Nobody has bought into the enthusiasm for so called "renewable energy," as our petroleum producing mavens have done. I remind everyone that for sometime before the Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico (which has now fallen down the memory hole) BP went around advertising that its new name actually, instead of "British Petroleum" was "Beyond Petroleum."
They made a big campaign about the "BP Solar" subsidiary, which, almost certainly like the rest of the solar industry, actually consumed more energy than it produced in the effort to tell us how great solar energy, and in particular, BP Solar, is.
In the United States, in 2008, after more than 55 years of noncritical cheering, solar PV energy produced just 0.097 quads (0.102 exajoules) of the more than 99.4 quads (104 exajoules) of energy that the United States consumed.
Total US Energy Consumption
Consumption of Solar Energy, United States.
One of the big lies told by the dangerous fossil fuel industry is that it is merely transitional until the grand "renewable" future unfolds, while seeking to avoid scrutiny of the matter of whether waiting for the grand renewable future is straight out of Beckett's Waiting For Godot.
This rhetorical nightmare has even found its way into the primary scientific literature and is published without any examination of the truth of whether the "renewable energy future" ever has a reasonable chance of arriving on scale.
The paper from the primary scientific literature to which I will refer tonight is in the journal Energy and Fuels a publication of the American Chemical Society, one of the world's largest and most prestigious scientific organizations.
The paper is Energy & Fuels 2011, 25, 3522–3529 The title of the paper is "Heavy Metals in Colorado and Chinese Oil Shale Semicoke: Disposal Issues, Impediments to Byproduct Conversion."
Here is the opening passage, with the bold having been inserted by me to make the point.
Over the past several decades, concerns over dwindling fossil fuel resources have prompted a surge in research and development of alternative energy technologies. Although scientists, politicians, and ordinary citizens alike agree with the need to develop new energy generation technologies, the choice among specific alternative energy sources available is a hot topic for debate. In North America, where tar sand and oil shale deposits are vast, experimentation is ongoing in the areas of alternative fossil fuels. Oil shale is a low-grade solid fuel with high ash content. A fine-grained sedimentary rock, oil shale contains a proportionally large amount of kerogen, which can be converted into oil by thermal degradation of the compacted rock. Worldwide deposits of oil in shale are estimated at upward of 2.8 trillion barrels of recoverable oil.1,2 Historically, the cost of oil produced from oil shale is markedly higher than that of conventional oil processes, such as drilling, and this has inhibited countries, such as Australia and the United States, from developing an oil shale industry.3 Interest in oil shale in the United States was piqued in the 1970s when the price of oil peaked. However, when oil prices fell, research toward oil production from shale markedly decreased. However, with oil prices once again setting record highs, oil shale is back at the forefront of many discussions as a stopgap fossil fuel source between our reliance on the pipelines of the Middle East and a renewable energy future.
Let me see, we were talking about the renewable energy future in the 1970's, and more in the 1980's, and then again in the 1990's, and then in the 2000's, and still in the 2010's.
Anything um, questionable about this blind faith?
No?
One may question why some 40 years after we first discovered our grand renewable energy future, we are still trying to exploit Colorado Oil Shale, but let's not be nitpicky, OK?
OK then. Anyway, shale oil is alternative energy and, um, alternative energy is good, because it's, um, "alternative."
The authors note a few, um, minor drawbacks to their "alternative energy" scheme in their paper, for instance:
Prior studies document the presence of heavy metals in oil shale fly ash. In some parts of China, for example, studies demonstrate an accumulation of lead, cadmium, zinc, thallium, barium, and arsenic in oil shale fly ash.7 These metals are human carcinogens and are categorized by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) as priority heavy metals because of their toxic effects on humans. As a result of open disposal, large quantities of heavy metals could enter water reserves, be it groundwater or surface water, and deteriorate the quality of the environment. Metal compounds change their phases rather than break down and can be transported by air or land to water through seepage and runoff from the sediment.7 As Nei et al. detail, in Estonia, large quantities of cadmium, copper, zinc, lead, and other metals are present in oil shale waste; these metals enter soil and water compartments as ions.8 A secondary pollution exposure pathway may exist when working with or prolonged exposure to products like cement, which contain a significant fraction of spent fuel to increase the long-term stability of the cement.
Now of course, we need not worry about Cadmium because, um, it's used to make solar PV cells, and solar PV cells are good, even if 50 years of cheering has not caused them to produce even 0.1% of US energy.
Where's your faith?
Anyway, the authors are investigating the new "alternative" fuel that's a bridge to our "renewable energy" future when we'll all drive plug in hybrid cars powered by solar energy and wind.
Don't worry, be happy.
The disposal and/or byproduct conversion of oil shale semicoke may be detrimental to both the environment and human health because of entrained heavy metals. This study aims to determine levels of heavy metals present in oil shale and its
semicoke in several samples from China and the United States to understand the obstacles that these metals pose to the widespread commercialization of energy from oil shale.
What did they find out?
Among other things:
While the transport and bioavailability of heavy metals present in oil shale semicoke and ash are highly dependent upon the type of soil, semicoke/ash, leaching conditions, prevailing atmospheric conditions, and a variety of other factors, the concentrations of heavy metals measured here lead to several baseline observations on the impact of these metals on the environment and human health. In terms of open disposal of oil shale semicoke, the arsenic levels detected in some of the shale samples are potentially problematic in terms of leaching into groundwater and aerosolizing. Overall, the Colorado 50 GPT shale samples had the highest arsenic concentrations of the shales investigated herein. Arsenic concentrations increase slightly as organic matter is lost from oil shale to 500 to 1000 C pyrolysis, suggesting that a small fraction of arsenic may be lost from the semicoke in the vapor phase upon heating but that the majority remains in the shale material.
Interestingly the Chinese Oil Shale contained significant concentrations of thorium, which is radioactive, but which also potentially one of the best clean fuels available to humanity, not that humanity is likely to figure that out.
Have a nice day tomorrow. It's been a pleasure to chat with you.
C:UsersxxxxDocumentssE&EFossilPetroleum
Energy Fuels 2011.25.3522–3529.shale.oil.coke