I do have the time but only read for a while. I stopped reading at about the forth to the last paragraph.
I got to thinking. The article starts out talking about the economic of the oil shale being economical around $40 a barrel for oil. Oil today is closer to $70 to $75 a barrel so why has Shell not been doing this on a much larger scale over the past few years?
Sythetic fuels have been talked about since the late 1970s. We almost built several plants that took coal and converted it to oil back in 1979. But those were shut down by the Regan Administration.
The powder river basin area out west has large reserves of coal that can be used to make oil. And that coal is much easier to mine and of low sulfur.
If the area out west that Shell and BP is testing is not populated then why freeze the water under ground. Are they going to freeze that ground for the next 1000 years to prevent water table contamination? Or will all the oil be pumped out to where there is not danger after a the oil is depleted?
It's sure is true that we need the oil. All the past wars that I can remember were fought over natrual resource or religion or both. WWIII is going to be fought over the same reasons IMHO.
I hope that the Geologists can find a few more anaclines with some more oil.
I do hope that we do it sooner rather than later.
I personally am worried about the future of the USA unless we can secure our future energy needs.
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Originally Posted by LoBlo
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