by copious.abundance » Mon 06 Apr 2009, 15:23:36
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'T')o the folks who have joined this thread and may feel confused:
1.53 billion barrels of petroleum do not exist under the Colorado. The material referenced in the Bloomberg article is 'shale oil' a degraded (through contact with the surface) form of fossil fuels and is actually kerogen, asphalt. It has little caloric content on its own and to be used must by hydrogenated at great expense. For this reason it has never been and most likely never will be produced. (See my quote from geologist Professor Kenneth S. Deffeyes.)
The thread title chosen by Oilfinder2 ('1.53 Trillion Barrels of Oil') and the linked article headline ("Colorado Shale May Hold 1.53 Trillion Barrels of Oil ") are both intentionally wrong, misleading and intended to overstate petroleum reserves. Furthermore OF used logical fallacies (red herrring, diversions, distractions, etc. ) to distance himself from his errors.
Oilfinder created several diversion and distractions when I pointed out that Green River kerogen has not, and can not, be produced.
False statements here include:
1) Oil shale has, in fact, been produced. This link
here, for example, tells us Petrobras has been producing it in Brazil since 1953. There have been other instances elsewhere, including the well-known Shell Mahogany pilot project. It is true these have not been done on a large scale, but they have, in fact, been done.
2) The title of this thread, and the title of the article, said, "1.53 Trillion Barrels of
Oil ... " Not petroleum. This, after all, is why they call it
Oil shale. At any rate, if you do not consider kerogen to be a form of either oil or petroleum, you are free to believe so. For others (including the USGS who wrote the report) consider it sufficiently close to petroleum to give it the "oil" label.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '-')-
He misrepresented the Law of Receding Horizons, labeled a contradictory chart as evidence. He did not refute the law's basic principal, which explains why marginal oil and gas projects
can still be uneconomical even with high oil prices, contrary to projections.
AHA! We've now been reduced to "can still be" uneconomical. How convenient. Before we were talking about certainty:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')e was also the one who coined "The Law of Receding Horizons." For those who missed my previous articles on receding horizons, it is a simple concept: as the cost of energy rises, the cost of everything else made with energy (like building materials) also rises.