Renewable energy applications for oil shale drilling

Abstract

Extracting oil shale requires a large amount of energy for heating and pyrolyzing the rock. Using renewable energy sources is a good opportunity to reduce the overall carbon footprint. This poster details thermal solar as an energetic solution and compares different renewable energy sources, as well as their consumption water, greenhouse gas emissions and embodied energies. All the calculations are based on energy calculations to extract 100,000 barrels of oil shale per day of rich (30 gal/ton) and medium (20 gal/ton) oil shale provided by Alan Burnham of American Shale Oil (AMSO).