Talk:Unconventional oil

Cost
$18 per barrel from tar sands seems a little high. I worked at Syncrude and if I remember correctly it was about $12 to $15 Canadian per barrel. Does anyone have a source? TastyCakes 05:44, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Definition of Non-conventional oil
Is there any approved and accepted Definition of Non-conventional oil in literature? Who established this term first? thanks Holo


 * I believe "unconventional oil" would be a better name for this article; it gets more search engine hits by a factor of almost four to one. Thoughts? GreenReaper (talk) 00:25, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
 * That sounds like a plan to me. Any objections?  NJGW (talk) 09:46, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Changed to "unconventional oil". Beagel (talk) 16:09, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The definition supplied in this article is based on commercial value, which is both ephemeral and geo-political and so is subject to constant change - that is not a definition - it is a condition of the definition, which is supplied here and is physical, based upon both fluid and reservoir qualities, which are unchanging. I suggest we agree on the more stable definition and either merge or link back to it (to include unconventional gas.Geneus01 (talk) 15:07, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

bad title on my RV
I just did a rv on a serial POV vandal from 70.134.*.* and inadvertently used a boilerplate edit summary. In fact, peak oil is very relevant to the topic, but it is already covered by the link to Hubbert peak and the page's categories.

This guy has been injecting a POV into many articles through subtle changes or addition of POV statements that, even if arguably true, have little bearing on the topic at hand.

Nova SS 01:51, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

400 year claim
If oil shale could be used to meet a quarter of the current 20 million barrels per day (32,000 m³/d) demand, 800 billion barrels (130,000,000,000 m³) of recoverable resources would last for more than 400 years.[3]

Could this misinform someone who isn't willing to think about it for a second. I'm not saying the above is wrong, but it fails to point out that demand is likely to increase. Also, would the remaining 3/4 of conventional oil last for that long? Isn't this point quite pointless?! --Willplatts (talk) 09:33, 17 April 2008 (UTC)


 * good point, here and elsewhere, it should read "if demand/production remained flat" or skip entirely Harel (talk) 19:28, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

oil manufacture
Since there are several startups racing to be the first to manufacture petroleum products in industrially useful quantities (they've already managed it in small amounts), I think it's time to add bugs to the mix. Once oil can be manufactured as well as extracted, a great many things change, including the privileged position of OPEC and Peak Oil. TMLutas (talk) 22:37, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Greenhouse gases and other impacts
.... Harel (talk) 19:32, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

School project edits
In the next few days this page will soon get a significant revision and subsequent editing from students participating in the Public Policy Initiative. This article was chosen because it is missing content or sourcing and has been relatively innactive. Their draft articles are being formed in their user space and will be transfered here. Links to the drafts can be found at WikiProject United States Public Policy/Courses/Political Economy of Technology and Science fall 2010. I will not be allowing students to that first initial transfer unless their article has been significantly improved in references and content. Please provide comments on the significant revisions and help the students improve the Wikipedia formatting. However, I would greatly appreciate that any major content changes be suggested to the students on the talk page so that they get the experience editing collaboratively and through consensus and feedback. The final date for the project is Friday December 10, expect significant editing from now until then. Thank you.

If you have any questions feel free to raise them here or on my talk page, Myself and other WP:Online Ambassadors will be monitoring their edits, so we will also be able to help fix issues on the pages, Sadads (talk) 01:19, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

References moved to talk page
These references were recently added by the school project (see above); they don't appear to be used at the moment so I am moving them here in case they are useful for future editors. Mike Christie (talk – library) 21:28, 11 December 2010 (UTC)


