America’s Untapped Oil

Untapped Wind or Untapped Sun - in reality untapped ignorance.

People that spout nonsense such as - "the united states can grow its way to energy independence" - or those that expect solar (or wind) can immediately replace our hydrocarbon energy sources really need to get a fundamental understanding of engineering.

It isn't enough to mouth pablum - it isn't a question of mouthing the correct phrases. Our present energy policy develeoped because it was the most exploitable, the most developable, the most scalable.

People have NO understanding of the issues, fed by (mostly democratic) politicians hoping to capitalize.
Each alternative source has issues: For example if you are a proponent of solar power, do you understand what energy density is? Can you quote what the available energy is per square meter? What is the conversion efficiency?

The debacle of politician inspired energy solutions is illustrated by ethanol. Congress mandated ethanol production. So at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars tons of food were turned into fuel. But the net energy production - after production and distribution costs - was miniscule. It would have been almost as efficient if we had simply burned the dollar bills. Meanwhile we degrade our farmland and raise wholesale food costs 76%.

McCain said famously - your jobs are lost. Similarly to americans I would say - the era of $3.00 gas - of SUV's is forever gone. And what will follow will be a long period of retrenchment as we adjust to ever more expensive sources of energy.

Untapped Wind or Untapped Sun - in reality untapped ignorance.

People that spout nonsense such as - "the united states can grow its way to energy independence" - or those that expect solar (or wind) can immediately replace our hydrocarbon energy sources really need to get a fundamental understanding of engineering.

It isn't enough to mouth pablum - it isn't a question of mouthing the correct phrases. Our present energy policy develeoped because it was the most exploitable, the most developable, the most scalable.

People have NO understanding of the issues, fed by (mostly democratic) politicians hoping to capitalize.
Each alternative source has issues: For example if you are a proponent of solar power, do you understand what energy density is? Can you quote what the available energy is per square meter? What is the conversion efficiency?

The debacle of politician inspired energy solutions is illustrated by ethanol. Congress mandated ethanol production. So at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars tons of food were turned into fuel. But the net energy production - after production and distribution costs - was miniscule. It would have been almost as efficient if we had simply burned the dollar bills. Meanwhile we degrade our farmland and raise wholesale food costs 76%.

McCain said famously - your jobs are lost. Similarly to americans I would say - the era of $3.00 gas - of SUV's is forever gone. And what will follow will be a long period of retrenchment as we adjust to ever more expensive sources of energy.

Oh...you mean another "fuel" to dig up transport and sell to the consumer at ever increasing prices.

Don't be fooled by why the media plays these energy concepts up. Through the conglomerates (the big 5) the media is in collusion with the oil industry. Just look at the banner adds running on across the major news outlets online. Car and airplane companies claiming to want to be "green". Oil companies claiming to have a "diverse" energy supply portfolio of wind, solar and other renewables.

IT'S ALL A SHAM.

If Newsweek really wanted to talk about the future of energy, the title of the story would have read, "America???s Untapped WIND", or even "America???s Untapped SUN".

OR why not talk about the fact that we are sitting in our cars on top of technology that hasn't changed much in about a century.

TALK ABOUT THE LACK OF PROGRESS.

There are many reasons we need to get off our oil addition and to start thinking green.......... jobs, environment, energy independence from tyrannical leaders of the world........................................or we can just keep it the same and buy gas to build the roads and bridges in Canada instead, or help Saudi Arabia buy some more missiles for their army..........and continue to produce crappy gas guzzling trucks that no one can afford........while watching Toyota and Honda build and sell the cars Americans are increasingly interested in buying...............we can continue to pay to inefficiently transmit electricity great distances from expensive coal plants................while we dig and drill frivolously to catch up with demand for power, scaring our back yards with huge holes and stinky refineries.........

It's about time...........and slowly but surely.........the obstruction to this fight "Republicans", are a dwindling few.

... but is it 'CLEAN'?

No matter how high the price of oil, the oil shale in Colorado will not yield any oil. The problem is that more energy is used in mining and processing oil from oil shale than what is produced. Therefore, the price of oil can go to $1,000 per barrel and oil shale will still lose money. Also, oil shale operations use enormous amounts of very scarce water. For details see: http://www.peakoilassociates.com/POAnalysis.html

No matter how high the price of oil, the oil shale in Colorado will not yield any oil. The problem is that more energy is used in mining and processing oil from oil shale than what is produced. Therefore, the price of oil can go to $1,000 per barrel and oil shale will still lose money. Also, oil shale operations use enormous amounts of very scarce water. For details see: http://www.peakoilassociates.com/POAnalysis.html

We definitely can but we will have to get Congress "OUT OF THE WAY".

I worked on this oil shale mine in 1981 in Colorado as a driver of workers on the site. Let me tell you, this was environmental devastation at its worst! The mountaintop mining of West Virginia has nothing over what oil shale did to western Colorado. There was not one square inch of the planet here untouched. it was absolutely like a far, far planet. Every inch of waterfall, creek, forest was completely ripped up. Flat dirt everywhere. It was like a moonscape. Just plowed dirt every square inch. The photo in the begin of this story tells it all. I saw and worke by this cliff you see there, reduce a wilderness landscape with a waterfall to what you see there, a carved out cliff where nature once stood. Why did I do this? I needed a job and I was an enviro, still am, but I was very curious to see what was being done. I knew somebody had to do the job. It paid well, but........ And water, it takes water and water and...................................

Even if you pay the same, you will be keeping the money in the United States and created jobs here instead of sending the money to dictators that just want to destroy us. As always there is the environmentalist argument. If the leaders of Iran get the atomic bomb and start a nuclear war with Israel the dead would be count by tens of millions, but sometimes this is difficult to factor in environmental discussions. Let me put the argument in a way that have environmental sense: the Middle East and the Mediterranean Basin are home of many rare species and this is also the way of passage of many migratory birds. Imagine the environmental impact that the radioactive fallout of a nuclear war would have on this area. Maybe if you see it that way it would put some sense of balance in the argument about the possible danger to the environment.

Ok, what is the meaning of all this; Shell Oil Co. vs shale oil !? Can someone explain to Me the catch here. Not stupid, just curious, since "oil" in any form and/or shape, is not My field of expertise ....

It still takes more BTU to get the oil out of the ground than it will produce. This will remain the same no matter how much the oil is selling for. The only process that looks fesible is using nuclear to heat the formations. Then you still have the ground water problems. Does anyone remember the lack of water that the west has? You can not make water from nothing.

Wait a minute! I notice that shale oil is now "economically viable." This implies that the shale oil will be sold to us at the same price as foreigh oil, or higher. So, to the American consumer there is no cost saving. We'll be paying the oil companies just as much money, while despoiling the American West and depleting our own resources instead of foreign resources. .

For non-technical english major types its not a biased as usual. The north Dakota deposits have oil revoverable for the interstices of the rock - like canadian tar sands- but much deeper. The Green river basen has lots of theoritical oil but it is much more tightly bound to the rock - intigrat to the shale composition.

Must take a lot of energy to heat up rock for 3 years.

hmm they say that it has not happened to sell even on barrel of oil extracted from shale in the U.S. , while I do not have the sources to refute that, I do know that Canada is producing shale oil at an affordable cost due to the current prices of "traditional" oil. Use their technology to get our oil sounds like a win, win to me....