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Are the dollar figures noted in this section US dollars, or other; and at what time? This [1] seems to say US$30/bbl in 2005 is the floor for economic production rather than the $40/bbl stated in the article. -- 69.157.100.206 16:58, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
Getting Oil Shale to Relieve Looming Oil Shortage. Under the assumptions a) oil shale can be extracted economically at $30-$40 per barrel; b) US shale reserves about equal to estimated world oil reserves; c) the US government could guarantee a large scale purchase of oil from oil shale at $40/ barrel to be put either into reserve or sold on the market with say a 10 billion per year to support commercial production could we bring stability to the oil maket price? This would effectively cap the long term price of oil at some deliverable level. -- WalterSchneiderPittsburgh 13:11, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[ [2]
This section is incredibly biased towards the Oil Tech process and appears to be written by a promoter. No credible comparative economic study I've seen has come to this conclusion--one can only reach a defendable conclusion by using and disclosing a consistent set of economic assumptions. For example, there is no mention of the 1990 NRC report "Fuels to Drive our Future", which tried to compare different oil shale processes with other sources of synthetic fuels using consistent economic assumptions. That is not to say that the Oil Tech process should be dismissed out of hand, but there is no objective basis for making these claims in an encyclopedia.
The Oil Tech process is merely one of hundreds that have been tried, and there is no technical basis for its prominence in a general article on oil shale. It would be far better to present a systematic classification table based on heat source, heat transfer method, above or below ground, and then give multiple examples of the various types.
The same problem is true for the statement that the Oil Tech process would be environmentally safe. Even if it were true, there is no independent study I've seen, and certainly none referenced here, to substantiate that claim. It is certainly true that open-pit mining is cheaper than room and pillar mining and is necessary if aboveground shale oil production is to be a significant player in our energy needs, but is it universally accepted that digging up large fractions of the Uinta and Piceance Basin and returning it as a different material is environmentally safe? This conclusion is somewhere between unsubstantiated and subjective. Akburnham 00:17, 29 October 2006 (UTC)A. K. Burnham
Efficency? Nowhere in the article, energy efficiency is mentioned. How much energy do I have to invest to harvest 1 calory in shale oil? Or one could also ask the question in a diffenerent way: How much is the total CO2 output if I want to get 1 MJ of energy from shale oil compared to conventional oil? If some of the processes need months of electrical (!!) heating before extraction, this sounds ridiculous. The processes might be economically viable because liquid fuels yield extremely high prices these days compared to, let's say, coal or even natural gas but might result in a net reduction of fossile fuel resources. Does anybody have data to answer these crucial questions?
Shell's 2005 statements must now be viewed with suspicion, given that Shell backed out of a larger project to demonstrate their technology. Jdkag ( talk) 20:30, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
Anom user added an information that Canada re-started production in 2003-4. I reverted this as no available sources confirm this. However, if there is current commercial production of oil shale in Canada, please provide information where and by whom it was re-started. Beagel 18:27, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
I'd like to take this article to GA status. Having read it several times, and the associated literature, I think it needs to be restructured. The economics are driven, of course, by costs. These costs include capital (a surprisingly small share), environmental ( the cost of cleaning up after one's self), energy input (highly correlated to "break even oil prices"), and water. Acquisition of the mineral resources themselves is minimal. Did I mention water, and the difference between "marginal water costs" and costs of water on the scale to make a commercial impact?
Given above issues, ex-situ processing doesn't seem to work. Am I mistaken? In situ holds "promise" but the promise is a function of the parameters laid above. I think a comparison to coal liquefaction can serve as an economic "backstop"?
