there's really no meaning other than to be informative. i had no idea the US had that much oil, i always thought we didn't have any which is why we import so much.
you always hear everyone talk about the oil reserves in Saudia Arabia and Iraq, and the entire middle east, but i don't think i've ever heard the reserves here mentioned once.
it's just weird to me. we have 3x what anyone else does, but not a peep about it. doesn't that seem strange? dunno did to me so i thought i'd share the wealth of information.
i think all the oil talk lately just brought it back to the forefront of my mind.
Most oil is just tapped and skimmed off the top. It takes money to pump oil. They just poke a hole in the oil resevoir until it stop squirting out due to pressure and then leave the rest. This isn't the case with ALL resevoirs, but most of the ones in the US are this way. Especially the ones that farmers find on their land since pumping the oil would cost them a bundle.
you forgot massive amounts of waste material and environmental consequences of open-air mining on a scale never before imagined. No technology any time soon (next 100-200 years) is going to solve those (and it is highly unlikely that there will ever be a reduction in waste) and by the time this fantasy technology is here (if ever), petroleum fuels, as I said before, gone the way of the horse and buggy.
It's not going to happen. You are not going to find anyone that says it is going to happen on a large scale and it is pointless to dream about it. Deal with what is actually useful and real.
News Flash: America will never, ever, ever be fueled by oil shale. We are already in the initial stages of shifting away from hydrocarbon fuels. Oil shale is a pipe dream. End of story.
But it's america. Why not start a useless one man campaign to shift our fuel source to oil shale? Maybe you can actually succeed at convincing America that we should use the most environmentally devastating, least efficient and least profitable (as in zero profit) fuel source available. And even though we don't have the technology to dispose of the waste, we'll just sit on our asses and wait for dematerializer guns to be invented.
Most oil is just tapped and skimmed off the top. It takes money to pump oil. They just poke a hole in the oil resevoir until it stop squirting out due to pressure and then leave the rest. This isn't the case with ALL resevoirs, but most of the ones in the US are this way. Especially the ones that farmers find on their land since pumping the oil would cost them a bundle.
Bingo! Which is to say we're a long way from running out of oil. We're just running out of oil that's cheap and easy to get. When the price of a barrel of oil rises it becomes economically viable to get at the oil that can't be recovered at the lower price. (I'm talking about the real price - not market spikes due to external factors.) I don't know what the price would have to be to make shale oil a viable possibility, though. I would hope by the time a barrel of oil gets that expensive we will have transitioned to another source of energy.
Preliminary research by Suncor and other firms have proved that the Kingdom's reserves of oil shale are estimated at 40 million cubic metres, 10 per cent of which is saturated with oil.
The new findings showed that the cost of extracting one barrel of oil will range from $8 to $10 compared to more than $20 estimated in earlier studies by other foreign oil companies.
i know, i know, they're not esotanian, but maybe Canadians know a thing or two about engineering. granted, they're just engineers, not librarians, and they studied physics, not the Dewey Decimal system, but i'll go out on a limb and assume they know what works better than you do where engineering is concerned.
with oil at $20+ per barrel, $8-$10 isn't so bad. (although it should be noted that via conventional means, you can extract oil at about $4 per barrel)
John McFarlane says: "The bottom line is that we are convinced we can produce oil economically." He cites the example of Suncor in Alberta. Cash costs of production have declined from C$22 per barrel to approximately C$11 per barrel. He says that the gross return on capital employed was 20.6 per cent in 1995, 23 per cent in 1996 21.9 per cent in 1997 and in 1998, a horrendous year for oil companies, 11.6 per cent.
wow, we're 100 to 200 years in the future right now!
amazing!
point is, people are doing it, they're making money doing it, and they're only going to get better at it with time, not worse.
so what's with the attitude? Scott Ritter tell you oil shale is bad?
Uh oh, not only do you disagree with Giant, but you found sources that show he is also wrong. Be prepared for extreme derision, hateful speech and a label as a destroyer of all that is good and the environment.
This article didn't talk about the environmental impact. Any ideas? To me this looks like a last ditch effort at a company on the verge of going under because their stockholders are in trouble. If they can do it for $9 a barrel, but leave behind piles of waste, it's not really worth the effort.
And the primary usage is direct burn for energy, like coal, not conversion to oil.
As for your post about Jordan:
Jordan has specific strategic reasons that make it worthwhile for them to pursue oil shale. open cut mines are easier for them accept because they don't have another choice. It could prove to be a major natural resouce in a country that could use a new one.
