Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Shale oil extraction/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Laser brain 16:26, 15 December 2010 [1].

Shale oil extraction[edit]

Shale oil extraction (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Beagel (talk) 20:53, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because after long editing period I believe this article fulfills FA criteria. This is the second nomination of this article. After closure of the first FAC nomination it has gone through intensive editing and has been significantly improved to solve issues mentioned during the first FAC procedure. I would like to thank editors Novickas, Gprince007, Wimvandorst, H Padleckas, and Splette for contributing to this process. Beagel (talk) 20:53, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]


File:Oil_shale_radio_frequency_extraction.JPG could do with a tidy up, but WP:FA Criteria 3 met Fasach Nua (talk) 21:48, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments. I will add comments here as I go through the article; I won't have much time today, but should be back tomorrow, so just one note till then.

  • The article seems quite overlinked. See WP:OVERLINK for more specifics. I unlinked some terms in the lead to give you an idea, though other editors might feel it is still overlinked; for example, does China really need a link? I think you need to go through and kill a few other links -- a glance down the rest of the article revealed links to vapor and United States, both of which are unnecessary.
Thank you for delinking some common terms. Although it could be questioned if term like 'waste water management' should be linked or not, I agree with your opinion. United States, China, Australia, Canada and vapor are delinked. Beagel (talk) 00:06, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've unlinked a few more things; take a look and see if there's anything you think should be put back. Mike Christie (talk) 13:19, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • A.C. Kirk's retort merits a picture; should it also be mentioned in the text? I think the reader should know at least if this is a typical retort, so that the picture can be taken as an illustration of retorts in general, or if this retort has some special feature, in which case that should be explained.
Design of the Kirk's retort is a typical retort of this period and the image is added to illustrate the retort in general. Caption of the image is accordingly amended. Beagel (talk) 23:40, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I looked through the IOM Historical Research Report (your footnote 1), and initially thought you had the pages wrong -- I was using the pages on the PDF index, and you're using the internal page numbers on the typescript. I don't know which is right; I'll post a note to WT:FAC and see if this has come up before. If it confused me it could confuse others, after all.
    Striking; responses at WT:FAC so far indicate that the page numbering you've used is standard. Mike Christie (talk) 16:48, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The first sentence in the body, "A number of shale oil extraction technologies have evolved over a period of time", isn't really necessary, and doesn't give the reader anything specific. How about changing it to: "Techniques for producing oil from shale have been known since at least the 10th century, when a method for extracting oil from "some kind of bituminous shale" was ..."?
The first sentence is removed. Beagel (talk) 23:47, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's still there. Did you start editing with an old version by chance? You reverted several of my copyediting changes without comment; was that deliberate? Mike Christie (talk) 10:55, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, reverting was accidental and I even not sure how it happened. There was no intention to revert your edits. Will fix this now. Beagel (talk) 11:16, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The correct version is restored. Once more, please accept my apologies for this accidental reversion. Beagel (talk) 11:25, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No problem; it happens. I've done similar things myself. Mike Christie (talk) 13:01, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • This point is just a suggestion, and not something that would cause me to oppose: I removed a space from in front of an em dash in the "Process principle" section, per WP:MOSDASH. There's a parenthesis just before the em dash, giving other words for char; you might consider moving that to a separate note. See here for an example article that divides its references this way; it keeps parenthetical comments from disrupting the flow of text, and the reader can tell by the different reference style that there is information behind the superscript, not just a citation. Just something to consider.
  • I haven't read the article in detail yet, but as far as I can see there is no reference to regulation of the industry -- which government agencies regulate it and any relevant details of the regulation. Perhaps the material doesn't really belong in this article, but even then I think a brief reference and a link would be useful. If shale oil extraction is typically regulated by the same agencies in each country that regulate conventional oil extraction processes, then a statement to that effect would suffice.
This article focus on the process/technology side. There is more wider article on oil shale industry. However, although only few countries have established their oil shale industries, they all have very different systems and regulations. As far as I knew, there is no so much oil shale specific regulations and this field is regulated mainly by general environmental and industry acts. Again, these varies from country to country. Beagel (talk) 23:58, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed; the material I was thinking of would belong in the wider article. Mike Christie (talk) 10:45, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The definition of in situ and ex situ processing is given in the lead, but not the body; I think it would be useful to a reader who is unfamiliar with the topic to add a sentence to the start of the "Process principle" section. Mike Christie (talk) 17:34, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    My mistake; I see the definition is actually given in the next section, "Classifications". I still think a reader would like to get the definition before the first use in the body, but it's less of an issue now. Mike Christie (talk) 18:48, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • This ref is used to support the statement that classification is difficult for ExxonMobil Electrofrac and in cases where there is limited information. I don't see support for either of those comments in that paper; did I miss it?
I checked the history of this edit and this specification that of classification difficulties was added to the original paragraph later by the author of the most commonly used classification Alan Burnham by this edit. As referred source does not include this specification, I removed this reference from this sentence. Beagel (talk) 23:08, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The reference is still there in the current version; you removed it with this edit and then re-added it with this edit. As above, it looks like you're working with old versions, by mistake, perhaps? In any case, removing the reference doesn't help if you don't remove the sentence -- if the sentence can't be sourced, it should be deleted.Mike Christie (talk) 10:55, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
OK, the reference is gone now, but the sentence remains. In fact I think you could cut that paragraph to just the first sentence: "Industry analysts have created several classifications of the methods by which hydrocarbons are extracted from oil shale." The second sentence doesn't add much, and the third is now unsourced. Mike Christie (talk) 13:08, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Both sentences are removed now. Beagel (talk) 13:32, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Struck. Mike Christie (talk) 13:46, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The 1894 invention of the Pumpherston retort marked the separation of the oil shale industry from the coal industry": the source for this is the following statement: "1894: Invention of Pumpherston retort (and similar designs) - shale industry became independent of coal industry". I think it might be a mistake to elide the mention of other designs here. I read some historical material about the Pumpherston retort to try to find out why the design was special, and could find nothing about it; the discussions generally seemed to indicate that it was a significant improvement in efficiency but just one of many improvements made at about that time. Do you know the details behind this statement?
    • The author is, I believe, speaking of the intensive use of coal to fire the earlier retorts. Of the 1873 Henderson retort he writes: Coal supplementation was still required, on average about one quarter to 2cwt per ton of shale: this was 50% less than that required for the Kirk retort. (p 48). Of the Pumpherston retort: The retort was started up by heating it with coal, but thereafter permanent gas from the process, supplemented by producer gas burnt in the flue-system, supplied all the fuel required. The internal temperatures were 350 - 480°C at the top and 650 - 700° at the bottom. Thus the shale industry was rendered relatively independent of the coal industry. (p 55). Novickas (talk) 15:28, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is true that there were other retorts with similar innovative design. However, the Pumpherston retort was the most successful becoming the most common retort for this period. By 1910 there were 1528 Pumpherston retorts in use only in Scotland; in addition, it was widely used globally (e.g. in Australia). Therefore, from the historical perspective the Pumpherston retort and not other retorts symbolizes the separation of the oil industry from the coal industry. However, will add "similar designs". Beagel (talk) 16:08, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Struck. I think the info Novickas gives could be usefully added to the article, so that the reader understands that there was no longer a need for a continuous supply of coal; it's not necessary but I'd recommend it.
Changed to 'the 1894 invention of the Pumpherston retort, which was much less reliant on coal heat than its predecessors, marked...' Novickas (talk) 18:23, 11 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The statement that the Fischer assay is used to evaluate efficiency is currently uncited; it can be cited to p.12 of the Speight Synthetic Fuels Handbook, which you already cite.
Added page 13 [2]. Novickas (talk) 15:41, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The two uses of reference Driving It Home from the NRDC don't give page numbers; that's a large PDF. Could you cite specific page numbers?
Done. Beagel (talk) 16:30, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • What's the source for "should therefore avoid areas of high population density" in the final section? I couldn't see it in the Estonian paper; it might be somewhere in Driving It Home, which is the other source you cite -- that's why I asked for page numbers above. I checked the source for that statement because it seems rather prescriptive; a statement like that would probably benefit from saying something like "The NRDC recommends that ...."
As this was not directly said by the source, the second part of this sentence ("... and should therefore avoid areas of high population density.") is removed. Beagel (talk) 16:40, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

