Dave's ESL Bio-Fuel

Three Years Oil and You

ESL Basics

ESL Lesson 1
Oil in Our Every Day Life

ESL Lesson 2
The History of Mining

ESL Lesson 3
Economic growth

ESL Lesson 4
Delivery Systems

ESL Lesson 5
Cities and Population Movement

ESL Lesson 6
Recycling

ESL Lesson 7
Rubber

ESL Lesson 8
Farming

Shale Oil Extraction Imminent

Posted by Robert Rapier on Sunday June 18, 2006
http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2006/06/
oil-shale-development-imminent.html

Shell says that despite (even though) the process being very energy intensive (the process uses a lot of energy), it has a positive EROEI. To do it on a large scale you'd need a power plant larger than any power plant in the history of Colorado. And you'd need a new power plant for each 100,000 barrel increment (amount). Davis said those figures come from coal-fired electricity, off the grid. But Shell hasn't decided how to create the electricity that would be used on a commercial (large scale) project.

An EROEI of 3.5 is not great, but it is comparable to tar sands. But how is that EROEI defined? Is it based on the actual electricity used to heat the field? Or is it based on the coal used to make the electricity? That distinction (difference) is very important. If it is based on the electricity used, then we must take into consideration the energy efficiency of turning coal into electricity. That is only around 30%, so that would reduce the "net" EROEI down to about 1 (1:1). Proponents (defenders of the use of oil shale as a fuel source) might argue that this doesn't matter, since you are taking something that can't be directly used as transportation fuel - coal - and turning into a usable liquid fuel. I have seen this argument applied to producing ethanol from corn using coal as the heating source.
I strongly suspect that the net EROEI is around 1 or less. If the overall EROEI was 3.5, the U.S. would probably already be exploiting (using/producing) oil shale instead of depending on Canada to develop their tar sands. The EROEI of tar sands is in the 2-3 range, and due to the similarities of the process, the capital costs (amount of investment costs) should be comparable. So, I am left to conclude (think) that the EROEI of oil shale is poor compared to tar sands.

It is important to note that the EROEI calculations also don't take into consideration the steps that will be required to protect and replace/restore the environment. Shell is just now getting ready to do those experiments.

But with today's technology, the potential (possible) energy comes with a steep price, says Udall and others who are opposed to producing oil from shale. The energy required is a 'giga bunch,' Udall said. To produce 100,000 barrels a day, would require raising the temperature of 700 billion tons of shale by 700 degrees Fahrenheit. How much coal, how many power plants? One million barrels a day would require 10 new power plants and five new coal mines. Just the amount of energy to get the kerogen out of the rock, oil shale is a poor choice to solve the world's energy problems, Udall said.

Call me a skeptic. Current U.S. oil usage is over 20 million barrels a day, and it would require 10 new power plants and five new coal mines to replace less than 5% of consumption. Add to that a multi-billion dollar capital expenditure (investment), increased greenhouse gas emissions, and a process with a marginal (not so good) EROEI. Consider that we could "create" the same amount of oil by simply cutting consumption (usage) by 5%. It seems to me that enacting (starting) conservation policies (laws) would be far more cost effective than developing oil shale.

Robert also believes that production from coal bed methane (CBM) and bio-mass gasification will increase, relieving the supply problems for factories using natural gas for heat.

References

Huge Mines Rapidly Draining Rivers, Cutting Into Forests, Boosting Emissions
By Doug Struck Washington Post Foreign Service Wednesday, May 31, 2006; Page A01

FORT MCMURRAY, Alberta ~ Huge mines here turning tar sands into cash for Canada and oil for the United States are taking an unexpectedly (unpredictably) high environmental toll (cost), sucking water from rivers and natural gas from wells and producing large amounts of gases linked to global warming. Digging into an area the size of Cambodia-- at gold-rush speed, spurred (pushed) by high oil prices, new technology and an unquenched (unsatisfied) U.S. thirst for the fuel. The expansion has presented ecological problems that experts thought they would have decades to resolve (fix).

"The river used to be blue. Now it's brown. Nobody can fish or drink from it. The air is bad. This has all happened so fast," said Elsie Fabian, 63, an elder in a native Indian community along the Athabasca River, a wide, meandering waterway once plied (traveled) by fur traders. "It's terrible. We're surrounded by the mines." From her home on the bluff of the river, she can see billowing (cloud like) steam rising from a vast strip mine 10 miles away. There, almost 200 feet/65 meters below what was once a forest, giant machines cleave (dig) the earth into a cratered moonscape (landscape that looks the same as the moon). Immense (very large) shovels plunge into the ground, wresting out (pulling out by force) massive chunks. Trucks the size of houses prowl the pit, delivering the black soil to clanking conveyers (noisy conveyor belts) and vats that steam the tar from the sand.

But the price of that alchemy (magic) is high: Each barrel of oil requires two to five barrels of water, carves up four tons of earth, uses enough natural gas to heat a home for one to five days, and adds to the greenhouse gases slowly cooking the planet, according to the industry's own calculations.

"The environmental cost has been great," said Jim Boucher, chief of the Fort MacKay First Nations Council, which includes Cree and Dene Indians, 35 miles north of Fort McMurray. He grew up on land that is now a clawed-out mine pit. But he has led his people into the mines by creating native-owned companies providing catering, truck driving, surveying and other services. "There is no other economic option (choice)," he said. "Hunting, trapping, fishing are gone."
Operators of the mines, which have helped make Canada the largest supplier of oil to the United States, believe they can find technological solutions to the environmental problems (use technology to fix a problem). Increasingly, environmental organizations are calling for a moratorium (a ban/ a restriction) on the growth of the mines.

Map of the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline and Tar Sand Area

Map of the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline and Tar Sand Area
Map source: http://www.arcticgaspipeline.com/Reference/Maps/MackenziePipelineMap.gif

Continue to: ESL Lesson 7
Rubber

TOP

ESL Lesson 6

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Recycling
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Oil shale ............................................................
Economics
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Environmental Considerations
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Shale Oil Extraction Imminent
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