Oil Shale and Tar Sands
Read the Latest Issue of WRA's Oil Shale News
WRA publishes Oil Shale News to keep the media and public up-to-date on events and developments concerning oil shale. Click below to read the latest developments on this controversial resources:
- August 22, 2011 Oil Shale Field Hearing Backgrounder
- July 20, 2011 OSN issue
- April 25, 2011 OSN issue
- February 22, 2011 OSN issue
- January 13, 2011 OSN issue
- October 25, 2010 OSN issue
- July 27, 2010 OSN issue
- May, 2010 OSN issue
- March, 2010 OSN issue
- February 12, 2010 OSN issue
- January, 2010 OSN issue
- October-November, 2009 OSN issue
- September, 2009 OSN issue
- August, 2009 OSN issue
If you would like to get on our mailing list to receive future editions, click here to let us know.
Oil Shale Fact Sheets
Public Voices Their Concern to BLM on Oil Shale
A series of seven recent meetings held by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) opened the door to public feedback on the potential use of public lands for oil shale. The BLM got an earful from those who attended. Outnumbering oil shale proponents in nearly every venue, residents voiced a broad array of concerns about the serious problems that commercial oil shale development portends.
There is no commercial oil shale industry in the US, yet the previous administration developed policies for leasing over 2 million acres of public lands for development. Thirty years ago, the last major attempt to develop oil shale in the western US resulted in an economic boom and bust, and tens of millions of dollars have since been spent to clean-up past oil shale processing waste.
The BLM is revisiting the Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) published in 2008 as the result of lawsuits brought by groups, led byWRA, that argued the federal government did not ensure a fair rate of return to federal taxpayers and did not adequately protect communities, western water, or the environment.
The Department of the Interior (DOI) will incorporate feedback from these public meetings as it moves to its next step of re-examining its land use decisions from 2008. The BLM falls under the jurisdiction of DOI and is charged with managing 264 million acres of public lands, that are found primarily in 12 western states.
A New Gambler Assumes Control of Utah Oil Shale Deposits
An electrical utility from Estonia just purchased the Oil Shale Exploration Company (OSEC), the largest private holder of oil shale deposits in the state of Utah. Enefit, also known as Eesti Energia in its native Estonia, will be the latest in a line of prospective enterprises stretching back to 1974 to try to make a go of converting oil shale from Utah’s White River Mine into a liquid fuel.
Estonian oil shale plant
The purchase is significant because Estonia is the only nation commercially using oil shale in the world, burning oil shale rocks to produce electricity and converting a very small portion into liquid fuels.
While Estonia may seem like the oil shale world’s version of a success story, the reality is a far different picture. Estonia is a small country in northeastern Europe about one fifth the size of Utah with about half of the population of the Denver metro area. It has no other fossil fuel resources – no coal, natural gas, or petroleum – except for oil shale. The Estonians use oil shale as essentially a very low grade form of coal, having less than half of coal’s energy content, to generate electricity.
Estonia is also an example of oil shale’s dark side. The industry remains heavily subsidized by the government, despite a century of oil shale use. Oil shale’s pollution impacts on Estonia are very significant. The European Union, of which Estonia is a recent member, is considering blacklisting oil shale as a legitimate energy source to speed Estonia’s conversion to cleaner fuels. Despite its expertise in oil shale, its small population, and low number of vehicles per capita, Estonia still imports all of its transportation fuel. Any liquids produced from oil shale are burned to generate electricity. No cars or trucks are powered by oil shale.
Enefit is proposing to start oil shale operations in Utah in 2019. At peak build-out of their proposed Utah facilities, they are hoping to produce 57,000 barrels of oil from shale per day, or 0.3% of the United States’ almost 19 million barrel daily oil appetite. The most liquid fuel the company has produced in Estonia is less than 10,000 barrels per day. Total liquid production from oil shale operations worldwide has never exceeded even 20,000 barrels per day.
Enefit has already hinted that it would seek concessions from the federal government on royalty rates, an indicator of oil shale’s uncertain economic outlook.