Comapring Jordan to the US is rediculous
Quote:
with oil at $20+ per barrel, $8-$10 isn't so bad. (although it should be noted that via conventional means, you can extract oil at about $4 per barrel)
try $2 a barrel. That makes oil shale extraction 400-500% the cost of liquid oil.
As for your second citiation, you posted a quote aimed at selling the idea of an admittedly un-profitable company. Hardly crtitical.
Furthermore, the unattained goal is the eventually produce oil from oil shale for $9US, 450% the cost that oil is produced at. I find no indication that this includes enviromental disposal of the waste material either here or on any site I can find.
Since Canada is sparsely populated, and full of resources, mining has always been easy to pull off in that country (I just saw a show on TLC about the recent diamond races). Not so in the US. Open cut mines are not welcome. Situations like Butte point out the reasons. Waste would need to be disposed of, and considering the scale of our oil needs, this would be no small or cheap task.
Note also that one of the major problems facing the Suncor mine in canada is the massive sulfur emissions, that may actually force them to close.
Quote:
point is, people are doing it, they're making money doing it,
No they're not. Your link clearly points that they are unprofitable. Quote: "the company is not profitable, its shareholders are long suffering." I'm not sure how that translates into "they're making money doing it," but maybe someday when I am as lernt as you I will understand.
Suncor seems to be the only major company actively pushing oil shale, though even they have been abandoning it in developed countries.
Here in the US, Unocal was the last company to pull out of oil shale studies, and that was as recent as 1991. Even the land is starting to be given away:
and this isn't even considering the reasons Suncor abandoned it in the first place.
Considering oil shale production also releases 4 times the greenhouse gasses released in the production of conventional oil, the liability is not worth it.
Face it, buddy, not only are your arguing for the adoption one of the most polluting (on all sides: mining, emmisions and waste) fuel sources when there are other options, but oil shale is not in America's future.
And to the lemmings: thanks for exposing your complete lack of critical thought.
The US will never have a fuel shale based society. You can point out all the small-scale projects you like, but it will never, ever rival crude oil. And if it does, god help us, because it would mean that we have decided not to advance technologically as a society, and will have decided that massive environmental damage is acceptable. I personally think that his a trmendous long shot, and I think most people with a brain would agree.
Unless they don't care about facts and would rather just try to be 'right.'
Since you would rather play games than be an intelligent adult and have a discussion based on fact, this conversation is over.
You can keep trying to BS your way around reality by posting sales pitches and their corresponding studies, but the only people you will decieve are your lemmings who obviously are too lazy to think for themselves.
1. see here for a paper on oil shale and why it won't be recovered in the foreseeable future: (link to 1998 article)
2. more links to dated articles. decides to tell everyone else they're idiots for not agreeing with him.
3. Here's a clue: oil shale is not going to happen. Period. Arguing about it is like arguing whether humans can live on the sun. (hmm, does this mean if it is happening, we do live on the sun?)
4. This technology you speak of that will handle that amount of waste and enable proper and enviromentally sound mining is at least 150-200 years off, when petroleum fuel will have gone the way of the horse and buggy. 100 years.....
5. (rambles on for a bit about politics and war, not sure it has anything to do with the point at hand, but he did waste a few paragraphs on it, so maybe it's related somehow)
6. The only disagreement in this thread is the one between reality and fantasy-land. (in this case, would the reality be that people are mining shale oil commercially, and the fantasy land being the one where this isn't happening until a few hundred years in the future?)
7. (some link about WoMD here, not sure how this is on topic at all, but hey, he's on a roll!)
8. don't even try to post some article about estonia and how we need to learn from them. Reasearch it before you make yourself look like more of a fool. Then accept the fact that oil shale is not going to happen.
Of course, you are free to believe what you want. Maybe you can go ride a unicorn to roswell and sell your idea to your fellow fantasy-land buddies who want to use it to power their spaceships. (of course, no one has mentioned esotania once, but i guess that doesn't matter. perhaps my understanding of "is not going to happen" is off, but i always thought that meant it's not going to happen. seeing as it's going on right now, that would refute that point soundly. but then again, i'm not the one seeing unicorns at roswell. maybe we can hire the fantasy land unicorns to work at the real world shale oil sites?
9. you forgot massive amounts of waste material and environmental consequences of open-air mining on a scale never before imagined. No technology any time soon (next 100-200 years) is going to solve those (and it is highly unlikely that there will ever be a reduction in waste) and by the time this fantasy technology is here (if ever), petroleum fuels, as I said before, gone the way of the horse and buggy.
