High gas prices are opening up (so to speak) another kind of oil & gas extraction technique, called "fracture drilling," which was alluded to in a recent thread on the "new" oil discovery in the Dakotas and Montana (Williston Basin)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/08/business/08gas.html?em&ex=1207886400&en=3513e391adf7ae70&ei=5087%0A At one time (before the negative publicity of TMI and the ranting of Jane Fonda) small nuclear bombs were considered as the ideal solution for deep shale extraction, but oil was too cheap then. In fact, there is evidence that despite all the nuclear test ban treaties in place, that the Russians routinely use small nukes to increase hydrocarbon output from deep shale. What better way to get rid of their excess inventory of weapons? ;-) A tamer version of fracture drilling, not involving nukes, was "invented" by Halliburton (more like the concept was partly bought and partly stolen). However, due to the chemicals used, I am not so sure that nukes aren't preferable in terms of actual toxicity in the finished product. It should be possible, even easy, to purposely design a small (suitcase) nuke that is actually much less toxic to the *surface* environment, for the same amount of hydrocarbons which are recovered ... except for objections of the Sierra Club (and even many green Vorticians, including moi). It is even possible that our beloved Petro-Mafia does NOT want this, since the net effect might serve to bring down per barrel oil prices (and obscene profits). It is true that we spent billions to develop the so-called "neutron bomb" and it is clear that hydrocarbons do not absorb many neutrons and become radioactive ... and most of all - in terms of realistic comparisons - that there is more "natural" radioactivity in many kinds of oil-bearing shale than the amount that a small nuke would ever produce, anyway. The average concentration of uranium in "Chattanooga Shale," which covers most of the SouthEastern USA is .006 percent, or 60 ppm ! That is incredibly high, and is far more, orders of magnitude more per volume, than the amount which a small nuke would add to shale which had no natural U. If a small nuke is used to fracture deep shale, surrounding rock would be activated but that could be dealt with adequately with in situ filtration. However, despite this - there is little realistic way our government would ever allow it here, and that is "probably" a good thing, at least for now. Let the Russians et al. work out all the bugs first. At some future time, without a breakthrough in LENR or hydrino-tech, for instance, we may be forced to do it here. But as always, the optimists on this forum see better possibilities "on the immediate horizon": Algoil being one of them. It should be mentioned that there are a few folks, formerly associated with the Phillips Petroleum Company of Oklahoma, who might admit (deathbed confessional) that the "small-nuke fracturing technique" has been widely used in the Middle East, S. Africa, and elsewhere (probably because they sold licenses and the expertise to do it overseas years ago, or know that the Russians got there first): http://tinyurl.com/5sm3eo Anyway - this could be one reason that Arabia has so much "recoverable oil" relative to non-recoverable. One can reasonably suspect that some of the Middle Eastern oil we import now in the USA was recovered this way, and that our government knows this, but perhaps does not want this factoid publicly revealed, and would likely deny it strongly if asked. Quien sabe? Jones
