Comments on: Oil Is The Problem

By: Frank_D

Frank_D — Sun, 07 May 2006 16:05:03 +0000

Let s face it, as for the next 2.5 years, oil will rule the land from the White House on down to Exxon, Chevron, etc.
I suppose that you’re saying that the Democrats will be in power in 2 and one – half years.
Even if this occurs, you couldn’t possibly believe that this hypothetical Democratic President can change the “cars run on gasoline, and if you interfere with our profits, there will be less of it, and then the price will go up, and the American people will hate you” paradigm, could you?

By: Frank_D

Frank_D — Sun, 07 May 2006 01:05:36 +0000

A superpower can t be a superpower if its beholden to others.
No, why not? Is that a rule?
What happened to global interdependence (Democratic, liberal = good) vs. Isolationism (Republican, conservative = bad)?
Are back to “Whatever it is that Republicans are for, we’re against it”, again?

By: duros62

duros62 — Sat, 06 May 2006 19:05:00 +0000

Maybe not.

Shell’s engineers devised a gentler method that’s no shorter on technological derring-do. They bake the rock with deep-set heating elements while ringing the site with underground refrigeration pipes so newly mobile hydrocarbons don’t leak away. This technique takes a lot of energy (though no more than conventional oil drilling, Shell says; roughly 3.5 times as much energy comes out as goes in).

But the yield is what really grabs attention: a projected 1 million barrels per surface acre, 10 times more than the conventional dig-crush-cook method. With multiples like that, Shell executives think they might be able to make the process economical at $25 to $30 a barrel – less than half the price of traditional extraction.

By: Rounds77

Rounds77 — Sat, 06 May 2006 18:05:56 +0000

Um, JWG, you know how expensive it would be to extract that shale and how much water is needed to process it? I believe that the energy needed to extract the shale is close to equal to the amount of energy the shale will provide. So we’ll need a barrel of oil to extract a barrel of shale (this isn’t exact, but it’s illustrative).

By: JWG

JWG — Sat, 06 May 2006 02:05:18 +0000

The future of America ought not be subject to the whims of…

The USGS estimates the known oil reserves to be 1 trillion barrels. Luckily, the US is estimated to hold 60-70% of the world’s oil shale (equivalent to 1 trillion barrels), so we currently have as much potential oil resting in shale as the entire Earth has in traditional oil. Fear of oil dependancy is not a logical reason to push for alternate energy sources.

By: Rounds77

Rounds77 — Sat, 06 May 2006 01:05:10 +0000

Let’s face it, as for the next 2.5 years, oil will rule the land from the White House on down to Exxon, Chevron, etc. Nothing dramatic is going to happen to transform our energy needs. It’s like living in a new dimension where the insane are being the “deciders” on our most vital interests.