I don't want to turn this into a "peaknik" article which states everything is hopeless so lets just "power down". That shouldn't be the point of the restructuring -- Work permit ( talk) 06:15, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
Beagel ( talk) 06:57, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
Having read alot, I think the best way forward for now is to incrementally add sections. I added a sections on water usage. I think carbon emmisions would be next, then expand the eroi. After that a section on yields, social/political/permitting "costs". Finally a section which breaks down capital and operating costs. The more I read, the more I suspect "water/carbon/enviornmental" issues are secondary, the real question is capital/eroi costs. What do people think?-- Work permit ( talk) 03:45, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
Since there is some public controversy of the environmental impacts of oil shale exploitation and a number of people and environmental groups oppose it, I am wondering if there are any economic considerations on the side of the oil companies. Has there been an economic impact resulting from protests? If so, it might need to be included in this article. Splette :) How's my driving? 02:54, 27 August 2008 (UTC) I am wondering if there are
Added a section on water usage. Would like to keep this section focused on economics. Cost 2.5m bbls/day capacity range between $1.8 bn-$4.2 bn is $1.97-$4.60 bbl-year, or at a 15% roi implies $0.30-$0.60/bbl. Even if the water costs is tripled, it's not really significant. Of course prices would rise is shale were produced, which may mean some cotton farms in arizona get priced out of business :)-- Work permit ( talk) 03:51, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
Anom user added Nighthawk Plc & Running Foxes to the list of current projects. However, there is no reliable sources confirming this claim. It seems that this is one of the cases when company uses "oil shale" not for the kerogen-containing sedimentary rock, but for shale which contains liquid petroleum. Although it may be classified as unconventional oil, it is still in form a liquid oil and not in form of kerogen in the solid rock as in case of oil shale. We have quite similar confusion also with shale gas which may refer to gas in shales (todays common understanding of the term) and oil shale gas (most of the scientific-technical literature refers to it also as "shale gas"). As this article is about the economics of oil shale in its traditional meaning, I reverted this edit to avoid confusion. Also, this list includes confirmed projects at least at the test stage. There is no such information about Nighthawk Plc & Running Foxes. Beagel ( talk) 17:58, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
Anon user added outdated tag to the 'Break-even price of crude oil' section with reasoning "Parts of this article (those related to The technologies to reduce costs of shale mining have progressed significantly since 2005, the date of this section's future breakeven cost-projections.) are outdated." While I agree that the article may be outdated, I disagree with this reasoning as it seems to confuse oil shale and producing oil from the oil-bearing shales which are very different things. While there is indeed a significant progress on technologies producing tight oil (also referred as shale oil) from the oil-bearing shales, there is no such progress related to producing oil from oil shale. Therefore, I will remove the tag now. Beagel ( talk) 14:20, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
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The production of oil from shale will not happen no matter the price of a barrel of crude if the current political climate is geared towards moving away from the use of fossil fuels and more towards electric vehicles, solar, wind and hydroelectric sources of energy. 2607:FB91:8E83:7AD:E1F5:4C8F:6BA0:4164 ( talk) 19:04, 3 October 2023 (UTC)
![]() | Material from Oil shale was split to Oil shale economics on 10:53, 19 July 2007. The former page's history now serves to provide attribution for that content in the latter page, and it must not be deleted so long as the latter page exists. Please leave this template in place to link the article histories and preserve this attribution. The former page's talk page can be accessed at Talk:Oil shale. |
![]() | Oil shale economics received a peer review by Wikipedia editors, which is now archived. It may contain ideas you can use to improve this article. |
![]() | This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||
|
Are the dollar figures noted in this section US dollars, or other; and at what time? This [1] seems to say US$30/bbl in 2005 is the floor for economic production rather than the $40/bbl stated in the article. -- 69.157.100.206 16:58, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
Getting Oil Shale to Relieve Looming Oil Shortage. Under the assumptions a) oil shale can be extracted economically at $30-$40 per barrel; b) US shale reserves about equal to estimated world oil reserves; c) the US government could guarantee a large scale purchase of oil from oil shale at $40/ barrel to be put either into reserve or sold on the market with say a 10 billion per year to support commercial production could we bring stability to the oil maket price? This would effectively cap the long term price of oil at some deliverable level. -- WalterSchneiderPittsburgh 13:11, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[ [2]
This section is incredibly biased towards the Oil Tech process and appears to be written by a promoter. No credible comparative economic study I've seen has come to this conclusion--one can only reach a defendable conclusion by using and disclosing a consistent set of economic assumptions. For example, there is no mention of the 1990 NRC report "Fuels to Drive our Future", which tried to compare different oil shale processes with other sources of synthetic fuels using consistent economic assumptions. That is not to say that the Oil Tech process should be dismissed out of hand, but there is no objective basis for making these claims in an encyclopedia.
The Oil Tech process is merely one of hundreds that have been tried, and there is no technical basis for its prominence in a general article on oil shale. It would be far better to present a systematic classification table based on heat source, heat transfer method, above or below ground, and then give multiple examples of the various types.
The same problem is true for the statement that the Oil Tech process would be environmentally safe. Even if it were true, there is no independent study I've seen, and certainly none referenced here, to substantiate that claim. It is certainly true that open-pit mining is cheaper than room and pillar mining and is necessary if aboveground shale oil production is to be a significant player in our energy needs, but is it universally accepted that digging up large fractions of the Uinta and Piceance Basin and returning it as a different material is environmentally safe? This conclusion is somewhere between unsubstantiated and subjective. Akburnham 00:17, 29 October 2006 (UTC)A. K. Burnham
Efficency? Nowhere in the article, energy efficiency is mentioned. How much energy do I have to invest to harvest 1 calory in shale oil? Or one could also ask the question in a diffenerent way: How much is the total CO2 output if I want to get 1 MJ of energy from shale oil compared to conventional oil? If some of the processes need months of electrical (!!) heating before extraction, this sounds ridiculous. The processes might be economically viable because liquid fuels yield extremely high prices these days compared to, let's say, coal or even natural gas but might result in a net reduction of fossile fuel resources. Does anybody have data to answer these crucial questions?
