Your Questions About Solar Energy Colorado
Paul asks…
Why is oil shale not used as a natural resource?
There is more oil shale in Colorado than all the oil in the middle east. If we use solar energy to refine it wouldn’t that make up for the energy loss? I think oil shale can be converted into a type of jet fuel. Correct me if I am wrong please.
oh well nice though
admin answers:
Be patient as oil shale will be developed in the future. Oil shale extraction has been around in Colorado since the early 1980’s and was once subsidized by the US Government in order to try to determine if it could be made economical. However, oil price collapses during the late 1980’s caused those projects to be canceled. At the present time it is just too expensive to compete with conventional oil & natural gas resources. However, there are several Federal Government permitted oil shale projects in smaller scale field trials underway. It will take about 10 years per project just to determine if they can be reasonably expanded to larger scale trials. The interest in oil shale was great in 2008 when oil prices peaked at $150 per barrel but some of that interest has decreased now that oil is around $70 to $80 per barrel.
See the link below on oil shale extraction methods in general.
Chris asks…
Is there a way to tell how much solar energy will be produced based on location?
For instance, in Colorado, more Wattage can be produced in a Solar cell than in Ohio. Is there way to tell the difference?
admin answers:
Insolation maps can be found here: http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/old_data/nsrdb/redbook/atlas/
These are based on actual measured historical data, so take into account local clouds and weather conditions.
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