The Threat of Utah Tar Sands
If you have never heard of PR Spring, that’s about to change. PR Spring is the name of a Utah mine that may soon be producing tar sands, a transportation fuel with a very high carbon footprint. Although the mine would be in a remote section of eastern Utah, anyone who cares about Utah’s resources should pay attention to this proposed development. Western Resource Advocates is.
Producing tar sands raises a number of concerns. In addition to the climate impacts, mining and production would use a great deal of water, foul surface water and groundwater, and further degrade Utah’s air. WRA is appealing the mine’s permit on behalf of our client Living Rivers. The permit was issued to a Canadian company, Earth Energy Resources (EER).
Neon green runoff sits at the bottom of a test pit at Earth Energy Resources' PR Spring mine in Utah. WRA filed an appeal on EER's commercial tar sands mine permit due to concerns about groundwater contamination from mine operations.
EER plans to use a citrus-based solvent to separate tarry bitumen, a heavy, carbon-rich form of oil, from the rocks in which it is found. After the bitumen is extracted, the residual sand will be put back into the pits from which it was dug. The waste sand will still be wet with chemicals that could leach into groundwater. Surface water might be contaminated if rain washes over the waste sand and carries chemicals into rivers and streams.
One of our key concerns is that EER has yet to disclose the contents of the solvent, or its environmental impacts. It is hiding behind proprietary information, arguing that business secrets trump public safety. That attitude is troubling, and we believe the state overlooked the absence of complete information about the solvent when it issued the permit. “While EER says its chemicals are non-toxic, they are strong enough to dissolve the pavement from underneath our feet. The state has not done enough to make sure that this stuff, whatever it is, does not wind up in our water,” cautions Joro Walker, WRA’s Utah office director.
The impacts of tar sands development loom larger than the PR Springs project. If EER is able to secure a permit for tar sands development, others may also receive permits for development of a fuel that is environmentally destructive and has climate, water, land, and wildlife impacts. However, even if the permit stands, EER has some challenges ahead of it. Among others, it will need to raise $35 million from investors who may be skeptical of taking a chance on tar sands.
Utah has an opportunity to build a sustainable environmental and financial future by promoting forward-looking industries, such as wind, solar, and geothermal. We hope Utah regulators and residents will balk at the PR Springs tar sands project and instead choose to invest in clean, safe alternatives.
Read the press release about this appeal here.
See a video from CBC about the proposed mining operation.
Read "Oil Shale's Triple Threat" Fact Sheet
WRA published a new fact sheet, "Oil Shale's Triple Threat," that provides perspective on the breadth of issues that make commercial oil shale development a bad idea. While a lot of public attention has been focused on oil shale's high water use and its negative water impacts on the arid West, this drawback is also combined with high greenhouse gas emissions and its status as a low-quality energy resource. Taken altogether, oil shale is a resource with very little upside, and its true costs will be far higher than what's represented in industry's bottom line.
Click here to read the document.
Shell Pulls Proposed Water Right for the Yampa River
On February 23, 2010, Shell Frontier Oil and Gas has writhdrawn its proposed water right in the Yampa River basin, citing economic concerns.The withdrawal drew a big sigh of relief across the region and around the state because Shell’s right would have had a big impact of the last free-flowing river in Colorado.
Western Resource Advocates wrote one of the 25 statements of opposition filed against the proposed right. The Yampa River is the last, best hope for endangered fish recovery in the state, an objective that many water management agreements are bound to fulfill and could have been put in jeopardy by Shell’s move.
Oil shale development is incompatible with sustaining the West’s clean air and water, rural agricultural communities, and wild landscapes.
Although Shell says it will continue with its research, the company acknowledges that the process will be slow and contingent upon such factors as the development of a viable oil shale production technology. It is obvious that commercial oil shale development is still not ready for prime time.
As a result of Shell’s actions, Colorado residents can breathe a little easier and the Yampa River lives to flow another year.
"Promise and Perils of Oil Shale" Presentations Available Online
WRA was a presenter at the recent Natural Resources Law Center conference on oil shale. Presentations available in electronic form have been posted online. The "Promise and Perils" forum invited representatives from industry, government, and other experts to discuss the current state of oil shale and what they foresee as its future.
