Jesus Chrysler drove a honda?
I think he tooled around in his father’s old Plymouth…you know, they say God drove Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden in a Fury.
Suppose we wereto bite the bullet and require that people drive ultralight 3-wheel cars,poweredby 500-cc engines. Such a car would be noisey and uncomfortable, but couldgive mileages around 75 MPG…would this be enough to end our dependence upon imported oil?
Suppose we were to subsidize every homeowner (to add 3" of insulation to the walls of their houses)? This would be cheaper than keeping an army in Iraq (at a cost of $20 billion/week).
Once again… road vehicles make up only about 40% of total petroleum use in the United States. And many of those are work vehicles - electrician’s minivans, Fed Ex trucks, etc. You CAN’T change all of them into tiny, efficient vehicles. But even if you could, and you tripled the fleet gas mileage, you would still only lower overall petroleum usage to 75% or so of what it is today.
The U.S. currently imports 58% of the oil it uses (cite). This number is increasing annual because U.S. oil production has already peaked. So the answer is no.
If you waved a magic wand and eliminated every car and truck in America, it would still need to import oil to meet its energy needs.
Back to the OP – Back in 1982 I wrote a major report on Oil Shale mining in the Piceance Creek Basin of Colorado. (Senior requirement for graduation in Mining Engineering. Basically the task was to design a mine.) There is a lot of a molecule called Kerogen locked up in the rock below Colorado and Utah. This molecule, when heated, breaks down into an oil that can be refined. From a cost perspective it is feasible to extract it, even at oil costs less than currently obtained. It has been estimated that the total amount in the area does exceed the amount of oil pumped out so far world wide. (The reserve numbers quoted earlier look accurate.)
However, there are several factors that make it unpalatable to extract. These are:
[ul]
[li]Production capacity – My exercise looked at 50,000 – 70,000 barrel per day sites. This would be a pretty decent sized mine employing about 1300 people and needing several years to develop. You would need a lot of these to put a dent in the petroleum use in the US consumption. (A quick Google suggests 19 million bpd, about half of which is imported.)[/li][li]Necessary distribution network – There is currently no good way to get large amounts of oil out of northwestern Colorado. A massive pipeline construction process would be required. Do you remember how easy this was for Alaska?[/li][li]Environmental impact – The techniques developed 25 years ago involved surface heating (as mentioned previously by ralph124c)and underground heating (in situ). A good technique is a combination of the two. While overall this process produces water, it still needs to take some out of the aquifers in an area where water is precious. The ground also gets broken up in the mining/extraction process and this would probably result in changes in the aquifer structure. The broken ground is more likely to leach in-ground salts which would probably get into the Colorado River, one of the most heavily used rivers in the world. In addition, the surface treated shale expands and needs to be disposed of. The only practical means to do this is to start filling in the gorgeous valleys that are in the area. [/li][li]If OPEC is threatened by domestic production through development of oil shale reserves, they would probably reduce the price enough until oil shale mining was no longer economically viable. The question in how much would be spent on development before they reacted. Or, if new reserves are found, the need for oil shale goes away. Oil shale was investigated in the 1920s and faded when the reserves in Texas were opened up. As mentioned in the OP, oil shale was the hot item in the late 70s when prices were rising from $9/bbl to $24/bbl but increased Middle East production shut down development.[/ul][/li]
Basically the oil could be extracted from this area at a severe environmental cost. Not that I’m advocating this, but opening up the Alaska Wildlife Preserve could most likely be done with less overall environmental damage. I don’t know much about the Alberta oil sands, but I think much of that is closer to the surface or could be removed in a slightly easier manner. But I would be willing to believe that it would also have a severe environmental consequence.
As kanicbird already mentioned, having China being a bigger part of the equation will definitely impact how the US will need to respond. The people advocating improved conservation or better gas mileage of vehicles have a valid point. There is currently minimal incentive for Americans to save (I think we pay less than any other non-OPEC country for fuel) and it frustrates me that vehicles have pretty much the same fuel efficiency that they did 20 – 30 years in spite of the potential for years of technology improvements. With the looming impact of China on use of resources, American’s can no longer afford to be as greedy and we will need to adjust our behavior. It will be all the more difficult to do so in a manner that does not severely impact the environment. There is a lot of things we (Americans) need to do on a number of different fronts to help ourselves in the future. (Sorry for delving outside of GQ territory with this last bit of IMHO.)
The oil sands here in Alberta are booming, and billions of dollars of new investment are flowing in. Current extraction costs are right around $10/barrel, and some think they can get it under $8/barrel. That’s the real problem with the U.S. reserves - they’re more expensive than the Canadian reserves to extract, and harder to get out of the region. The Athabasca tar sands are already producing over 200,000 barrels a day.
If you’re talking about a direct link between oil and heating/cooling from an electrical standpoint, then you need to remember that oil is used for a laughably small amount of United States electricity production.
Please give a biblical cite on Jesus’ feelings on the production of oil. :dubious:
What was Mary putting on his feet? Shale slag?
[sup]7[/sup]Calling the Twelve to him, he sent them out two by two and gave them authority over evil spirits.
[sup]8[/sup]These were his instructions: “Take nothing for the journey except a staff–no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. [sup]9[/sup]Wear sandals but not an extra tunic. [sup]10[/sup]Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town. [sup]11[/sup]And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave, as a testimony against them.”
[sup]12[/sup]They went out and preached that people should repent. [sup]13[/sup]They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.