ABSTRACT

The production of oil from oil shale in the western United States was rst commercially attempted in the mid-1910s (EPA Oil Shale Work Group 1979). In the roughly 100  years since, oil shale has never made the jump from being a “potential” to “proven” source of oil, primarily because no one has demonstrated the economic viability of oil shale relative to other production methods for conventional oil. Consequently, one of the key questions to consider in assessing any oil shale production technology or process is “how much will it cost.” Unfortunately, it is difcult to answer this question with any certainty precisely because oil shale is unproven, and as a result, the values of important input parameters and costs are unknown. The reports and studies (Bartis et al. 2005, Bezdek et al. 2006, ICSE 2013, INTEK Inc. 2009, STRAAM Engineers 1979) that have analyzed the costs of developing oil shale do not fully consider the impact of varying their input parameters or costing assumptions. However, as will be discussed in this chapter, much more can be learned about the potential cost range and optimal design of oil shale technologies by rigorously exploring this parameter space.