Bazz, I know Rundle oil shale project was producing oil, profitable at $70 a barrel.

I was off sailing, but I heard the refineries refused to buy it, & the project folded.

I also know that in the later part of WW11 development work started on harvesting oil from the same deposits, but was dropped immediately after the war.

There was no greenie stupidity back then, so I can only assume oil was so cheap it was hardly worth harvesting.

There is oil there to be had, but for some reason, we don't want it.

Hasbeen, during the war shale oil was produced at Glen Innes but it
ended at war end.
The shale at Glen Innes would not have been deep and I remember on TV
someone picked up a piece and lit it.

The shale that the tight oil comes from is known as source rocks
which is the place where the oil originated, and they are
much deeper than ordinary oil pools. That conventional oil had
migrated up from the source shale rock.

I think they will have big trouble at Coober Peedy getting access to water.
In the US they bring it in by road tankers and are destroying the
roads and bankrupting the local councils. They need many millions of
gallons per well to frack multiple times.
They then have to dispose of the contaminated recovered water.

I have seen comment that the tight oil support business is so large
and developed in the US that the cost of duplicating it in other
countries would be make the oil far too expensive.

Because the politicians are so far out of touch, that if there is a
crunch, the uproar over food shortages as well as having to walk to
the shops will see the greenies just shoved aside.

Bazz, Can't help you there mate, given I'm recalling an article from complimentary industry Publications that came along with the shareholders reports.

I was employed as an analyst in the minerals recovery industry and the power industry between 68 and 87.

As memory serves, the mid seventies publication concluded there were 5 billion barrels of sweet light crude in the Townville trough alone; and significantly more just a little further out.

As memory serves, there was a reported Scandinavian enterprise interested in obtaining an exploration licence for the larger trough further out.

In any event, there have been hundreds of reports of unexplained mystery oil slicks up and down the Great Barrier reef, (the size of Victoria) since before the turn of the last century.

I mean we're fairly certain of 5 billion barrels of virtually sulfur free sweet light crude in the easily accessed shallow Townsville trough; and recovering just that much oil even at today's low prices, would more that pay for any subsequent exploration and exploitation of all other significant adjacent finds.

We used to have a mines dept, and a government that paid drill teams to explore for minerals at promising sites; and indeed, the reason we have so many profitable coal mines.

But sigh, that was back then when we still had a few pragmatists in Government.

Look traditional Australian sweet light crude leaves the well head as almost ready to use diesel, needed only a little chill filtering to remove a few sand particles, and the soluble wax content that blocks the injectors on cold and frosty mornings. (diesel subs anyone?)

Oil slicks are almost always damaging to the reef, particularly those that don't come from shipping.

Drilling into and removing the source of this contamination, is the only way (reef lovers?) to prevent it endlessly reoccurring!
Ideology and dogma should never ever trump reason and logic!
Rhrosty.

Tectonic adjacent small earthquakes, surely explains the source of the many reported unexplained mystery oil slicks, which have to be comparatively shallow in order to leak, and therefore easily recovered.

Mystery oil slicks was all that lead to the earliest and most significant oil discoveries!
One would've thought, being reduced to just one weeks worth of fuel reserves, would have lead to quite frantic exploration activity?

I mean, for all practical purposes, we are defenseless without significant oil reserves.
And or, that being obliged to import as much as 91% of it, would have lead to pragmatic bipartisan agreement to explore and exploit our own still possibly significantly large reserves; even if that was undertaken as an exclusive Government responsibility; as it is the case in many Middle east countries or Norway.
An outcome that reduces the Ideological mantra, that government has no business in business, to risible rubbish!

Nothing whatsoever is gained by not looking or indeed, inventing all the excuses under the sun for failing to do so!
And in that context, woefully, abjectly failing Australia, and all her peoples.

Look, it may be no great shakes to peddle from Launceston to Hobart; (it's all downhill) Tasmania's two biggest cities.

But a completely different kettle of fish to rely exclusively on (green choice) peddle power, to go from Adelaide to Darwin, or Sydney to Perth, or indeed, move still fresh food and produce; or manufactured goods to all points of the compass in between!

And given the current state of play, one can be fairly certain none of our (poorly advised?) erstwhile pollies actually know what led to the most significant early oil discoveries; or very much science for that matter?
Rhrosty

Bazz,

I think that you'll find that the shale oil was at Glen Davis north west of Lithgow and that production started in 1907.

See:http://www.australiansteam.com/Wolgan%20Shay.htm

"I think this is potentially more alarming than climate change. An unlucky few get flooded or burnt out but everybody will feel the effect of less oil,"

Are you serious ? lol

"Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute and climate adviser to the German Chancellor and to the EU, has said that in a 4-degree warmer world, the population “carrying capacity estimates [are] below 1billion people”."

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/too-hot-to-handle-can-we-afford-a-4degree-rise-20110709-1h7hh.html#ixzz3Fp3TYCNM