Microwave oil recovery could unlock trillions of barrels of oil
and drinkable water from Oil shale and oil sands:
"Producers would microwave oil shale formations with a beam as powerful as 500
household microwave ovens, cooking the kerogen and releasing the oil. It also would turn
the water found naturally in the deposits to steam, which would help push the oil to the
wellbore. “Once you remove the oil and water,” Kearl continues, “the rock basically
becomes transparent” to the microwave beam, which can then penetrate outward farther
and farther, up to about 80 feet from the wellbore. It doesn’t sound like much, but a
single microwave-stimulated well, which would be drilled in formations on average nearly
1,000 feet thick, could pump about 800,000 barrels. Qmast plans to have its first
systems deployed in the field in 2017 and start producing by the end of that year.
Qmast estimates his pumping costs will be about $9 per barrel, which is only about $2
more than conventional wells."
See:
http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/12...ld-unlock.html