Kyle R. Mcallister wrote:
Interesting if accurate:
http://www.upi.com/Energy/view.php?StoryID=20061107-070924-5161r
And the CO2phobes begin to scream in 5...4...3...2....
If indeed workable, we can begin 2 things almost immediately, if played
right:
1. Rapidly shut down U.S. reliance on foreign oil imports, ideally
ending them altogether.
2. If it is so cheap, use the excess profits (well, some anyways, got to
give the companies some incentive) to begin constructing solar
facilities in the desert. This will take some pretty serious regulation,
but should be done.
The oil shale, if this works as well as it seems, may be our last chance
to get off our collective rear ends and set up permanently renewable
energy sources, while having a nice buffer of cheap, profit-making
energy during the time of transition. I can see the oil companies (if
not involved in the oil shale conversion process) and the envirofascists
Speaking as a CO2phobe and bonafide tree-hugger I object to being called
an "envirofascist".
Personally, I do indeed worry about stuff like "clathrate burps", and
get a bad feeling about anything that will delay the day when we finally
reduce CO2 emissions. On the other hand, wars are bad, too, and
anything that helps reduce U.S. economic dependence on the Middle East
mess must be a Good Thing -- and that surely includes oil shale development.
"Hitting the wall" without any breathing space when the oil runs out
seems like a recipe for a world catastrophe, and as you point out, oil
shale could give the United States the breathing room it needs to get
long-term solutions in place.
One nit I would pick with your post is that, looking at overall process
costs, including the strip-mining and subsequent enviro repair which is
likely to be involved in getting the stuff out of the ground, I'm not
sure it's really going to be "cheap" energy. But at this stage in the
game, anything that qualifies as "available" energy is probably just
fine -- after all, we've been living pretty well with $65/bbl oil (give
or take a ten-spot), which doesn't exactly qualify as "cheap energy",
either.
(this does not include all those who are environmentalists, just the
whackjobs) being the two greatest threats to doing this.
--Kyle