It's not going to happen. You are not going to find anyone that says it is going to happen on a large scale and it is pointless to dream about it. Deal with what is actually useful and real. well, except for the part where they're doing it now, your post would have a point. except that was the only point, so why bother posting it? oh, and that includes taking care of the greenhouse gasses etc.
10. As for your post about Jordan:
Jordan has specific strategic reasons that make it worthwhile for them to pursue oil shale. so we go from "it's 100-200 years off" to "it will work if you have a need for it". that's quite a jump, unless you're trying to say that Jordon is a few hundred years ahead of us technologically. so now instead of it being impossible, it's just not optimal. that's a world of difference. maybe you could try and shift your point a bit more here, it's almost a full 180 degrees, just a hair left to go.
11. Considering oil shale production also releases 4 times the greenhouse gasses released in the production of conventional oil, the liability is not worth it.
Face it, buddy, not only are your arguing for the adoption one of the most polluting (on all sides: mining, emmisions and waste) fuel sources when there are other options, but oil shale is not in America's future. strange thing is, just within the last few years companies are finding ways around this. they don't have to release huge amounts of greenhouse gasses into the enviornment, and they don't have to use massive amounts of water to process it. in fact, they do it well under regulation. from http://www.sppcpm.com/
Quote:
The Alberta Taciuk Processor (ATP) was invented by Canadian engineer Bill Taciuk. It was initially jointly developed by the Alberta Government and UMATAC Industrial Processes for potential application to the Alberta oil sands.
SPP/CPM saw the advantages of this technology - both environmentally and economically - and worked closely with the inventor and UMATAC to revise the design to apply to Australia's oil shales. The key environmental and economic advantages of the ATP include:
* energy self-sufficient;
* dry process, which does not require tailings ponds;
* a mechanically simple and robust process;
* straightforward construction;
* comparatively low capital and operating costs; and
* flexibility in sizing units which permits staged development.
so it boils down to the technology exists now, and is improving rapidly. 10 years ago oil shale was impossible, not anymore. in another 5 years who's to say how far the technology will have advanced. with resources just sitting there unused, someone will find a way to extract them, and it isn't going to take a few hundred years to happen.
for your other "points", go find a war/politics thread.
did you try to make a single point that wasn't already refuted?
And linking to unprofitable companies (and just about the only ones that takes oil shale seriously) hardly demonstrates that the US will sometime switch over to oil shale. I could link 100 times to that idea posted on /. about giving music away free with cars, but that doesn't mean it's going to happen.
Maybe you and the three people on earth that think the US will start using oil shale as a substitute for liquid oil can start an advocacy group and waste even more time.
Do you really, honestly believe that oil shale will take over for the US when liquid oil declines? In order to believe that you would have to ignore the fact that no one in the energy industry agrees with you (ok, maybe a small company or two, but I still didn't see even that). If not, then your entire first point is still invalid, and my case is made. If you do, then you are on your own without anyone except maybe a couple unporfitable companies backing you up (though I'm sure they are aware oil shale will never reach a large scale).
As for technology: maybe you missed in your research (which apparently was contained in one site) that oil shale has been mined since at least the mid-1800's. What does the fact that a few small companies push it have anything do with whether the US will switch over?
I'm reminded of how Greens or American Socialists act. Just because you and a small group of people have committed to something doesn't mean it's going to happen. And just because a few companies mine it doesn't mean it will ever compete with crude oil or its successor. But go on convincing yourself and the lemmings.
Comments
Originally posted by Argento
Chuckle I want my smiley!!!
SOrry for the delay, I slept in this morning:
Originally posted by alcimedes
still didn't answer my question giant.
yes I did. that's what we've been talking about.
Why don't you stop being a child and just say what you want to say.
Originally posted by alcimedes
there's really no meaning other than to be informative. i had no idea the US had that much oil, i always thought we didn't have any which is why we import so much.
you always hear everyone talk about the oil reserves in Saudia Arabia and Iraq, and the entire middle east, but i don't think i've ever heard the reserves here mentioned once.
it's just weird to me. we have 3x what anyone else does, but not a peep about it. doesn't that seem strange? dunno did to me so i thought i'd share the wealth of information.
i think all the oil talk lately just brought it back to the forefront of my mind.
