[extropy-chat] OIL: Albertan tar sands, was Peak Oil?

[Adrian Tymes]

--- Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 13, 2005 at 05:35:04PM -0400, Pat Fallon wrote:
> > then there's oil shale....
> >  Since 1981, Shell researchers at the company's division of
> "unconventional 
> > resources" have been spending their own money trying to figure out
> how to 
> > get usable energy out of oil shale. Judging by the presentation the
> Rocky 
> > Mountain News heard this week, they think they've got it.
> 
> It is a really dumb idea to try extracting usable energy from oil
> shale.
> It is a somewhat less dumb idea to extract hydrocarbons from oil
> shale
> using thermal output of specially designed nuclear reactors. If there
> weren't any coal, gas, or biomass anywhere else in the world it'd
> be an option.

Umm...you state your opinion, but you don't give any facts to back it
up.  The article specifically contradicts you on this point, if you
mean it's dumb because of the economics - and the people actually
working on this have far more credibility.  Or do you mean something
else?

> > http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/news_columnists/article/0,1299,DRMN_86_4051709,00.html