http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drm...051709,00.html

The question that will never be considered:

Would we be better off using the electricity directly in electric vehicles or heating the ground to extract fossil fuel?

I don't know the answer, I haven't seen the numbers, but one has to wonder if it's really worth it, especially considering it will be burned, adding it's CO2 and other toxins to the air at some point. I'm sure it will make sense economically, especially if the price of crude stays high, but in terms of energy balance, I don't know... that's hard to imagine it being positive when you need to heat so much just to get it out, nevermind refining it.

2001 Prius Photos       2005 Prius Photos
'97 Prius Simulation Prius inner workings

I heard that on the news here in Texas . Interesting concept, but they were saying it would take 12-15 years before they could be up and running with enough output to effect the current price of oil.

If there was an acceptable electric only vehicle to the mass public and we could build more nuclear power plants that might help the environment. Isn't most electricity currently produced by burning fossil fuels?

19,900 miles and (slowly) counting

As of 1999, here's the numbers I found. Percentage of US electricity production, by source fuel:

Coal: 54%
Nuclear: 22%
Hydroelectric: 10%
Natural gas: 9%
Oil: 2%
Other: 1%

I've heard that since then, oil is down to 2 or 3% with solar/wind up to about 2%. Still, it's a balancing act. The main problem with purely electric cars is they have no range and no rapid refueling. You can use hydrogen as the storage medium, but you're going to use far more electricity and still have an obscenely expensive vehicle and questionable refueling infrastructure.

I see this country's primary goal as being getting OFF the oil import bottle within 20 years. I don't care if we're still using oil, I just want it to be our OWN by means of either ethanol, biodiesel, or oil from shale.

Hi All:

___Ok then, how do I go about buying some land in the Green River Basin so I can get away from the big city when I retire? I really meant so I can retire … handsomely

___Nice info by the way and I certainly cannot wait to se it bare fruit …

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes
___Waynegerdes@earthlink.net

On one small test plot about 20 feet by 35 feet, on land Shell owns, they started heating the rock in early 2004. "Product" - about one-third natural gas, two-thirds light crude - began to appear in September 2004. They turned the heaters off about a month ago, after harvesting about 1,500 barrels of oil.

While we were trying to do the math, O'Connor told us the answers. Upwards of a million barrels an acre, a billion barrels a square mile. And the oil shale formation in the Green River Basin, most of which is in Colorado, covers more than a thousand square miles - the largest fossil fuel deposits in the world.

Hmmm... If 33% of the output is natural gas, then maybe a hybrid vehicle that is a CNG/electric combination would be a viable configuration? I suppose that it wouldn't take a lot of engineering to combine a HCH with the HC/GX.