Mahogany Research Project
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The Mahogany Research Project is an initiative by the Shell Oil Company to procure oil from the geologically-termed "Mahogany" layer of oil shale rock in the Piceance Basin of Colorado. The goal of the project is to heat sections of the vast oil shale field in situ (where it is) deep underground, releasing the oil and natural gas from the rock so that it can be pumped to the surface and made into fuel. Unlike oil and natural gas, oil shale is easy to locate precisely using current technology. In situ methods could have significant advantages over traditional strip mining methods in both environmental impact, and in the amount of oil able to be extracted.
[edit] Process
Shell is trying to heat the oil shale rock to a temperature of 700 degrees fahrenheit using heating elements that are carefully embedded down into the rock. The oil and natural gas is then baked out of the rock creating pools that can then be pumped to the surface. A fundamental problem of the process is that the oil soaks further down and away into the ground shortly after being turned into liquid. To compensate, Shell has buried refrigeration pipes in a ring around the heating site so that the edges of the extraction site will remain solid and hold the liquid oil in place. This process requires a great deal of energy but in the end produces more energy than it expends (approximately 3.5 times as much energy comes out as goes in). The Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROEI) is low compared to conventional crude oil extraction, however the heating process itself creates a byproduct of natural gas that can be used as the energy input, so heating energy cost should be insignificant compared to the value of the crude oil output.
An estimated two trillion barrels of crude oil are thought to be recoverable through this process — nearly four times Saudi Arabia's current reserves.
[edit] History
This project is an optimistic follow-up to the abandoned projects of other oil companies who received billions of dollars in funding during the Carter Administration in the 1970's only to fail. Private investments also failed and have made investors wary of oil shale projects. The most notorious of these projects undertaken by Exxon under the name of the Colony II Project in Garfield County, Colorado, where 2,000 people eventually lost their jobs when Exxon pulled out of the project in 1982. Shell's project has been more cautious and in early 2005 produced its first successful extractions.