Most oil is just tapped and skimmed off the top. It takes money to pump oil. They just poke a hole in the oil resevoir until it stop squirting out due to pressure and then leave the rest. This isn't the case with ALL resevoirs, but most of the ones in the US are this way. Especially the ones that farmers find on their land since pumping the oil would cost them a bundle.
Originally posted by giant
Why don't you stop being a child and just say what you want to say.
Because that would be against posting guidelines?
i ask why. (technology, money, what's the reason)
you say "don't talk about esotania" (which no one had mentioned)
where exactly did you answer my question? or was the answer in the unicorns and moon part?
i didn't bother reading the war crap you posted, the two aren't related, not sure why you brought that up.
Originally posted by bunge
SOrry for the delay, I slept in this morning:
AHhhh I can now get my senior pictures in peace, and be happy about it.
Originally posted by alcimedes
i ask why. (technology, money, what's the reason)
you forgot massive amounts of waste material and environmental consequences of open-air mining on a scale never before imagined. No technology any time soon (next 100-200 years) is going to solve those (and it is highly unlikely that there will ever be a reduction in waste) and by the time this fantasy technology is here (if ever), petroleum fuels, as I said before, gone the way of the horse and buggy.
It's not going to happen. You are not going to find anyone that says it is going to happen on a large scale and it is pointless to dream about it. Deal with what is actually useful and real.
News Flash: America will never, ever, ever be fueled by oil shale. We are already in the initial stages of shifting away from hydrocarbon fuels. Oil shale is a pipe dream. End of story.
But it's america. Why not start a useless one man campaign to shift our fuel source to oil shale? Maybe you can actually succeed at convincing America that we should use the most environmentally devastating, least efficient and least profitable (as in zero profit) fuel source available. And even though we don't have the technology to dispose of the waste, we'll just sit on our asses and wait for dematerializer guns to be invented.
Or not.
Originally posted by bunge
Truth hurts?
No reading your attempts at wit and humor does.
Originally posted by pyr3
Most oil is just tapped and skimmed off the top. It takes money to pump oil. They just poke a hole in the oil resevoir until it stop squirting out due to pressure and then leave the rest. This isn't the case with ALL resevoirs, but most of the ones in the US are this way. Especially the ones that farmers find on their land since pumping the oil would cost them a bundle.
Bingo! Which is to say we're a long way from running out of oil. We're just running out of oil that's cheap and easy to get. When the price of a barrel of oil rises it becomes economically viable to get at the oil that can't be recovered at the lower price. (I'm talking about the real price - not market spikes due to external factors.) I don't know what the price would have to be to make shale oil a viable possibility, though. I would hope by the time a barrel of oil gets that expensive we will have transitioned to another source of energy.
Preliminary research by Suncor and other firms have proved that the Kingdom's reserves of oil shale are estimated at 40 million cubic metres, 10 per cent of which is saturated with oil.
The new findings showed that the cost of extracting one barrel of oil will range from $8 to $10 compared to more than $20 estimated in earlier studies by other foreign oil companies.
i know, i know, they're not esotanian, but maybe Canadians know a thing or two about engineering. granted, they're just engineers, not librarians, and they studied physics, not the Dewey Decimal system, but i'll go out on a limb and assume they know what works better than you do where engineering is concerned.
with oil at $20+ per barrel, $8-$10 isn't so bad. (although it should be noted that via conventional means, you can extract oil at about $4 per barrel)
D'oh, those damned Canadians are at it again!
John McFarlane says: "The bottom line is that we are convinced we can produce oil economically." He cites the example of Suncor in Alberta. Cash costs of production have declined from C$22 per barrel to approximately C$11 per barrel. He says that the gross return on capital employed was 20.6 per cent in 1995, 23 per cent in 1996 21.9 per cent in 1997 and in 1998, a horrendous year for oil companies, 11.6 per cent.
wow, we're 100 to 200 years in the future right now!
amazing!
point is, people are doing it, they're making money doing it, and they're only going to get better at it with time, not worse.
so what's with the attitude? Scott Ritter tell you oil shale is bad?
BTW, good find.
Scott Ritter, now there's a source that panned out.
Originally posted by alcimedes
D'oh, those damned Canadians are at it again!
This article didn't talk about the environmental impact. Any ideas? To me this looks like a last ditch effort at a company on the verge of going under because their stockholders are in trouble. If they can do it for $9 a barrel, but leave behind piles of waste, it's not really worth the effort.
