There are rules that can be applied like replacing less efficient fuels (in terms of energy per CO2 released) like coal with more efficient ones like natural gas, and never switching towards less efficient fuels
like shale oil from more efficient ones like regular oil.
With regard to difficulty, some parallels with other inefficient ideas
like shale oil (tar sands), biofuels (particularly from corn), and on the way - out fringe, the moon and mars.
Not exact matches
Other analysts,
like economist Nouriel Roubini, argued that cheap
oil would last just a year or 18 months before producers
like Saudi Arabia had successfully flushed out higher - cost competitors
like shale producers here in the U.S.
More bountiful still is
oil shale, a type of heavy
oil that lies between layers of rocks
like North Dakota's
shale -
oil but requires oilsand -
like extraction and upgrading techniques.
Advances in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing over the past 20 years led to a U.S. energy boom in «unconventionals,» a category that includes the
shale gas and «tight»
oil found in
shale fields
like the Cretaceous Eagle Ford and Mowry and older ones
like the Barnett and Bakken.
The recent
oil shale boom was powered mostly by small firms because larger multinationals
like Exxon and BP are structured for big payoff, technically - difficult projects
like deep water drilling and Arctic exploration.
The looming supply growth is mostly due to two factors: the scheduled end of OPEC / non-OPEC production cuts in March and US
shale production, including NGLs, «growing
like crazy,» said New York - based Mike Wittner, managing director and global head of
oil research at Societe Generale.
Credit distress is rampant among energy companies, which borrowed heavily against the promise of
shale oil and gas extraction and are now reeling from what looks
like a prolonged price crash.
However,
oil prices have been dropping
like hot potatoes, almost 30 %, and with that energy stocks are tanking in unison and singing songs with same tune, along with drilling and exploration companies for
shale oil or natural gas.
Saudi Arabia is likely to continue its policy of maintaining high crude production, which keeps
oil prices from rebounding until high - cost producers
like U.S.
shale frackers curtail output, Kilduff said.
While the market benchmark remains West Texas Intermediate crude delivered in Cushing, Oklahoma, there has been a surge in trading of futures contracts tracking the price differences between WTI and
oil sold in Gulf Coast ports
like Houston and the Permian
shale fields near Midland, Texas.
shale oil may be a bubble but countries
like Libya Iraq Iran produce nothing compared to their potential / production capacity + there is always offshore exploration recently Morocco seems to be in the spot light not to mention the arctic sea / north pole especially Russia where a new Koweit is to be found and also south China sea Venezuela's tight
oil if all the types of
oil are included venezuela must be a heaven with a quarter of global
oil reserves with +300 billion barrels more than 260 bbls of Saudi Arabia that can still produce more than 10/11 million barrel / day that it's procucing today.
As for other UK basins said to hold large quantities of
shale gas,
like those containing the Carboniferous Bowland
Shale in Lancashire and West Lothian
Oil Shale in Scotland, they went through an additional previous episode of deformation about 290m years ago.
Despite the international
shale oil boom extracting natural gas with hydrofracking technologies, which most electric utilities, including the local ones, supply to customers as a major part of their power supply, the shift away from petroleum dependency has made remarkable progress in recent years through strategic incentives
like the one which prompted this vote in Olive.
The numbers aren't perfect — they don't fully reflect the recent surge in unconventional energy sources
like shale gas, and they don't accurately reflect coal reserves, which are subject to less stringent reporting requirements than
oil and gas.
Tar Sands Environmental Destruction Not Worth It At the risk of sounding flippant, sounds
like too little too late: I'll stand by the WWF's assessment that the economic and environmental costs of continuing to develop tar sands and
oil shales — in energy speak «unconventional fuels» — are simply unthinkable.
What the CTL folks are doing — just
like the
oil shale and tar sands folks are doing — is trying to find a way to keep supplying energy to a business - as - usual model in a world of rapidly rising energy demands.
Based on Obama's journey to China, it looks
like the
oil shale contingency is already on the Federal budget.
It certainly seems reasonable to imagine we do lack the kind of self - control needed to use just enough of the
shale oil, gas and tar to pay for the climate - and - democratic transition I describe, but I think this is a bit
like the dieter who believes he must stop eating almost all food to lose weight at all.
In fact, even to reach that level would require exploiting resources
like tar sands and
oil shale that are not only environmentally problematic but also expensive to process.
«The goal of Sapphire is to produce a crude product that can be introduced into the existing crude stream for production costs that are similar to other new opportunities
like oil shales,
oil sands, and even deep, deep water drilling,» Jason Pyle, Sapphire's chief executive said in an interview.
The advent of US
shale oil was also disastrous, lowering the price of crude
oil that is the benchmark upon which other forms of energy are judged, and having consequences
like knocking the bottom out of the coal market, so coal began again to compete with renewables.
If you consider the total energy supplied to the human system, the biggest energy innovation of the last 20 years is probably the ability to economically recover unconventional petroleum sources
like tar sands
oil and
shale gas.
And that figure didn't include unconventional sources
like tar sands,
oil shale and methane hydrates»
As recoverable
oil reserves dwindle, there will be increasing pressure to convert coal to liquid fuels as well as exploit unconventional fossil fuels
like methane hydrates, tar sands, and
oil shale.
In North Dakota, where
oil drillers lack the equipment and pipelines to capture the gas that accompanies extraction of crude, the practice of flaring off the methane lights up some areas over the Bakken
shale like big cities at night.
Also known as «
shale oil,» tight
oil is processed into gasoline, diesel, and jet fuels — just
like conventional
oil — but is extracted using hydraulic fracturing, or «fracking.»
Found in limestone and
shale deposits, tight
oil isn't extracted from wells
like conventional
oil, but is removed with hydraulic fracturing, or «fracking» — a process that also releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
Low
oil prices will incentivize the rapid transfer of what has been learned refracking
shale gas plays for use in more liquids - rich plays
like the Bakken and Eagle Ford.
None of the models presented at the session included carbon dioxide emissions from unconventional fossil fuels
like tar sands, methane hydrates or
oil shale.
But for potential foreign purchasers of that
oil, the key question is how much extra it will cost to extract the dirty compounds in Alberta bitumen so that its quality matches export
oil being produced at high - grade, low - cost US
shale formations
like the Bakken, Permian, and Eagle Ford.
Over the last two decades, global warming activists succeeded in slowing the development of the
oil sands, blocking major pipelines
like Keystone XL, phasing out coal plants and banning
shale gas and
oil projects.
Lawrence Solomon: Over the last two decades, global warming activists succeeded in slowing the development of the
oil sands, blocking major pipelines
like Keystone XL, phasing out coal plants and banning
shale gas and
oil projects.
«Using tar sands and
oil shale as energy sources while ignoring climate disruption, air pollution, water pollution, resource depletion, and conservation measures is
like pissing in the wind.»
Fully implement his Executive Order 13514 requiring all resource management agencies to fully consider climate pollution,
like they do other types of pollution, prior to leasing or exporting onshore and offshore
oil, gas, coal, and unconventional fuels sources such as
oil shale and tar sands.
The question is whether
shale oil and unconventional techniques
like fracking can unleash a new California
oil boom.