Is it a good idea to extract a million barrels of oil a year from the Green River Formation in Colorado?

Question

The Green River Formation, located in Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado contains oil shale. A major industrial project is proposed to mine oil shale, or heat it in place, to produce oil, in large quantities. A programatic environmental impact statement has been prepared and is on line at http://www.ostseis.anl.gov/involve/index.cfm This is a real question with real consequences.

Answer 1

Why not just shut down the country for a couple days a week and end the war in iraq. we don't need to drill for anymore oil because we don't want to ruin the environment. as a matter of fact, lets forget about the whole world because they don't care about us anyways. let me see, we dont need computers anymore because we will have no power to run them. we dont even make computers here because it harms the environment and no oil to produce the power that is required from the production. imagine our country not having the power to run our technology. let me see, cars hmm most of the parts including battery is made outside the country forget about it because we would rather alienate ourselves to the world. so lets just start by biking or walking oh i forgot, most americans cant do that either. hmmm. how about we built more nuclear plants? chernobyl, we dont want that. what is to do? i thought oil is just oil to run my car. we did not need to fight other countries for oil. i myself can live at a world that does not run on oil, maybe. I rather have someone else have the use of all the benefits that comes from a nation with oil and maybe they can come here and beat all our dumb ideology about being nice and take over and use our rich land and resources to support their demand. i wonder what side i will choose. i can depend on the french to help me out anyways and canada and mexico because were a country of caring and nice people. WAKE UP!

Answer 2

I think it's about time people start to wake up to the fact that there is NO advantage to using petroleum products . It's in fertilizer , it's in plastics, it's in health & beauty, it's in about (  if not everything ) everything we touch . My question is since man has had the technology to drill and pull it out of the earth, but has'nt done enough research on the disabilitating effects on the big gapping crevices it leaves beneath the earth , are we setting up future generations to handle the destructivness that may come as  to our ignorance. We have the technology to use other resourses , but we dont . We 'er killing the human race & dont care..       Man is the only vermin that , can design a trap, set the trap ,  bait the trap ,    & catch themselves in the trap..........     HOW  SMART ARE WE  !!!

Answer 3

Sure, but you need to be aware that what comes out of oil shale when you heat it is actually keragin, not petroleum, and requires considerable additional processing to convert it to useable fuels.   Most of the oil refineries in the world today will not be able to process oil shale keragin without extensive (and expensive) modifications.

Still, its a good idea, and I will so comment to the EPA

Answer 4

I would love it if that were true.

Keep America in America and not wrecking the world hunting for gains.

Destroy your own country before raping others.

Answer 5

Are you sure you mean one million?  That doesn't sound like much considering the amount of oil that is estimated to be in the formation.

Is this a somewhat experimental project to develop techniques maybe?

Answer 6

Sure.  This keep our money and our jobs in this country.

Of course it would be better to drill ANWAR since there are huge reserves there and no one would see any environmental impact, but there's no political will to do this.

Answer 7

Even Shell thinks it needs better ideas; it suspended its oil shale effort nine months ago (first link).

A million barrels a year is pathetic.  The USA burns over twenty million barrels PER DAY (second link, last column).  We would need tens of thousands of 1 million bbl/yr efforts to replace our other sources of oil.

Oil shale is essentially Nature's starting material for oil, but it hasn't undergone the deep burial and geological heating required to turn kerogen into liquids.  The goal of oil shale efforts is to emulate this process with technology, but doing it on our time scale is expensive in money and energy.  The cost appears to rise with the cost of energy, so it may always be too expensive to be practical.

We have better solutions than roasting oil shale or drilling ANWR.  PHEV vehicles like the Chevy Volt will let us replace about 80% of liquid fuel with electricity, which can come from sources as varied as solar panels and nuclear reactors.  Biofuels can replace the other 20%.  That will permanently replace the need for fossil sources of motor fuel.

Answer 8

Well Fred, lemme tell ya.

First there's a shortage of production, not oil. Makes a big difference.

We learned in the 70's that processing shale oil sucks. As a last resort before freezing to death it would be okay, but there are other places to get oil - like Alaska.

And when gas goes to $7.45 per gallon - the current price in Germany - all but the most ardent environmentalists will be screaming for drilling in Alaska. And by ardent environmentalist I DO NOT mean Al Gore.

Now, the country of Kuwait wouldn't exist without us. I'm not sure why we aren't getting heavily discounted oil out of them.

We've lost plenty of guys in Iraq so I'd be happy if they'd start paying us back in oil. Of course once they get a real democracy they'll turn on us like everyone else.

So rather than make the mess that shale oil production at the Green River site would make, let's just take over Iraq permanently.

We've already paid way too high of a price for that real estate to just let it go.