Oil Shale Would Upend US Climate Change Work
In a guest commentary published in the Denver Post, WRA President Karin P. Sheldon and scholar-in-residence at the University of Colorado's Environmental Studies program Paul Komor lay out the case why oil shale will set this nation, and the planet, back on achieving climate change goals. Unconventional fuels sources like oil shale and tar sands require huge qualtities of CO2-producing energy to turn them into refinable liquids before they themselves are burned and release yet more CO2. Looking at Canada's example with their tar sands industry, their stated goals of reducing climate altering greenhouse gasses by 6% has instead become an increase of 26%. Read the full op-ed piece here.
WRA Fact Sheet Exposes Holes in Understanding of Oil Shale Economics
Western Resource Advocates has examined claims of the purported economic benefits of oil shale development and has identified flaws in methodologies and gaps in understanding of what the regional impacts of pursuing oil shale could be. Click here to read the Oil Shale Economics Fact Sheet.
WRA Voices Oil Shale Concerns on "Environment Report" Radio Program
WRA oil shale policy analyst David Abelson was featured on the "Environment Report", a radio program produced in the Midwest that investigated the link between oil shale and water. Click here to listen to the broadcast or to read the transcript.
NPR Consults WRA on Oil Shale
National Public Radio (NPR) interviewed WRA oil shale policy advisor David Abelson for a story on oil shale. Abelson's comments were a realistic counterpoint to industry's dubious claims of a bright future for a resource that has never been proven to be commercially feasible nor environmentally sensible. Listen to the story here.
WRA Fights Oil Shale Leasing Regulations
WRA has strenuously opposed draft regulations issued by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in July to begin commercial-scale leasing of millions of acres of oil-shale-bearing lands in the West. These draft regulations were held in check by a Congressionally authorized moratorium prohibiting issuance of final leasing regulations. But at the end of September, the moratorium was allowed to expire, and the Bush Administration has made clear its intent to finalize the draft rules.
As WRA pointed out in its comments to the BLM, the draft regulations
are premature. No viable technology currently exists that is
capable of commercial-scale oil shale extraction. The processes under
development are beset by problems such as energy and water requirements,
pollution, and lack of cost-effectiveness that prevent industrial
implementation.
In the absence of a viable technology, the draft regulations cannot properly address the issues of royalties, diligence requirements, and other elements of leasing on public lands. The U.S. Treasury stands to lose billions of dollars as these rules, favorable to industry, attempt to regulate the unknown.
“Knowledge must precede action, but in this case politics is preceding common sense,” said David Abelson, who is marshalling WRA’s response to oil shale development. “Research and development must be completed so we can understand if this industry will develop, and if it does, what problems we’ll need to address. Drafting these regulations was a waste of taxpayer dollars. But if they are implemented, the costs will be far, far higher.”
Oil Shale Leasing
The United States is home to approximately 50% of the world’s oil shale deposits -- most of which are located in the Green River formation of western Colorado, eastern Utah, and southern Wyoming. This oil shale can, in theory, be heated to extreme temperatures of up to 700° F for conversion into low- to medium-grade oil -- literally creating oil from rock. In this region of the west, industry estimates that oil shale could be converted into up to 1 trillion barrels of oil. The problems of cost and serious environmental concerns, however, have so far kept this resource in the ground.
The idea of producing oil from oil shale is enjoying a popularity not seen in over 25 years. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, the oil industry poured billions of dollars into failed oil shale projects in western Colorado. Notwithstanding the high oil prices of the day, oil shale remained prohibitively expensive. That boom ended abruptly on May 2, 1982 -- Black Sunday -- the day that Exxon announced it would close its $5 billion Colony II project near Parachute, Colorado, putting 2,200 people out of work in a single day.
However, with oil prices climbing the time is apparently ripe to reconsider oil shale development. The Bureau of Land Management has asked the public for terms to be included in oil shale research and development leases, and WRA prepared comments detailing environmental concerns and recommending particular provisions to address risks to the landscape, communities, and human health. The U.S. Congress included provisions in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that seek to accelerate activities related to eventual leasing and development of oil shale and tar sands resources.
There’s an old saying in Colorado that “Oil shale has a fantastic future -- it always has, and it always will.” Despite the current flurry of interest, only time will tell whether development of oil shale will see the light of day, given its significant risks and exorbitant costs.