 * fossil.energy.gov/programs/.../Oil_Shale_Economics_Fact_Sheet1.pdf
 * www.netl.doe.gov/publications/factsheets/program/Prog101.pdf
 * http://www.energyplan.gov.bc.ca/bcep/default.aspx?hash=9
 * http://ehis.ebscohost.com/eds/detail?vid=1&hid=2&sid=3fd7c37e-a599-4a48-aec3-c3ce8f627e38%40sessionmgr10&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmUmc2NvcGU9c2l0ZQ%3d%3d#db=bth&AN=36242563
 * http://www.jstor.org/stable/40204300?&Search=yes&term=Oil&term=Impacts&term=Environmental&term=Unconventional&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DUnconventional%2BOil%2BEnvironmental%2BImpacts%26gw%3Djtx%26acc%3Don%26prq%3DUnconventional%2Boil%26hp%3D25%26wc%3Don&item=14&ttl=268&returnArticleService=showFullText
 * http://www.jstor.org/stable/285387?seq=1&Search=yes&term=Oil&term=Economics&term=Unconventional&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DEconomics%2Bof%2BUnconventional%2BOil%26gw%3Djtx%26acc%3Don%26prq%3DUnconventional%2BOil%2BEnvironmental%2BImpacts%26hp%3D25%26wc%3Don&item=5&ttl=1169&returnArticleService=showFullText&resultsServiceName=null
 * http://www.jstor.org/stable/1748747?seq=1&Search=yes&term=Oil&term=Economics&term=Unconventional&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicResults%3Fhp%3D25%26la%3D%26wc%3Don%26acc%3Don%26gw%3Djtx%26jcpsi%3D1%26artsi%3D1%26Query%3DEconomics%2Bof%2BUnconventional%2BOil%26sbq%3DEconomics%2Bof%2BUnconventional%2BOil%26prq%3DUnconventional%2BOil%2BEnvironmental%2BImpacts%26si%3D26%26jtxsi%3D26&item=32&ttl=1169&returnArticleService=showFullText&resultsServiceName=null
 * http://infoweb.newsbank.com/iw-search/we/InfoWeb?p_product=AWNB&p_theme=aggregated5&p_action=doc&p_docid=12552D97A5ECC550&p_docnum=2&p_queryname=3
 * http://infoweb.newsbank.com/iw-search/we/InfoWeb?p_product=AWNB&p_theme=aggregated5&p_action=doc&p_docid=1336C843066C7478&p_docnum=5&p_queryname=2
 * http://www.unconventionalfuels.org
 * http://www.changingworldtech.com/what/index.asp
 * Thank you Mike for taking an interest in this article. There project was due last night so the students may or may not be back to help contribute to the article. I hope, however, that you found their contributions useful for this topic, and I am sure whoever next decides to improve the article finds these references useful, Sadads (talk) 21:33, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * No problem -- I'm the mentor for at least one of them, so I'm glad to help. I think I'll leave things as they stand unless I hear from the students again.  Hope the class went well.  Mike Christie (talk – library) 21:38, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * For a compressed period of time for them to work on the articles (like 4-6 weeks depending at how proactive the students were), I would call the class's content a success. Go ahead and take a look at the other articles listed at WP:USPP/C/PECTS, and thanks again! Sadads (talk) 21:55, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Way Off Topic
Section 3.1 Recent policy actions -- is totally unrelated to unconventional oil. Likewise, the section on unconventional drilling is focused on natural gas, and has nothing to do with unconventional oil. NiN (talk) 23:38, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
 * The section "Environmental justice and unconventional drilling" is also way off topic and should be removed. That section deals with some theory about what is Environmental justice and natural gas, neither of which is the topic of this article. Bonewah (talk) 21:45, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

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 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20070623053221/http://www.battelle.org:80/Environment/publications/EnvUpdates/Fall2003/article9.stm to http://www.battelle.org/Environment/publications/envupdates/Fall2003/article9.stm

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Proposed merge
There is no mistaking the confusion of language in the public domain when it comes to the extraction of oil or gas from unconventional reservoirs. Unfortunately, that confusion is currently amplified in Wikipedia, which is - well - understandable but avoidable. I have attempted (with a panel of academic and industry experts) to generate a new irreducible definition of unconventional reservoirs (also referred to in the sector as unconventional resources, resource plays or just unconventionals). The new article responds directly to User:Geneus01's comment about changing the basis of the definition from non-unique and ever changing commercial premises to immutable physical premises, albeit under variable pressure and temperature conditions. The proposal here is to combine unconventional oil with unconventional gas and merge them under Unconventional (oil & gas) reservoir, preserving the histories for both. Your comments would be welcomed.Guy WF Loftus (talk) 08:17, 10 December 2022 (UTC)