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Page added on December 10, 2012
Hofmeister: US Could Tap into 1.6 Trillion Barrels of Oil Resource
I, along with my editor Sam Avro, recently conducted a broad-ranging interview with John Hofmeister, former President of Shell Oil and currently the head of Citizens for Affordable Energy, a non-profit group whose aim is to promote sound U.S. energy security solutions for the nation. Previous interviews with Mr. Hofmeister were:
A Difficult Decade Ahead For Oil Prices and Supplies
Surging Demand and Flat Production Equals High Oil Prices
Hofmeister: Treat Climate Change as a Waste Management Problem
In the current and final installment, he discusses the technical feasibility of producing oil from kerogen.
Shale Oil and Oil Shale
Although the oil coming from the Bakken Shale Formation in North Dakota and the Eagle Ford Shale in Texas is commonly referred to as shale oil, it is properly called “tight oil.” The term shale oil has been used historically to refer to oil that is produced from kerogen, but “shale oil” is often improperly used synonymously with the oil produced from tight oil formations.
To keep the distinctions clear, I provided the following definitions in Setting the Record Straight on U.S. Oil Reserves:
Oil shale — sedimentary rock that contains solid hydrocarbons called kerogen (e.g., Green River Formation)
Shale oil — the oil that can be obtained by cooking kerogen
Tight oil — liquid hydrocarbons that are obtained by hydraulic fracturing of shale formations (e.g., Bakken Formation and Eagle Ford Formation)
Oil resource — the total amount of oil in place, most of which can’t be recovered
Oil reserve — the amount of oil that can be recovered economically with existing technology.
The U.S. has an enormous resource base of kerogen, which can be converted into oil. The resource base is estimated to be 1.6 trillion barrels of oil equivalent in the ground – more oil than has been burned by the world since we began to burn oil. Kerogen looks like a rock, and has to be heated to finish “cooking” it. It can be thought of as Mother Nature’s unfinished oil. But commercial production remains elusive because the energy inputs are so high. People have been predicting commercialization for over 100 years.
I have long been skeptical about the commercialization of oil from kerogen, but Shell has been attempting to develop a process for commercialization. The surge in shale oil production shows that new technologies can convert formerly uneconomical oil resources into oil reserves, so it isn’t out of the realm of possibility that this could also be the case with kerogen. Therefore, I posed the question to Mr. Hofmeister of whether commercial feasibility of oil from kerogen would be viable in the near future.
His response was that it depends on the types of energy inputs and the process employed. He suggested that the economic route would be in situ heating of the kerogen using either electricity from a nuclear power plant, or from “coal, augmented with wind and solar.”
Mr. Hofmeister further stated that two potential obstacles are political opposition to permitting such a process, and whether enough water is available in the very arid locations where the major shale resources are located. On the water issue, he felt that the in situ heating process developed by Shell would minimize the water requirement. But the political opposition would likely be fierce. Shale oil production would touch upon many environmental issues, the most important of which to many environmentalists would be the significant potential for greenhouse gas emissions from exploiting this enormous resource. Further, there would be significant opposition to using either coal or nuclear power as the heating source for processing the kerogen.
In summary, the obstacles look too formidable at this time to believe that the enormous kerogen resource base in the U.S. will soon be exploited. Thus, at least for the present, I believe the 1.6 trillion barrel resource base will maintain a reserve value of zero barrels.
Link to Original Article: Hofmeister: US Could Tap into 1.6 Trillion Barrels of Oil Resource
13 Comments on "Hofmeister: US Could Tap into 1.6 Trillion Barrels of Oil Resource"
BillT on Mon, 10th Dec 2012 2:49 pm
What planet are they talking about? It certainly is not this one. Oh, kerogen. Another petroholic wet dream..lol. Not going to happen in this century.
Bor on Mon, 10th Dec 2012 3:06 pm
Not going to happen in any century. It is a dream and always will be. This kerogen talk is for total illiteracy. Kerogen is used in Estonia as fuel. In Estonia they do not convert kerogen into oil. They just burn it. To run our economy on kerogen as Estonia does? What kind of weed Robert Rapier is smoking?
Bor on Mon, 10th Dec 2012 3:08 pm
I am sorry, it is Hofmeister who smokes this wonderful weed.
econ101 on Mon, 10th Dec 2012 4:20 pm
This article provides a prime example of extremist politics causing shortages in energy. I’m not sure what the point of some alarmist is? It’s easy to understand why politicians hop on this bandwagon. They can engage the energies of a lot of useful, but easily manipulated, legions approaching the issue emotionally rather than understanding it from a factual basis. We have all the energy we need. Politics is keeping us from it. Even after GW was discredited when the huge data manipulation scandal was unveiled some still believe that nonsense. Weather may be changing, who knows, but it isn’t CO2. If it was Mars would be Venus.
Peak politics = peak oil.
Bor on Mon, 10th Dec 2012 5:43 pm
When was GW discredited? The last time I have looked it was accepted. I see, of course, the North Pole ice is melting for the reason of extreme politics.
rollin on Mon, 10th Dec 2012 6:16 pm
This is a psycopath’s dream and our nightmare. There is no way this makes any sense from any rational point of view. It would be far more economical and much less polluting to put the electricity for heating directly into electric cars and trains for transportation, thus eliminating the need for oil.
These guys are so stuck on oil that they can’t even add anymore.
Rick on Mon, 10th Dec 2012 9:00 pm
Okay, another stupid idea, from an oil fool.
And who is this fool “econ101” — you’re so full of shit. And someone who doesn’t care about the environment. Most likely you’re a troll. Please crawl back into your hole.
DC on Mon, 10th Dec 2012 9:04 pm
“Citizens for Affordable Energy” is just another of the (many) US oil-cartel astro-turf groups that make the rounds, promoting whatever destructive technologies or projects the US corporations want to pursue.
DC on Mon, 10th Dec 2012 9:06 pm
@Rick Econ101=SoS
ian807 on Mon, 10th Dec 2012 10:02 pm
As always, the formula is “quantity x net energy = total energy”
1.6 trillion barrels of oil is a meaningless number without knowing net energy. We have no idea how much total usable energy is there.
James A. Hellams on Tue, 11th Dec 2012 1:35 am
Regarding energy input to heat the kerogen in situ; I recall reading an article on this site that stated it would take heating the kerogen with electric heat for two years with electric heat, before there could be even the starting of production.
No wonder, that the energy input needed for the production of the kerogen is so prohibitive.
As I have said before in comments on other posts on this site; geologic constraints and EROEI cannot be overcome with money; no matter how much money you throw down the hole. EROEI and geologic constraints will always win over finances in oil production!
James on Tue, 11th Dec 2012 3:15 am
There needs to be a clarification between resources and reserves. Resources are the smaller fraction of the Reserves that can be extracted at an economic ROI cost. The i.6 trillion barrels of oil is an estimate of what the resources may be, if they in fact exist. You’re only going to get a small fraction of the Reserves no matter how you increase the ROI of a resource. If the yield from the reserves go down, the ROI goes up. Thus increasing the cost of oil as an example.
James on Tue, 11th Dec 2012 3:18 am
Correction: the word resources after the 1.6 trillion barrels of oil in the second line, should be reserves. My bad.