Tar sand and oil shale to electricity

dorlomin · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Aug 05, 2007 Posts: 1062

I have heard that they do this in Lituania, but is it possible to directly burn oil shales and tar sands in the boilers for steam turbine generators to produce electricity?

Would this be a cheaper means of producing power than the convoluted conversion to petrol and diesel?

(Global warming asside)

errorist · Tar Sands Joined: May 28, 2008 Posts: 51

Yes, it is possible. Here in Estonia most of the electricity is generated by burning oil shale.

Joint Stock Company Narva Power Plants

mos6507

I'm guessing the only reason this isn't done now is that coal is easier to deal with if you've got it, but down the line it would probably be a good way to keep the lights on in a worst case scenario.
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