Method for recovering shale oil from shale

A method of recovering oil from shale and disposing of spent shale in a safe way comprising the following steps:

• (a) blasting the shale rock in a mine to rubblize it;
• (b) hauling the rubble out of the mine;
• (c) crushing the rubblized shale;
• (d) feeding the crushed shale into a retort;
• (e) heating the shale to pyrolize it;
• (f) collecting the volatilized oil vapor and noncondensables from the shale;
• (g) compressing the spent shale into predetermined block forms to reduce the volume of the spent shale;
• (h) sealing said blocks to render them impermeable to water;
• (i) preparing the mine to receive said blocks;
• and
• (j) transporting said blocks to the mine whence the shale came from.

An improved method of recovering oil from shale in a sealed retort which possesses a vertical shaft using the principle of electric induction heating to pyrolyse the shale without causing pollution to the environment comprising the following steps:

• (a) charging shale into said retort without permitting the escape of gases from said retort;
• (b) distributing the shale within the shaft of said retort by compartmentalizing the charge into a plurality of individual cells disposed within said shaft so that the quantity of shale contained within each cell is substantially the same;
• (c) heating the walls of said cells by means of electric induction in order to efficiently heat the shale contained in each cell by directly transferring the heat from the inside walls of each cell to the shale contained therein without the interposition of insulation between the heated inside walls of said cells and the shale;
• (d) preventing the loss of heat from the outside walls of each of said cells by insulating the outside walls of each cell in order to insulate each cell both thermally and electrically from an adjacent cell so that the shale is pyrolized efficiently in each cell independently from the pyrolysis of the shale contained in an adjacent cell so that the possibility of short-circuiting between cells is eliminated;
• (e) volatilizing the oil and the gaseous matter contained in said shale in the absence of air;
• (f) collecting the volatilized oil and gaseous matterfrom said retort and cooling them to separate the condensibles from the noncondensibles;
• and
• (g) discharging the spent shale after the pyrolysis without causing pollution, including the step of forming the spent shale into a predetermined block form, and moving the block form to a storage location.