Oil Shale Extraction could bring access to 1 trillion barrels of oil in the United States. Canada has even more. If some biblical figure could strike his staff against the stone and bring forth oil, he (or she) would be a very rich biblical figure, indeed.
But it's a bit tougher than that. An interesting article about the state of oil today notes that "companies developing tar sand production in Alberta announced that their costs of production were rising substantially."
Sounds like a job for science and technology... especially as biblical figures are a bit short on the ground these days. With rumors of oil production about to decline and continued resistance to nuclear power, someone who can bring this large scale energy source to our gas tanks will be heavily rewarded.
So what is happening in this subsector of a subsector? There are academic institutions that focus on engineering and others that focus on energy. There are patents to be filed, alliances to be made, deals to be done and advances to be discovered. Again, like nanotechnology and global warming, this is one area where we should expect to find a doubling of human knowledge every five years--at least.
Better yet, from our point of view, we've been extracting oil from shale since 1847 (those canny Scots at it again), so there should be a time series of publications for us to study--almost as long as our study of studying Mars.
We did find one, at Scirus again. It goes back to 1920, but only gives results for the decade up til 1950.
Taking an average of 4 journal articles for 1920 and 115 patents for the same year, we get CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 5.59% for journal articles, and 2.61% for patents. As shown below, you can easily tell when oil prices rose.
But comparing 2002-2006 with the five years preceding, we can quite clearly see the effects of commerce on knowledge seeking. Journal articles during this period rose by 13.94% for the entire 5-year period. But patents--they rose by 99.19%, doubling within 5 years.
We see similar effects when measuring output in the 70's. Journal articles grew more strongly--at 245.86% for the five year periods. Patents grew strongly, but only rose from 1,098 to 1,730 or 57.56%. In fact, it makes me wonder if the oil shocks of the 70's drove academic interest immediately, which led to a knowledge base being available for patent seekers when prices rose again after 2001.
The story of oil shale and human knowledge looks much more like punctuated equilibrium than the steady advance of human knowledge, and what punctures the equilibrium is economics.
Results below...
Well, my first choice was the US Geographic Survey, which has a publications record going back to 1880. However, searching for 'oil shale' only returned 102 results. The results certainly were relevant, but not enough to base a time series on. Wiley's Interscience wasn't much better--only 191 results.
The Journal of Geology, published since 1893, has 560 articles with oil shale or extraction, but they all seem to deal with the very distant past. I need a different journal or a different search term, or both.
So it's back to Scirus, which obligingly finds 2,922 journal articles published on the subject since 1920, which is shorter than I would like, but I'm eager to find a source I can look at. It also found 6,138 patents--the first time we've found more patents than journal articles, which should emphasize the practical and reward-driven aspects of this particular subject.
Year Journal Patents
2007 175 178
2006 431 1,058
2005 362 891
2004 464 1,048
2003 552 955
2002 553 729
2001 331 600
2000 306 475
1999 271 456
1998 451 446
1997 714 373
1996 791 381
1995 641 344
1994 450 482
1993 138 471
1992 162 440
1991 148 477
1990 157 450
1989 390 512
1988 420 461
1987 393 421
1986 391 469
1985 384 542
1984 373 652
1983 320 582
1982 336 444
1981 350 490
1980 309 408
1979 262 378
1978 208 439
1977 150 395
1976 164 307
1975 136 211
1974 111 220
1973 43 216
1972 40 191
1971 35 226
1970 37 245
1969 30 121
1968 16 173
1967 34 173
1966 13 168
1965 17 146
1964 7 140
1963 6 127
1962 9 198
1961 18 144
1960 8 159
1950-1960 53 1,353
1940-1950 19 640
1930-1940 26 1,179
1920-1930 39 1,152
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