Shale Oil Extraction Energy - Put In EVs Instead
Posted by Max Dunn Sun, 28 Mar 2010 15:17:00 GMT
There was an interesting article today on The Oil Drum today titled Using heat to refine kerogen from oil shale. The basic idea is that in order to get oil out of shale you need to heat it up, but then the oil can flow away and water can flow in. So first, it is necessary to create an ice wall around the site.
However, both the freezing and the heating takes tremendous amounts of energy. The article states:
“It has been suggested that the technology would need a dedicated power source of some 1.2 gigawatts, in order to yield a production of 100,000 bd.”
Let’s look at these numbers: 100,000 barrels of oil contains 4.2 million gallons of oil and if this were all converted to gas and used in standard cars that get 20 miles per gallon, it would power cars 84 million miles.
However, a 1.2 GW power plant would produce about 28 million kWh of electricity per day and if used for a standard electric vehicle (EV) which gets about 3 miles per kWh (plant to wheels) then it would power cars for 86 million miles.
So why spend all that effort and energy to extract oil from shale when the same amount of energy would power EVs farther?
Because the cost of electricity is not the limiting factor for EV’s. The biggest variable cost is still the batteries, right?
Another interesting observation though.
Because we are “addicted to oil” and remain committed to producing it at any costs.
Don’t get me started with how far we could have moved battery technology with the amount of money that has been spent protecting hour oil supply for the last 20+ years.
I thought it would be interesting to point at that while a standard electric vehicle get 3 miles per kWh, we really don’t need standard full size vehicles for for all of the errands we run and short – medium trips we made during the week. Electric Scooters can run as efficiently as 30 or more miles per kWh while performing reliability, and being purchased at significant lower prices than cars.
As long as we depend on foreign oil, and oil extracted off shore and at great expense and danger, to power massive vehicles with weight in excess of 10x of our own body weight, efficiency and sustainability won’t even be an option.