Interior Department Opens American Oil Shale Development
The Interior Department finalized regulations that would allow for the development of oil shale on federal lands earlier last month. These regulations are focused on a 200 million acre area knows as the Green River formation found in the western states Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. This area is known to have a vast amount of oil shale supplies. It is believed that the oil shale in this area could produce 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil, which could help eliminate our dependency on foreign oil. The drawback as you might have guessed is that it is considered to be one of the dirtiest sources of energy and is still in its infancy in terms of technology.
What is Oil Shale?
Oil shale is a rock material that releases a petroleum like liquid called kerogen when it is heated. It is formed from heat and pressure begin applied to millions of years of fossil marine life. This rock is known as the rock that will burn because it contains enough oil to burn without any processing.
In order to extract oil from shale is a much more difficult process. Currently the technology is not developed enough causing it to be an expensive. In order to extract a usable product, it must first be heated to an extremely high temperature. Oil then must be separated from the resulting liquid in a process called retorting. A more experimental process that saves part of the processing of this rock is to heat it while still in ground and then pump the liquid out.
Is it a viable option?
Shale being used for oil is nothing new. Mining and its modern production began in the early 1800’s mostly in European countries. Since then, very few countries including Brazil, China and Estonia, have really utilized this resource to extract oil from. As the price of oil has risen, mining shale has really come into the forefront for the US. Currently, there does not exist a technology to extract the oil from shale at a reasonable price. Also, the process emits 4 times as much greenhouse gases as the production of conventional oil.
Environmental reviews are required before federal leasing of these lands can begin, but the companies that will mine these lands will only have to pay a 5% royalty to the government for the first five years of production.
This source of energy just does not seem like the best option available for our country. To allow mining that would destroy beautiful lands in the West seems like such a waste when there isn’t an efficient way to produce oil from shale. I just don’t get the lawmakers in our government. It seems like the obvious options are right in their face with renewable energy, but they once again choose a horrible source of energy instead. The frustrating thing is that there seems to be no research into this resource to determine how much damage it could have to the environment. Would it be worth mining this dirty rock just so oil companies can continue their reign over the energy industry? Lets hope the new administration blocks ridiculous regulations like these that only seem to fatten the wallets of the rich oil tycoons in our country.
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4 Responses to “Interior Department Opens American Oil Shale Development”
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Im glad you brought up the problem of destroying the beauty of the land for this. Alot of times people only see energy in terms of carbon emissions and pollution, but conservation environmentalism can be just as important to limiting global warming, especially when considering the destruction of forests and effects on waterways from runoff.
Its sad really……and the Green River Formation??!!?? One of the few remaining pristine chunks of wilderness?? Corportate greed is what feeds this type of thing.
I’m with you Green Home Hints. It is just sad that our country continues to show little regard to our few remaining national treasures. This is what happens when your country is ruled by the dollar…
[...] to push out last minute regulations to post further damage to our already fragile environment ( Oil Shale Drilling being another [...]