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Practical Method for Getting Oil from Oil Shale?
ConfigurationManager writes "An article in the Rocky Mountain News describes how Shell has demonstrated a practical way to extract oil from the shale deposits in Colorado. Since it describes those deposits as "the largest fossil fuel deposits in the world," that could be a very good thing for those of us who are currently paying anywhere from $3 on up for a gallon of regular unleaded."
Lot of folks want to throw out the "gas in Europe costs more than gas in the USA, so don't cry about your 'high gas prices'" line. What you need to look at, though, is where this cost comes from. The answer is taxes. From http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0826/p01s03-woeu.htm l:
In Britain, the government takes 75 percent, and raises taxes by 5 percent above inflation every year (though it has forgone this year's rise in view of rocketing oil prices, and the French government has promised tax rebates this year to taxi drivers, truckers, fishermen, and others who depend heavily on gasoline.) On August 8, for example, the price of gas in the US, without taxes, would be $2.17, instead of $2.56; in Britain, it would be $1.97, instead of $6.06.
Given that, I'm not sure it's a fair comparison to make: Europe has decided to tax the hell out of gasoline, a decision the government can undo should there be a need, while the USA is paying higher prices to the oil companies, which can't be controlled as easily.
Not really sure what my point is, really,
robert
> When is the US going to wake up to just how much oil COSTS
Except that the US is not 'subsidising' oil, and oil does not 'cost' $6.96/gallon even in the UK. The British public pay that much because their government imposes a tax on them.
Ask someone from British rural areas what he thinks of the oil tax. One of the primary uses of the oil tax is to build public transport systems, but most rural taxpayers see very little of that benefit, making it more sensible to live closer to town. Unsurprisingly European city centres are more densely packed than similarly sized American cities.
Maybe if you said the US should tax oil to reduce demand (like the Economist said), that'd be fairer. However, the 'city spread' I mentioned above, coupled with the fact that there's more to this country that the urban centres (exurbs, thinly populated states in the Midwest) for whom an oil tax would be very bad news make an oil tax highly unlikely -- especially for an economy that wants to grow at about 4-5% a year *and* a respectably growing population (as against Europe, which grows at 1-2% (if at all) and has a slightly declining population).
I am not saying being fuel efficient is a bad thing, but I wonder how much of the 'cut oil consumption' brigade are aware of the second-order effects of their tax-driven (some may call it 'artificial') energy-prices regime.
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