-- Mike Christie (talk) 19:38, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have switched to support above. The article seems to me to be very well-researched; I have worked a little in the oil industry (though I knew very little about oil shale before I read this article) and it seems to cover the bases I would expect an article like this to cover. I did not do a source or image review, but have spot-checked some sources for accuracy of citations and for paraphrasing; there were no problems. Mike Christie (talk) 16:48, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Many thanks for the review and the copyedits. Novickas (talk) 18:08, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm uncomfortable about the preparedness of this article for FAC. There are numerous MOS issues, but those could be listed and fixed if the citation and prose is up to snuff. I find numerous sentences whose meaning I can't decipher (and I worked in a Seven Sister company planning, including shale oil), and when going to the sources to decipher meaning, I find the sourcing is so haphazard that it's impossible to tell what source is citing what statement. Many statements have multiple citations after them, and I can't often locate the text cited within the source. Don't quite know where to start here, because this article needs a lot of work. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:13, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Sandy, can you be specific? I didn't check every source before I supported, but I spot checked a few and while I did find a couple of things that needed slight modification there was nothing fundamentally wrong. I also have a bit of oil industry experience and that may mean I am blind to some obscurities. Can you give a couple of examples? Mike Christie (talk) 21:23, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

DAB/EL Check - no dabs, no external link problems- fixed a redir from .org to .eu. --PresN 22:56, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support. H Padleckas (talk) 22:21, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support comments - beginning a look-over now. I'll make straightforward copyedits as I go (please revert if I inadvertently change the meaning) and jot queries below: Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:19, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • first patent - 1684 in lead, 1694 in body of text (??)
  • ...it could be used as feedstock for the cement production - "feedstock", does this mean like a basic ingredient or substrate or something?
  • The temperature at which perceptible decomposition of oil shale occurs - why "perceptible" here? No-one is stating at it surely....?
  • ensure that kerogen, pyrolysis, hydrogenation, and thermal dissolution are linked in the first instances in hte body of the text (as well as the lead)
  • link or explain impoundment - also the word is used three times quickly - do we need all three?
    • Reworded to 'within the confines of an earthen structure.' Novickas (talk) 15:31, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't get an idea what the leftover shale is like from reading this - can this be expanded upon somewhere?
    • Need a little time on this; much to be said and am not quite sure where it's best placed. Beagel will unavailable for a few more days, would like to post a proposal at the talk page and run it past them, hope that's OK. Novickas (talk) 15:31, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Added explanation that the spent shale is mainly minerals (inorganic compound). I hope this is what you mean. If not, please specify what has to be added in addition of this. Beagel (talk) 08:14, 11 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Otherwise, the prose is quite clear despite the need for alot of technical words here. Nearly there. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:22, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review and copyedit. Novickas (talk) 18:23, 11 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]


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