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(To Memphis 1979) you're talking about cost again not EREOI! Please google the term and maybe you'll understand. I would add some links but my phone doesn't allow it. Shale will only ever be produced in low volumes of a million barrels or so a day- the US uses around 20 million per day.
Shale is not a source of energy unlike crude and there lies its fundamental problem.
I understand what EREOI is. Energy returned vs. Energy invested to get it.
Most show oil shale as around 3.5 on the scale, which puts it about on par with hydro power.
Do you not like damns?
It all comes down to cost. The cost for oil shale production, per barrel is 60 dollars a barrel, thats counting the energy it takes to get the oil from the mined material.
Right now oil is over 90 dollars a barrel when we are drilling.
60 dollars vs 90 dollars a barrel, which makes since to you? 700 billion here at home, or 700 billion to Saudi Arabia, which makes since to you?
Well if you send all of your money to saudi or not makes no difference to me! The best estimates i've seen of shales EROEI are around 0.3 making it negative. Even if it was 3.5 as you say its still no crude oil replacement (crudes EROEI is currently 16-20) its the massive energy surplus that we get from fossil fuels that give us our standard of living.
Chris martensen has a good video on youtube (wish I could post the link) explaining why modern economies cannot be run primarily on low EROEI fuels.
Well if you send all of your money to saudi or not makes no difference to me! The best estimates i've seen of shales EROEI are around 0.3 making it negative. Even if it was 3.5 as you say its still no crude oil replacement (crudes EROEI is currently 16-20) its the massive energy surplus that we get from fossil fuels that give us our standard of living.
Chris martensen has a good video on youtube (wish I could post the link) explaining why modern economies cannot be run primarily on low EROEI fuels.
The EROEI changes with every bump in the price per barrel. We are over 90 dollars a barrel right now, and it makes it cheaper to use oil shale.
Oil shale is EROEI positive, and has a higher return on investment when traditional curde is at the prices it is now. Over 60 dollars a barrel, the Oil Shale cost is viable.
If yo9u do the research you will find that there's more than enough oil for another several hundred years, that's yet to be tapped. The oil companies keep the prices high by talk of shortage. At the same time, government regulations will likely require more and more hybrids and electric vehicles
so that eventually those with older cars will have to pay through the nose for gas as the demand is reduced. Actually, that's happening now, just from the reduced demand with people out of work.
Actually thats quite a bunch of BS. As time goes on we need more & more oil each year, theres really no reliable way to say how long it'll last if we even knew how much was left. If you do the research you find that some people say we have reached the peak already while others say its very close.
If we are near peak after roughly 100 years and we are useing more each year now than we have for all or most of the previous years, then common sense dictates we dont have hundreds of years left. Dont focus so much on automobiles, theyre a small part of the picture, these computers we are typing on cant be made without petroleum, almost no plastics can be, plus thousands of other chemicals, heat & electricity, fuel for planes and a hundred other things.
Its not automobiles that NEED petroleum, its modern society in general.
When its gone, and it will be, transportation will be the least of our worries.
I understand what EREOI is. Energy returned vs. Energy invested to get it.
Most show oil shale as around 3.5 on the scale, which puts it about on par with hydro power.
Do you not like damns?
It all comes down to cost. The cost for oil shale production, per barrel is 60 dollars a barrel, thats counting the energy it takes to get the oil from the mined material.
Right now oil is over 90 dollars a barrel when we are drilling.
60 dollars vs 90 dollars a barrel, which makes since to you? 700 billion here at home, or 700 billion to Saudi Arabia, which makes since to you?
All depends on what you place value on. Dams change the environment but dont destroy it. The cost is very predictable & the return is clean & predictable. I place alot of value on my environment & think it'd be better to start looking & changing NOW instead of exploiting as much of the earths resources as possible, consequences be damned, just so I can keep hiding my head in the sand.
If we really think about it part of the problem is fixation on combustion for everything. Its been a million years or so since we discovered fire, yet its still the number one thing that seperates us from monkeys,,,, and we think we are advanced.
All depends on what you place value on. Dams change the environment but dont destroy it. The cost is very predictable & the return is clean & predictable. I place alot of value on my environment & think it'd be better to start looking & changing NOW instead of exploiting as much of the earths resources as possible, consequences be damned, just so I can keep hiding my head in the sand.
If we really think about it part of the problem is fixation on combustion for everything. Its been a million years or so since we discovered fire, yet its still the number one thing that seperates us from monkeys,,,, and we think we are advanced.
I've said it multiple times, I want a renewable resource thats environment neutral. But, thats at least 20 years into the future. We need something now.
Thats 14 trillion dollars of money that could be saved here at home, and not sent to other countries. We can invest half of that into research on renewable resources.
But we need a surgery now, the best medicine is oil shale.
Up until the last century and a half or so, all of humanity existed without a dependence on oil. So I have a sneaking suspicion that we'll find a way to survive after the last drop has been used up. Unless we have completely lost our inventiveness, in which case that will be the end of civilization.
Memphis, you clearly don't understand EROEI It is largely unrelated to price. The cost is not the problem- the problem is less net energy means less energy to run our economy on. You are clearly economicaly minded not technicaly minded.
Up until the last century and a half or so, all of humanity existed without a dependence on oil. So I have a sneaking suspicion that we'll find a way to survive after the last drop has been used up. Unless we have completely lost our inventiveness, in which case that will be the end of civilization.
Yes, another important factor to add would be that a century and a half ago the world only had a little over 1 billion people verses 7 billion today.
Memphis, you clearly don't understand EROEI It is largely unrelated to price. The cost is not the problem- the problem is less net energy means less energy to run our economy on. You are clearly economicaly minded not technicaly minded.
It takes X amount of energy to produce this product, and you get Y amount of energy out.
If X is greater than Y, then you are running a net negative on the energy you want to be producing, which isn't sustainable.
What I'm saying is that the Y changes when the value of the X is worth more. When oil is over a certain dollar amount per barrel, then oil shale then becomes viable.
I know exactly what you're saying, it takes coal to make electricity to extract the oil from the sediment. I know that. But the overall energy used to produce the oil from the sediment is offset when the cost of that energy is made more cost effective.
Its the same with any manufactured product. If I'm making something for 50 dollars, I can't sell it for 49. That includes all of my production costs, electricity, water, workers, tools, everything.
The production cost of oil shale is roughly 60 dollars per barrel. Thats the amount of energy needed to dig it up, remove it from the sediment, and put it into a usable form.
When traditional crude is over 90 dollars a barrel, I'd say that 60 dollars a barrel is cost effective.
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