Anton R. Dammer, the former Director of Naval Petroleum and Oil Shale Reserves in the Department of Energy testified a few months ago on the progress of oil shale development in the United States. Mr Dammer concluded in his testimony:
“The United States is in no better shape with regard to oil independence then we were at the time that EPACT 05 passed and worse than at the time of the Arab Oil Embargo of the 70’s. We are grateful for a strong and reliable trading partner to our North but we are still dependent on the import of close to half our daily oil requirements. We still consume roughly a quarter of the world’s oil supply and we remain reliant on an increasingly unstable and often hostile world oil market for our energy security.
The United States is the custodian of the largest and most concentrated hydrocarbon resource on earth – oil shale. Conservatively estimated to exceed 2 trillion barrels it has the potential to provide millions of barrels of indigenous production per day if development is planned prudently in a manner analogous to the Alberta experience. In the Green River Basin of Colorado alone the USGS estimates that 800 million barrels could be produced – over three times the total reserves of Saudi Arabia.
In spite of the lack of national direction in oil shale development there remains considerable activity in the private sector. The activities of thirty-two companies are summarized in the Secure Fuels from Domestic Resource report found at www.unconventionalfuels.org. Although none are in the commercial stage of production, many have demonstrated great promise and, in some cases, the technical viability of their process. Great progress has been made in limiting water utilization, increasing energy return of investment, and minimizing the environmental impacts historically associated with oil shale development. Established oil shale technologies developed in Estonia, Russia, China, and Brazil have been active for decades. As history has proved the only limitation to developing the oil shale resource in the United States has been: Firstly – economic; and secondly access to the resource, eighty percent of which is on Federal land. As oil prices range above $100 per barrel the economics look increasingly attractive and the technical evolution of both surface and in-situ technologies encouraging.
The oil shale moratorium established under the Hoover administration in 1930 remains in effect. Today a handful of oil shale R&D leases have been parsed out by the Department of the Interior. Another Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement has been published and is now in the comment stage. While these are for the most part good steps forward, one must wonder how many times we need to see this movie before we move forward.
We need to plan for the development of this prolific U.S. resource, as the Canadians planned for the successful development of the Athabasca oil sands. We have the mechanism through Section 369 of EPACT 05. Ironically, failure to perform the requisite planning and preparedness will inevitably lead us back to everyone’s deepest fear….”Black Sunday””
The Testimony is available in its entirety here
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