[copious.abundance]

Everybody's favorite topic.

>>> Bloomberg <<<

[dbruning]

1.53 Trillion...that is a lot of oil! Good news indeed.

Of course the 2nd paragraph does say: "There is no economically viable method of extracting it" - but why let things like that get in the way.

On the other hand, perhaps someone will one day figure out a way to get at it.

[copious.abundance]

As a footnote, this is just the Colorado part of the Green River Shale in the Piceance Basin. It doesn't even include the parts of the GRS in Utah and Wyoming. Which means there's even more oil in the thing than 1.53 trillion barrels!



Here a link to the USGS fact sheet:
http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2009/3012/pdf/FS09-3012.pdf

[copious.abundance]

Ah yes, the law of receding horizons, which, among other things, assumes that the price of oil will always rise, and thus, more-expensive oil sources will forever be out of reach.

The problem with this theory is, the price of oil does not always rise. But I guess some people haven't learned that yet.

[bencole]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('OilFinder2', 'A')s a footnote, this is just the Colorado part of the Green River Shale in the Piceance Basin. It doesn't even include the parts of the GRS in Utah and Wyoming. Which means there's even more oil in the thing than 1.53 trillion barrels!

[copious.abundance]

It is too early to tell what, if anything, that price spike meant. Maybe the spike was an anomaly, not the drop. Then maybe Matt Simmons will work the markets into another frenzy and we'll get another price spike soon, but this time people will be fed up and start buying CNG cars en masse and maybe even a lot of those Teslas and Volts! After which point demand for oil will plummet and go down to $20 again and stay there for decades.



"Predictions can be hard to make, especially about the future"
- Mark Twain -

[bencole]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '
')EROEI becomes especially pertinent when levels drop to below 10:1 or so. Not only is production slow, but then 10% of production is lost to production.

[copious.abundance]

Incidentally, for the record . . .

At this point I don't even really care all that much about this particular oil shale deposit. Why? Because there are a lot of other shales - like the Bakken, the Woodford, and the Tuscaloosa - which have tons of high-quality, thermally-mature oil which doesn't need all the processing this thermally-immature kerogen does. If you're gonna drill holes into a shale, might as well go after the good stuff.



But it would still be fun to see them churn out at least a half-million bpd of kerogen out of this thing, just to show the doomers it can be done economically.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bencole', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '
')EROEI becomes especially pertinent when levels drop to below 10:1 or so. Not only is production slow, but then 10% of production is lost to production.

[bencole]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('OilFinder2', 'I')ncidentally, for the record . . .

At this point I don't even really care all that much about this particular oil shale deposit. Why? Because there are a lot of other shales - like the Bakken, the Woodford, and the Tuscaloosa - which have tons of high-quality, thermally-mature oil which doesn't need all the processing this thermally-immature kerogen does. If you're gonna drill holes into a shale, might as well go after the good stuff.

[copious.abundance]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')'ve also been reading some about the Bakken formation as well , and it doesn't seem to be much better. The USGS and the state gov. of Montana and N. Dakota estimate that their is only about 2 or 3 billion barrels of recoverable oil spread across the entire massive formation. This is not a particularily large oil field, and in combination with the low flow rates, it doesn't seem likely to help much with the USA's oil demand.

[bencole]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('OilFinder2', '
')According to a more recent thread on The Oil Drum, THAI could have an EROEI as high as 1:56, depending on which steps you include.

[bencole]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('OilFinder2', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')'ve also been reading some about the Bakken formation as well , and it doesn't seem to be much better. The USGS and the state gov. of Montana and N. Dakota estimate that their is only about 2 or 3 billion barrels of recoverable oil spread across the entire massive formation. This is not a particularily large oil field, and in combination with the low flow rates, it doesn't seem likely to help much with the USA's oil demand.

[copious.abundance]

You said:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')his is not a particularily large oil field, and in combination with the low flow rates, it doesn't seem likely to help much with the USA's oil demand.

[copious.abundance]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bencole', 'I')'m not sure it can achieve production rates that high anytime soon. The Elm coulee field in the in Montana, the largest in the Bakken, has a production of just over 50 000 bpd, so I think that a more likely figure would be similar to this one.

[copious.abundance]

Oh yeah, and one more thing: If you're spending your time googleing stuff about the Bakken to respond to my comments, don't bother. I know basically anything and everything about the Bakken that you could find on the internet. If you want to know anything about the Bakken, save yourself some googleing time and just ask me instead.

[bencole]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('OilFinder2', '
')
For a nation which, in 2006, was producing about 5 million bpd, a 130K bpd increase is a nice addition,