What is "shale oil" and where does it come from?

Answer 1

Shale is a type of sedimentary rock that often was mixed with decaying organic matter. Over eons, that organic matter can convert into petroleum. In area where shale is mixed with lots of oil, it is possible to mine it, and extract the oil. There are huge resources of petroleum trapped in shale, more than the amount of conventional oil that can simply be pumped off the ground; however, the process required to extract oil from shale is costly and quite polluting; but with the barrel of oil being do costly there days, it is starting to make sense to oil companies to exploit that resource.

Answer 2

Shale oil is well defined above, so let me relate a bit about the process for extracting it.

While it's true that extracting shale oil is more expensive and polluting, there has been a recent advancement in the technology for doing so. They heat the whole area to be mined with rods sunk into the earth. In order to prevent material from leaching into the aquifer they drill holes around the perimeter of the heated area and use rods to freeze the earth, thus sealing the area off (in theory). After heating the center area for 6 months to a year, it begins to leach out to the surface and the material can be easily extracted. The first bit is natural gas, then light sweet crude oil, then regular crude.

This is much cleaner than the strip mining done in Australia, and it is much more efficient in the long run. But the long term effects are still unknown and it is still not a very good level of efficiency. It takes roughly 2 barrels of oil worth of energy resources to extract 5 barrels currently using this process. Although this could likely be improved over time it is clearly not beneficial to the atmosphere for us to meet our energy needs this way, particularly if conservation could achieve similar results in capacity. Perhaps some middle ground exists.

Answer 3

Shale oil is oil derived from a group of rocks rich in the organic substance known as kerogen. They put these rocks through a chemical process called pyrolysis which converts the kerogen into petroleum, which in turn is converted into gasoline, plastics and so on. Don't get too much hope on this one process, however. Word is, it's expensive, and that it costs more to make one barrel of shale oil than it is to buy a barrel of regular oil. I don't know for sure if that's entirely true, however. Anyone?

Answer 4

Petroleum is "bound" in rocks. It can be turned into "crude oil" through pyrolsis (heating) -- though the cost makes this uneconomical compared to present day oil drilling.

The greatest reserves of such rocks are in North America, and the easiest to mine of these reserves are in the sub artic regions of Canada.