Hey Smokey, you mentioned the difficulty of extracting oil from shale oil and I did some research.
We probably have 2-3 TRILLION barrels of oil Right here and this is several times more oil than the entire M.E.
Extracting it does present challenges.
Porosities in the Bakken average about 5%, and permeabilities are very low, averaging 0.04 millidarcies—much lower than typical oil reservoirs.[4] However, the presence of horizontal fractures makes the Bakken an excellent candidate for horizontal drilling techniques in which a well drills along the extent of the rock layer, rather than punching a hole vertically through it. In this way, many thousands of feet of oil reservoir rock can be penetrated in a unit that reaches a maximum thickness of only about 140 feet (40 m).
Here is an alternate view!!! From the people controlling congress right now!
The Wilderness Society's Views on Oil and Gas Drilling and Gasoline Prices
new technology
But a new technology has emerged that may begin to tap the oil shale's potential. Royal Dutch Shell, in fact, has
recently completed a demonstration project (The Mahogany Ridge project) in which it produced 1,400 barrels of oil
from shale in the ground, without mining the shale at all.
Instead, Shell utilized a process called "in situ" mining, which heats the shale while it's still in the ground, to
the point where the oil leaches from the rock. Shell's Terry O'Connor described the breakthrough in testimony
before Congress earlier this summer (And Congress may have an acute interest in the topic, since the U.S. government
controls 72% of all U.S. oil shale acreage):
"Some 23 years ago, Shell commenced laboratory and field research on a promising in ground conversion and recovery process. This technology is called the In-situ Conversion Process, or ICP. In 1996, Shell successfully carried out its first small field test on its privately owned Mahogany property in Rio Blanco County, Colorado some 200 miles west of Denver. Since then, Shell has carried out four additional related field tests at nearby sites. The most recent test was carried out over the past several months and produced in excess of 1,400 barrels of light oil plus associated gas from a very small test plot using the ICP technology…
Oil from stone - Oct. 31, 2007
US Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
http://abrandt.berkeley.edu/shale/Br...quid_fuels.pdf
http://abrandt.berkeley.edu/shale/Br...quid_fuels.pdf
Some good reading!
