Occasionally one can read about the enormous energy sources locked up in the Western oil shale of our nation, containing trillions of barrels of oil, perhaps the greatest oil deposit in the world. But attempts to unlock this energy have proved the hardest nut to crack. Those who have tried have all gone bust due to the inhibiting cost of freeing the oil and the unacceptable damage to the environment.
Apparently, that very fact is what is best for all – forcing us to develop new pollution-free energies. However, that solution is not within reach today and we may not be able to wait for it coming around – so we would still be married to fossil fuels.
An Oct. 2 article in The Herald showed an oil shale rock ignited by a blowtorch, which later seemed to burn on its own, like coal. The oil shale is available as provided by nature and the problem freeing its energy may not lie with the shale itself, but with the process of utilizing its energy as is.
If it can be ignited by a blowtorch, one should think it could be ignited by regular combustion (burning) in a catalytic oven, that is, with the support of a catalyst. The problem lieswith the construction of such an oven, wherein the combustion can take place with the oil shale as fuel.
Such an oven could be a part of our energy solution, though its construction certainly would be a task for American ingenuity, its inventors and entrepreneurs. If anyone with money to spare could set up a prize for the inventor of such an oven, the faster would be the results.
This suggestion may appear simplistic and maybe rejected as such, but I say with the old adage: “Only the ones that wander, find new ways.”
FINN HEDIN
Everett
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
