Guest Commentary: Legacy of failure or promise deferred? (Colorado School of Mines)
Re: “Oil shale’s legacy of failure,” June 25 guest commentary.
Writer Craig Thompson repeated familiar tired tales about oil shale. These facts counter specific errors:
• Price guarantees enabled Unocal to produce 4.6 million barrels of shale oil, a little different from investment and production tax credits demanded by wind and solar energy producers.
• Developers of oil shale don’t ask for supports for a product economically viable at $38 to $50 a barrel and produced in China, Estonia and Brazil.
• In Utah, Estonian company Enefit plans production of 50,000 barrels per day by 2019, and Red Leaf Resources plans production by 2014. Newer in situ methods will take longer.
• The old refrain “it isn’t oil and it isn’t shale” is wrong and irrelevant to oil shale’s viability. Most oil shale fits the vague definition of shale applied to Bakken, Barnett, Haynesville or Niobrara Formations, caught up in a different shale frenzy these days. Lower Green River Formation oil shale fits more restrictive technical definitions.
• Water use is less per gallon than for biofuel or energy-equivalent solar thermal power. Consumption is dominated by power plant steam condensation and reclamation for in situ methods; lower water use options will decrease demand.
• No company plans to use coal power plants; available natural gas will suffice.
The BLM should move quickly to define its leasing program, it being unwise to bet on government moving too quickly. Environmental reviews from 47 different agencies required before any projects on taxpayer land move forward are enough. To conclude that “the West’s air and water could be severely compromised” is simply an exaggeration, requiring that existing environmental statutes and regulations fail completely.
It remains to be seen whether current interest in oil shale will be another cycle in the sporadic interest in oil shale driven by uncertainty about oil supply, or whether large-scale production will follow.
Jeremy Boak is the director of the Center for Oil Shale Technology and Research at the Colorado School of Mines.
