On Monday 24 April 2006 10:29, Frank Reichert wrote: > Now here's something I hadn't heard about before... I wonder, if > this is > true, why the media haven't been hyping this up with gas prices now > around $3.00 a gallon.
Because we've sorta been down this road before. It is the "shale oil" that they are talkign about. However, there have been to my knowledge no federal madates, the oil companies have been doing this on their own for quite some time. Last year Shell did some pilots regarding a new method for turning the "shale oil" into "real oil" in-ground. The process is doable in the 20-35$/bbl range. It is a very cool process that doesn't leave the area devastated. It essentially "cooks" it into oil and thereafter you just pump it out as a normal well would. The only difference is the crude is actually "cleaner" -easier to refine. It does require large amounts of energy, best obtained either from small nuclear (PBR for example) plants or seriously cool solar concentrators for direct thermal energy conversion. Last year/this year shell pushed congress to expand the amount of land they can test on since the fedgov "owns" all the land that this "shale oil" sits under. The reason we don't hear about it is two-fold. One, Shell doesn't want the big hyped scenario from a ffew decades ago. They want to get it fully tested and "vetted" before going public in a big way. Second, and this is my supposition, they want to let OPEC and the others sit and stew in their soon-to-be-glass house. Let them hang themselves, if you will. With prices remaining high they can take advantage of it to build "escrow" for building the needed infrastructure. If they can control the full cycle they'll be fully independent of OPEC and all foreign crude. I suspect they are also waiting to see how far the current E85 movement gets. So yes, it is based on truth at least. About the rest well ... that's up to others. I can only speak on what I already know about. Cheers, Bill _______________________________________________ Libnw mailing list Libnw@immosys.com List info and subscriber options: http://immosys.com/mailman/listinfo/libnw Archives: http://immosys.com/mailman//pipermail/libnw
