[altopiet]

This should be interesting to follow... it would surely have some impact on the Middle East, and the Renewable Energy movement....

Massive Oil Discovery In Australia Is Deathblow For Saudis

I wonder how this would affect the Australian way of life in the years to come?

[Vylen]

Hopefully it'll bring our petrol prices down :P

But other than that, it probably won't do much on our way of life. Coober Pedy is out in the middle of nowhere - people will move there to work and what not and our economy will have a huge boost once again just like what the mining boom did for us.

Although the better economy will result in tougher exports for our farmers once again as our dollar goes up.

Aside from that, nothing special :P

[bossa]

From what I've read it's shale based oil and would be expensive to extract.

[altopiet]

From what I've read it's shale based oil and would be expensive to extract.

Something like the fracking for gas Shell's planning for my part of the world?

[bossa]

Something like the fracking for gas Shell's planning for my part of the world?

Yeah they're doing that here but they call it Coal Seem Gas.

Anyway, if they decide to extract that oil the planet will be dead in 100 years due to massive temperatrue rises. The oceans are dying right now from acidification and extreme temperature events combined with Algal Blooms. If we pass a tipping point and the permafrost melts we're history because the frozen methane there is capable of totally burning off the oxygen in the atmosphere within a season.

PS: It's estimated that if the permafrost melts and massive quantities of methane are released all life on Earth could be extinct by the middle of the 21st century.

[RobA_Oz]

This isn't exactly news, but it's not quite old enough to be history. Every now and then, things like this get trotted out to make some sort of point or garner hits on their website.

Shale oil is exactly Coal Seam Gas, either. The US has large reserves of shale oil, too. It's an expensive process to extract, requiring considerable amounts of energy. It's not likely to be a bonanza any time soon, so the planet's safe until the K-1 comes out, at least.

[altopiet]

so the planet's safe until the K-1 comes out, at least.

Rumored to be 2014?

[rawr]

If we pass a tipping point and the permafrost melts we're history

But you guys down in South Australia would have a great new inland sea nearby to enjoy, according to the latest news on rising sea levels associated with melting ice caps..

[dcBear78]

This has been known about for a long time. Too expensive to refine. Maybe as a raw export it might be viable but Australian wages are too high and bureaucracy too deep for any more of these type of industries to get off the ground these days. Here in Gladstone they ran a trial Shale Oil refinery and walked out on it after about 5 years because of costs and environmental concerns.

edit: Apparently it is still going.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Oil_Shale_Project

[rawr]

This has been known about for a long time.

Since about 1807, with exploitation beginning in 1865. And by 1947, about 3% of Australia's gasoline consumption was oil-shale derived:
Oil shale in Australia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It's all over the country too, by the look of things. But it's expensive to produce (capital costs, not labour costs, like most mining) and messy to extract. Nice to know it's there in such volumes, though.

Also with so much natural gas production coming online around the world, including in Australia, shale oil has a lot of competition.

[PJ1]

There are massive shale oil deposits under much of Queensland but, as others have said, it is dirty to produce (environmentally unfriendly) and expensive to extract. I don't think we will be spending those trillions any time soon.

[boriscleto]

One thing that isn't clear from that press release that has been floating around the Internet for almost a year, is this Oil Shale or is it oil-bearing shale?

It mentions the Bakken and Eagle Ford Formations, those are oil-bearing shales. But those are different than Oil Shale. Australia has always been known to have Oil Shale, just not as much as the US. In the US most of it is too deep to be economically recoverable. Though there have been proposals to use nuclear bombs to blast down to it...

[OldNoob]

Strip mining? Welp... there goes beautiful Australia

[dcBear78]

Strip mining? Welp... there goes beautiful Australia

Pretty sure very few people have described the area around Coober Peedy as "beautiful".

Also mining is what we do best. Iron ore and coaking coal being or biggest exports.

[clackers]

In the US most of it is too deep to be economically recoverable.

May be the case here, too.