But I'll respond to brainless alc post #2505 and then I'm done:
Originally posted by alcimedes
i know, i know, they're not esotanian,
Thank god, considering the estonians have found out it's not even economical for them:
http://www.ene.ttu.ee/maeinstituut/m...pofhistory.htm
And the primary usage is direct burn for energy, like coal, not conversion to oil.
As for your post about Jordan:
Jordan has specific strategic reasons that make it worthwhile for them to pursue oil shale. open cut mines are easier for them accept because they don't have another choice. It could prove to be a major natural resouce in a country that could use a new one.
Comapring Jordan to the US is rediculous
with oil at $20+ per barrel, $8-$10 isn't so bad. (although it should be noted that via conventional means, you can extract oil at about $4 per barrel)
try $2 a barrel. That makes oil shale extraction 400-500% the cost of liquid oil.
As for your second citiation, you posted a quote aimed at selling the idea of an admittedly un-profitable company. Hardly crtitical.
Furthermore, the unattained goal is the eventually produce oil from oil shale for $9US, 450% the cost that oil is produced at. I find no indication that this includes enviromental disposal of the waste material either here or on any site I can find.
Since Canada is sparsely populated, and full of resources, mining has always been easy to pull off in that country (I just saw a show on TLC about the recent diamond races). Not so in the US. Open cut mines are not welcome. Situations like Butte point out the reasons. Waste would need to be disposed of, and considering the scale of our oil needs, this would be no small or cheap task.
Note also that one of the major problems facing the Suncor mine in canada is the massive sulfur emissions, that may actually force them to close.
point is, people are doing it, they're making money doing it,
No they're not. Your link clearly points that they are unprofitable. Quote: "the company is not profitable, its shareholders are long suffering." I'm not sure how that translates into "they're making money doing it," but maybe someday when I am as lernt as you I will understand.
Suncor seems to be the only major company actively pushing oil shale, though even they have been abandoning it in developed countries.
Here in the US, Unocal was the last company to pull out of oil shale studies, and that was as recent as 1991. Even the land is starting to be given away:
http://www.fe.doe.gov/techline/tl_nosr2ute.html
Looks like suncor pulled out of the largest oil shale venture yet conducted:
http://www.socialinvestment.ca/nw05013.htm
Now even Suncor, the largest comapny promoting oil shale, is dropping major oil shale ventures because the future lies in renewable resources.
Note that the project in australia is still very much struggling:
http://brw.com.au/stories/20010803/11027.asp
and this isn't even considering the reasons Suncor abandoned it in the first place.
Considering oil shale production also releases 4 times the greenhouse gasses released in the production of conventional oil, the liability is not worth it.
Face it, buddy, not only are your arguing for the adoption one of the most polluting (on all sides: mining, emmisions and waste) fuel sources when there are other options, but oil shale is not in America's future.
And to the lemmings: thanks for exposing your complete lack of critical thought.
The US will never have a fuel shale based society. You can point out all the small-scale projects you like, but it will never, ever rival crude oil. And if it does, god help us, because it would mean that we have decided not to advance technologically as a society, and will have decided that massive environmental damage is acceptable. I personally think that his a trmendous long shot, and I think most people with a brain would agree.
Unless they don't care about facts and would rather just try to be 'right.'
Since you would rather play games than be an intelligent adult and have a discussion based on fact, this conversation is over.
You can keep trying to BS your way around reality by posting sales pitches and their corresponding studies, but the only people you will decieve are your lemmings who obviously are too lazy to think for themselves.
Keep up the shitty work
1. see here for a paper on oil shale and why it won't be recovered in the foreseeable future: (link to 1998 article)
2. more links to dated articles. decides to tell everyone else they're idiots for not agreeing with him.
3. Here's a clue: oil shale is not going to happen. Period. Arguing about it is like arguing whether humans can live on the sun. (hmm, does this mean if it is happening, we do live on the sun?)
4. This technology you speak of that will handle that amount of waste and enable proper and enviromentally sound mining is at least 150-200 years off, when petroleum fuel will have gone the way of the horse and buggy. 100 years.....
5. (rambles on for a bit about politics and war, not sure it has anything to do with the point at hand, but he did waste a few paragraphs on it, so maybe it's related somehow)
6. The only disagreement in this thread is the one between reality and fantasy-land. (in this case, would the reality be that people are mining shale oil commercially, and the fantasy land being the one where this isn't happening until a few hundred years in the future?)
7. (some link about WoMD here, not sure how this is on topic at all, but hey, he's on a roll!)
