not forced them to plow-back invest in the development of harder to get and harder to process oil. Green River and Athabasca hold a great wealth of oil but we have to develop it. An investment the Congress and Senate should have been thinking about.

Somebody on this thread said the DOD was worried about depleting this known reserve. I'd hate for a bunch of war like blued boneheads to be making this kind of decision for the American Citizen. The Muslim world, even the moderates, now know a war with us is futile with our technology. We could clean their clocks in nine point six nanoseconds. So how do you bring us down? Through terrorism and attacks on our ecnomony. But they haven't figure out yet that if they bring the U.S. down the rest of the world is in for some REALLY hard times!

Human beings are their own worst enemy!!!!! More people have been killed because of religious bias and hatred than for any other reason. Read history folks! It doesn't take Albert Einstein to figure out what we should be doing about energy issues. First order of business is to stop OPEC lobbyist from owning our Senators and Congressmen. We've sold ourselves out with a corrupt government process! Wake up Mr and Mrs Taxpayer and demand a better government process.

Guest - whoever you are. "...stop OPEC lobbyist from owning our Senators and Congressmen. We've sold ourselves out with a corrupt government process!" I wonder how many of them are the Democrats who are so opposed to producing more of our own oil, maybe some Republicans [in name only] who also oppose it.