Of course that's assuming that the petroleum from oil shale is economically recoverable. Look how long it took for the oil sands up in Alberta to be economically viable - almost 30 years of work. And look what's happening with it now, the area is being strip mined to recover the oil. Some have described the area as an ecological catastrophe in the making. While its nice to talk about x amount of oil available from oil shale, the costs may be too high.
> Um, I don't think you're looking at real statistics. According to this > report we have a LOT more than you think: > > http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2005/RAND_MG414.pdf > > The largest known oil shale deposits in the world are in the Green > River Formation, > which covers portions of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. Estimates of the > oil > resource in place within the Green River Formation range from 1.5 to 1. > 8 trillion > barrels. Not all resources in place are recoverable. For potentially > recoverable oil shale resources, we roughly derive an upper bound of 1. > 1 trillion barrels of oil and a lower bound of about 500 billion > barrels. For policy planning purposes, it is enough to know that any > amount in this range is very high. For example, the midpoint in our > estimate range, 800 billion barrels, is more than triple the proven > oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. Present U.S. demand for petroleum > products is about 20 million barrels per day. If oil shale could be > used to meet a quarter of that demand, 800 billion barrels of > recoverable resources would last for more than 400 years. > > > You seem to have a skewed perspective. So what if somebody in Israel > > > sets up a plant to produce 20000 barrels of oil per day. The US uses > > > 20 million barrels a day and imports 10 million barrels per day. > Even > > the highest estimates for what the oil shale deposits in the US can > > > produce in two decades end at 5 million barrels a day. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;160198600;22374440;w Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:249193 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