Shell's 2005 statements must now be viewed with suspicion, given that Shell backed out of a larger project to demonstrate their technology. Jdkag ( talk) 20:30, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
Anom user added an information that Canada re-started production in 2003-4. I reverted this as no available sources confirm this. However, if there is current commercial production of oil shale in Canada, please provide information where and by whom it was re-started. Beagel 18:27, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
I'd like to take this article to GA status. Having read it several times, and the associated literature, I think it needs to be restructured. The economics are driven, of course, by costs. These costs include capital (a surprisingly small share), environmental ( the cost of cleaning up after one's self), energy input (highly correlated to "break even oil prices"), and water. Acquisition of the mineral resources themselves is minimal. Did I mention water, and the difference between "marginal water costs" and costs of water on the scale to make a commercial impact?
Given above issues, ex-situ processing doesn't seem to work. Am I mistaken? In situ holds "promise" but the promise is a function of the parameters laid above. I think a comparison to coal liquefaction can serve as an economic "backstop"?
I don't want to turn this into a "peaknik" article which states everything is hopeless so lets just "power down". That shouldn't be the point of the restructuring -- Work permit ( talk) 06:15, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
Beagel ( talk) 06:57, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
Having read alot, I think the best way forward for now is to incrementally add sections. I added a sections on water usage. I think carbon emmisions would be next, then expand the eroi. After that a section on yields, social/political/permitting "costs". Finally a section which breaks down capital and operating costs. The more I read, the more I suspect "water/carbon/enviornmental" issues are secondary, the real question is capital/eroi costs. What do people think?-- Work permit ( talk) 03:45, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
Since there is some public controversy of the environmental impacts of oil shale exploitation and a number of people and environmental groups oppose it, I am wondering if there are any economic considerations on the side of the oil companies. Has there been an economic impact resulting from protests? If so, it might need to be included in this article. Splette :) How's my driving? 02:54, 27 August 2008 (UTC) I am wondering if there are
Added a section on water usage. Would like to keep this section focused on economics. Cost 2.5m bbls/day capacity range between $1.8 bn-$4.2 bn is $1.97-$4.60 bbl-year, or at a 15% roi implies $0.30-$0.60/bbl. Even if the water costs is tripled, it's not really significant. Of course prices would rise is shale were produced, which may mean some cotton farms in arizona get priced out of business :)-- Work permit ( talk) 03:51, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
Anom user added Nighthawk Plc & Running Foxes to the list of current projects. However, there is no reliable sources confirming this claim. It seems that this is one of the cases when company uses "oil shale" not for the kerogen-containing sedimentary rock, but for shale which contains liquid petroleum. Although it may be classified as unconventional oil, it is still in form a liquid oil and not in form of kerogen in the solid rock as in case of oil shale. We have quite similar confusion also with shale gas which may refer to gas in shales (todays common understanding of the term) and oil shale gas (most of the scientific-technical literature refers to it also as "shale gas"). As this article is about the economics of oil shale in its traditional meaning, I reverted this edit to avoid confusion. Also, this list includes confirmed projects at least at the test stage. There is no such information about Nighthawk Plc & Running Foxes. Beagel ( talk) 17:58, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
Anon user added outdated tag to the 'Break-even price of crude oil' section with reasoning "Parts of this article (those related to The technologies to reduce costs of shale mining have progressed significantly since 2005, the date of this section's future breakeven cost-projections.) are outdated." While I agree that the article may be outdated, I disagree with this reasoning as it seems to confuse oil shale and producing oil from the oil-bearing shales which are very different things. While there is indeed a significant progress on technologies producing tight oil (also referred as shale oil) from the oil-bearing shales, there is no such progress related to producing oil from oil shale. Therefore, I will remove the tag now. Beagel ( talk) 14:20, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
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The production of oil from shale will not happen no matter the price of a barrel of crude if the current political climate is geared towards moving away from the use of fossil fuels and more towards electric vehicles, solar, wind and hydroelectric sources of energy. 2607:FB91:8E83:7AD:E1F5:4C8F:6BA0:4164 ( talk) 19:04, 3 October 2023 (UTC)