David O. Williams | April 13, 2011 | Reposted from The Colorado Independent
Observers of the century-long quest to extract oil from the shale rocks of Colorado’s Western Slope are fond of saying “oil shale is the fuel of the future … and always will be.” Never commercially viable because of the costs and resources needed to heat and extract the kerogen trapped in the rocks, an estimated 2 trillion barrels of shale oil remains locked up – perhaps forever.
But why then has Shell spent an estimated $200 million so far on research, development and demonstration (RD&D) at its Mahogany Research Project in western Colorado? And at what point will gas prices rise so high that the cost of producing shale oil suddenly makes sense?
“All of the major companies are doing oil shale because they think it’s an interesting and high-potential area, but they’re not in a hurry to make it productive,” said Jeremy Boak, director of the Center for Oil Shale Technology and Research (COSTAR) at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden. COSTAR’s research is described on its website as “industry-driven and science-guided.”
[Read more.]
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