8. don't even try to post some article about estonia and how we need to learn from them. Reasearch it before you make yourself look like more of a fool. Then accept the fact that oil shale is not going to happen.
Of course, you are free to believe what you want. Maybe you can go ride a unicorn to roswell and sell your idea to your fellow fantasy-land buddies who want to use it to power their spaceships. (of course, no one has mentioned esotania once, but i guess that doesn't matter. perhaps my understanding of "is not going to happen" is off, but i always thought that meant it's not going to happen. seeing as it's going on right now, that would refute that point soundly. but then again, i'm not the one seeing unicorns at roswell. maybe we can hire the fantasy land unicorns to work at the real world shale oil sites?
9. you forgot massive amounts of waste material and environmental consequences of open-air mining on a scale never before imagined. No technology any time soon (next 100-200 years) is going to solve those (and it is highly unlikely that there will ever be a reduction in waste) and by the time this fantasy technology is here (if ever), petroleum fuels, as I said before, gone the way of the horse and buggy.
It's not going to happen. You are not going to find anyone that says it is going to happen on a large scale and it is pointless to dream about it. Deal with what is actually useful and real. well, except for the part where they're doing it now, your post would have a point. except that was the only point, so why bother posting it? oh, and that includes taking care of the greenhouse gasses etc.
10. As for your post about Jordan:
Jordan has specific strategic reasons that make it worthwhile for them to pursue oil shale. so we go from "it's 100-200 years off" to "it will work if you have a need for it". that's quite a jump, unless you're trying to say that Jordon is a few hundred years ahead of us technologically. so now instead of it being impossible, it's just not optimal. that's a world of difference. maybe you could try and shift your point a bit more here, it's almost a full 180 degrees, just a hair left to go.
11. Considering oil shale production also releases 4 times the greenhouse gasses released in the production of conventional oil, the liability is not worth it.
Face it, buddy, not only are your arguing for the adoption one of the most polluting (on all sides: mining, emmisions and waste) fuel sources when there are other options, but oil shale is not in America's future. strange thing is, just within the last few years companies are finding ways around this. they don't have to release huge amounts of greenhouse gasses into the enviornment, and they don't have to use massive amounts of water to process it. in fact, they do it well under regulation. from http://www.sppcpm.com/
The Alberta Taciuk Processor (ATP) was invented by Canadian engineer Bill Taciuk. It was initially jointly developed by the Alberta Government and UMATAC Industrial Processes for potential application to the Alberta oil sands.
SPP/CPM saw the advantages of this technology - both environmentally and economically - and worked closely with the inventor and UMATAC to revise the design to apply to Australia's oil shales. The key environmental and economic advantages of the ATP include:
* energy self-sufficient;
* dry process, which does not require tailings ponds;
* a mechanically simple and robust process;
* straightforward construction;
* comparatively low capital and operating costs; and
* flexibility in sizing units which permits staged development.
so it boils down to the technology exists now, and is improving rapidly. 10 years ago oil shale was impossible, not anymore. in another 5 years who's to say how far the technology will have advanced. with resources just sitting there unused, someone will find a way to extract them, and it isn't going to take a few hundred years to happen.
for your other "points", go find a war/politics thread.
And linking to unprofitable companies (and just about the only ones that takes oil shale seriously) hardly demonstrates that the US will sometime switch over to oil shale. I could link 100 times to that idea posted on /. about giving music away free with cars, but that doesn't mean it's going to happen.
Maybe you and the three people on earth that think the US will start using oil shale as a substitute for liquid oil can start an advocacy group and waste even more time.
Do you really, honestly believe that oil shale will take over for the US when liquid oil declines? In order to believe that you would have to ignore the fact that no one in the energy industry agrees with you (ok, maybe a small company or two, but I still didn't see even that). If not, then your entire first point is still invalid, and my case is made. If you do, then you are on your own without anyone except maybe a couple unporfitable companies backing you up (though I'm sure they are aware oil shale will never reach a large scale).
As for technology: maybe you missed in your research (which apparently was contained in one site) that oil shale has been mined since at least the mid-1800's. What does the fact that a few small companies push it have anything do with whether the US will switch over?
I'm reminded of how Greens or American Socialists act. Just because you and a small group of people have committed to something doesn't mean it's going to happen. And just because a few companies mine it doesn't mean it will ever compete with crude oil or its successor. But go on convincing yourself and the lemmings.
Even with heavy government subsidies, they are still not profitable.