This symposium series book describes recent research and developments of various aspects (characteristics, production, processing, upgrading, utilization, environmental, socio-economics, policy, and legal) of oil shale.

Abundant oil shale deposits exist in the United States that can contribute significantly towards the nation's energy security. About one trillion barrels of oil can be recovered from the U.S. oil shale resources. These huge domestic oil resources are currently untapped. Interest in developing the oil shale resources of the United States of America has been rekindled in the last few years as a result of high prices of conventional crude oil and concerns about reliable, sustainable, and secure energy supplies to meet our nation's growing demand for liquid fuels. The technology to develop affordable fuels from oil shale in an environmentally sound manner requires advances in research, development and demonstration (RD&D). Recently, research and development activities on oil shale have increased tremendously in an effort to advance oil shale technology and consequently accelerate its commercial development, while minimizing the environmental impact. This symposium series book describes recent research advances and developments of various aspects (characteristics, production, processing, upgrading, utilization, environmental, socio-economics, policy, and legal) of oil shale. The book will be useful to technology developers, investors, decision makers both in the private and public sectors, environmental regulators, researchers and academia.

An overview of oil shale resources New challenges and directions in oil shale development technologies Lake level controlled sedimentological heterogeneity of oil shale, upper Green River formation, eastern Uinta Basin, Utah Thermodynamics of shale oil production Molecular composition of shale oil Chemistry and kinetics of oil shale retorting Modeling of the in-situ production of oil from oil shale AMSO's novel approach to in-situ oil shale recovery Shell's in situ conversion process from laboratory to field pilots Exxon Mobil's Electrofrac process for in situ oil shale conversion Carbon dioxide emissions from oil shale derived liquid fuels A review of activities to address the environmental impacts of oil shale development Economics of oil shale development Resource management challenges in the context of potential oil shale development