[CitizensTruth] Energy Dispute Over Rockies Riches

[Hal Snyder]

About oil shale - here's what I found - feel free to offer  
corrections. (I didn't see much new in the LATimes article.)

Energy yield (i.e. calories you get back for each calorie of energy  
processing it): 0.7-13.3, which means at the low end you are actually  
losing energy. Oil shale has less energy per pound than granola,  
potatoes, recycled phone books, or cattle dung.

The name "oil shale" is a misnomer. The hydrocarbon involved is  
kerogen, a waxlike, low-energy precursor of oil. By my understanding,  
if you wait a few million years and apply plenty of heat (that is, put  
more energy into it) it might become crude oil.

Water consumption. It takes 1-5 barrels of water to produce one barrel  
of shale-oil. In Estonia, where 95% of electrical power is generated  
from oil shale, 91% of the country's water consumption goes toward oil  
shale.

Pollution. Processing produces about 2.5 barrels of oily waste for  
each barrel of oil recovered. Based on numbers from the Syncrude pond  
in Alberta, Richard Heinberg estimates a waste lagoon the size of Lake  
Ontario would be needed if we were to replace the world's oil  
production completely with shale-oil. Arsenic, phenols, and tar are  
among the toxins that may be release, mainly via waste water.

Greenhouse gases and climate change. Decomposition of kerogen and  
carbonates release carbon dioxide and methane. And of course the  
entire effort is to produce more fossil fuels which add to climate  
change further.

Renewability - zero.

Sources:
Oil Shale: Viable Domestic Energy, Or ‘Dirtiest Fuel on the Planet’
Oil shale - Wikipedia
Environmental impact of oil shale industry - Wikipedia
http://www.aspencore.org/images/pdf/OilShale.pdf
The Party's Over - Google Book Search

On Dec 29, 2008, at 9:05 AM, Daniel Stafford wrote:


> Ok, just what we need, more cheap planet poison...DS

>

> Energy Dispute Over Rockies Riches

> http://www.truthout.org/122908N

> Julie Cart, The Los Angeles Times: "A titanic battle between the  

> West's two traditional power brokers - Big Oil and Big Water - has  

> begun. At stake is one of the largest oil reserves in the world, a  

> vast cache trapped beneath the Rocky Mountains containing an  

> estimated 800 billion barrels -- about three times the reserves of  

> Saudi Arabia."

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