Some discussion about this on the Oil Drum, starting here...
theoildrum.com
That article says:
"Oil shale rock burns on its own when lit with a torch."
Has there been research on using it more or less as it is to generate electricity rather than separating oil from rock for transportation purposes?
Datamunger on July 18, 2008
westexas on July 18, 2008 - 9:29am
I gave a talk at Sandia Labs on Monday, and I asked one of the Sandia guys this exact question, since I had read that Shale Oil is used, in I believe one of the former Soviet Republics, as a boiler fuel. He said that it was, in some cases, possible, but that like coal, there are different grades of Shale Oil quality, and it has to be a fairly high quality kerogen deposit in order to make it worthwhile to use as a boiler fuel.
In any case, I suspect that this may be the future for Shale Oil--stripmining high quality deposits to use to generate electricity. However, the volume of waste ash will be tremendous, and I think that this is really dirty stuff that I suspect will make some grades of coal look clean.
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