Oil shale is a problematic fuel option

There is both good news and bad news about oil shale. The good news is that it is plentiful. Around the world, there are thought to be roughly 3 trillion barrels of oil locked in oil shale deposits. And more than half of that is in the United States. Most of the U.S. oil shale is located in an area known as the Green River Formation, which stretches across Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. It is possible that there is more oil in these U.S. deposits of oil shale than there is oil left in “normal” crude oil deposits worldwide. In other words, oil shale could provide the United States with oil for many decades.

The bad news is that the oil in oil shale is not so easy to extract. With a normal oil well, you are tapping into an underground lake of oil. An oil company drills down to the lake and then pumps the liquid oil to the surface. This liquid crude oil can flow through pipelines directly to a refinery.

With oil shale, you start with something that looks like a rock. You dig this rock out of the ground, usually using the same kind of techniques used to mine coal. This rock obviously contains energy, because the rock burns if you light it. In some countries, oil shale rock is a fuel for power plants.

But, if you want to convert oil shale into something like gasoline or diesel fuel, you need a few more steps. The most common technique is to heat the rock to a high temperature to turn all of the oil contained in the rock into a gas. The heating is done in a container that does not contain any oxygen, so the oil won’t burn. Once you cool the gas back down, much of it liquefies. This liquid is processed and refined to form different liquid fuels.

Pittsburg Tribune-Review