Saudi prince views US shale reserves as an imminent threat

[raketenjagdpanzer]

...to the point that he's urging his country's diversification...

(THIS IS T2k RELEVANT, PROMISE)

Given that the US is going to, according to the T2k timeline, withdraw from the ME completely I would be compelled given this information we now have to say that someone woke up and said "Wait a second, our population is 20% of what it was pre-war, there is no urban and suburban population mobility so cars-as-leisure-purchases are no longer relevant, all we need oil for is lubricant and fuel for military/reconstruction purposes...guys, we've got a ton of shale and some surviving "wet" oil production here in the 'States, there's no reason to keep those guys out on the sharp end anymore."

Yes, yes, I'm aware that the USA per some folks' canon has to be GRIMDARK but regardless, given that there's no EPA to object to fracking, or mining shale wherever it is (aw, this is a national park? Guess what, it's now a national fuel reserve), I could see that as a big part of the US getting back on its feet after 2002 or so.

By 2010 we might even see fully mechanical harvests again.

[Olefin]

If you ignore HW its down to 48 percent of prewar population but I agree with you on fracking to get at oil here - and frankly I dont think MilGov or CivGov is going to give a damn about environmental regulations for quite a while after the war comes to an end - especially considering they will have to dispose of a lot of chemical and radioactive contaminated soil and materials if they ever want to make NJ, NYC, DC, LA and Philly totally habitable again

[raketenjagdpanzer]

Yup. Getting gas and diesel for heavy machinery will be a must for the recovery effort. If you put every person in the US capable of working at clearing out a ruined or damaged city (or even neighborhood) and had to do it by hand even ignoring the radiation hazards and assuming people didn't die from tetanus, being killed in accidents on the job-site etc. you're talking about decades just for one good sized town to get ruins removed and rebuilt.

Get some heavy machinery in there powered by sweet, sweet shale gas and oil and it becomes feasible again...

[Olefin]

and you wouldnt want to bring CENTCOM and AFRICOM (guys in Kenya) forces home, let alone Korea unless you have the gas to be able to use them right - which could explain the lag in time for the US forces to finally leave the Middle East

[mikeo80]

As I see the issue of Oil, Gas, Fracking, etc.

1) Post TDM. Whatever government structure is left will have to scramble to every little gas station and storage depot to extract every oz. of fuel.

2) Post TDM. That same structure will have to find and protect any living wildcat drilling team and equipment. (Harry Stamper and crew comes to mind)

3) Post TDM. That same structure will have to find and protect any existing raw oil refinery. As well as any living workers. Even if you have to divert defensive power away from other needs. I can see SEVERAL Patriot anti-missle units being diverted to whatever refineries are out there post TDM.

These three steps MUST happen as quickly as possible. In the chaos of TDM, that quickness will be VERY difficult. But it MUST be done.

Once these steps are complete, I forsee the next step being the construction of some refinery capacity. Much of the TDM strike was against the infrastructure of oil refining. You can get all of the oil out of the ground, but you still have to refine it to diesel at least. This will take TIME. I am no oil expert, but the German coal to diesel refineries (WWII) did not happen overnight. Much of their production was diesel for the Panzers.

Once you have diesel, many options begin to open. I suspect as the other posters have mentioned, a GreenPeace or EPA representative will not have a pleasant reception. I forsee anyone trying to protest the building of these steps being SHOT. Then and there.

My $0.02

Mike

[Green Monkey]

Long time lurker unlurking because unlike usual I think I can add some intelligent comment to this question.

Mike is right on the money with emphasis on refining capacity in the medium to long term. Given the relatively wide geographical distribution and distribution of crude oil production in the US I think crude won't be as rare as the books make out. If you google oil and gas divestiture there will be no end of opportunities to spend anything from a few thousand to a few billion dollars to own anything from a prospect through small producing assets to large development projects.

How readily a refinery can be modified to produce more diesel (and jet fuel which are relatively similar) will depend on the crude that feeds it and how complex the refinery is to start with. An oil refinery will generally produce from gaseous hydrocarbons through gasolene (which is relatively light) then diesel/jet/kerosene (heavier) fuel oil (very heavy) to coke/bitumen (solid hydrocarbons). I would suggest that altering the configuration post TDM might be biting off more than is worth chewing.

It's also interesting that given low gas prices in the US some companies are looking at reconfiguring large long range trucks to run on gas (westport innovations for example). Whether this technology would have existed in t2k I'm not sure but it shows that all the refinery's products could find a use.

I've also been really surprised at the availability of small scale oil refineries on ali baba. I suspect they are probably quite inefficient and not so great environmentally but I think in a t2k type scenario that these sorts of facilities could either be fabricated or alternatively built using salvage from damaged refineries. There are a number of references to illegal refineries in chechnya which are probably the sorts of things that would pop up post tdm.

I know its going to rub some folks the wrong way but I don't think GDW got the fuel thing quite right. The constraints are at the refinery (especially in CONUS) and I suspect that improvisation and desperation would lead to local solutions. There would be folks all over texas, louisiana, oklahoma, california etc who I reckon could knock up a little refinery to get feed from a few local wells and I think there would be national guard or local law enforcement (or even regulars) who would prioritise this for resources, personnel and security

Last point -shale is obviously a huge thing in the real world but probably would have been quite an experimental technology 20 years ago.

Cheers,

Nick