Why don't we invest in oil shale ?

Question

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/j-thomas-andrews/oil-shale-to-the-rescue_b_62057.html

this is a link and please read then post and

if anyone could help find out how much energy is used to get a barrel of oil out of oil shale i would apreciate it

Answer 1

We are investing in it...look at the department of energy's website...

Answer 2

Oil shale is somewhat of a miss name.  It's actually not a shale, and the material it contains is not really oil, or at least not petroleum.  Oil shale contains keragin, material that was not exposed to sufficient heat and/or pressure to become petroleum.  When heated, this material liquifies and undergoes some simple reactions that move it more toward petroleum.

Keragin is costly to recover, at least compared to conventional petroleum or oil sands bitumen, and it is more difficult to refine.  There are also significant environmental issues surrounding the recovery process (what to do with the rocks once the keragin has been extracted, how to keep recovered keragin out of the ground water systems).  Studies are, however, underway.

Answer 3

It would cost more than it is worth.