Utah sits on huge oil reserve

[Judi Lynn]

Thursday, April 21, 2005 - 12:00 AM |

Utah sits on huge oil reserve

South County Newspapers


As a prominent advocate for encouraging unconventional energy sources, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) was asked to testify today in front of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on his efforts to develop fuel from a vast untapped domestic oil reserve in tar sandsand oil shale -- a large part of which sits in eastern Utah.

"Who would have guessed that in just Colorado and Utah, there is more recoverable oil than in the Middle East?" Hatch said. "We just don't count it among our nation's oil reserves because it is not yet being developed commercially. I find it disturbing that Utah imports oil from Canada tar sands, even though we have a larger tar sands resource within our own boundaries that remains undeveloped."

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, recoverable oil shale in the western United States -- located mainly in Utah, Colorado and Wyoming -- exceeds one trillion barrels and is the richest and most geographically concentrated oil shale and tar sands resource in the world. Hatch noted that Canada recognized the potential of the large tar sands deposits in the province of Alberta and developed a government policy to go promote their development -- increasing its oil reserves by more than a factor of 10.

Hatch is working with Senators Bennett (R-Utah), Allard (R-Colo.), and Salazar (D-Colo.) to develop a bill that would encourage development of commercially viable oil from oil shale and tar sands.
(snip/...)

http://www.heraldextra.com/springville/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=4358&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

[leftchick]

1. excuse me?

"unconventional energy sources"? What the hell is unconventional about oil?

[Dogmudgeon]

10. It's shale oil and oil sands

They require more energy to extract than the extracted oil provides.

Hopefully, new catalytic and enzymatic processes will be developed that will allow some of this oil to be extracted without the use of much energy, but it is likely to take a long time, and to be fairly inefficient. It's worth researching, but it's not likely to provide a significant amount of oil anytime soon.

Hopefully #2: That I'm wrong about this. But like with fusion energy, the breakthrough is Just Around The Corner, and has been for nearly 40 years.

--p!

[amandabeech]

22. Yup. "Fuel of the future and always will be,"

applies to both fusion and shale oil. I can't take credit for the catchy phrase.

Actually, the deposits that have been the subject of research and a bit of exploitation are in Colorado.

It's not even oil that can be extracted from oil shale. Instead, it's a substance called "kerogen" that's close to being a solid at room temperature. It is a hydrocarbon that is thought to be a precursor to oil, but hasn't been cooked at a high enough pressure and temperature to become oil. Instead, the refining process cracks the molecule and adds hydrogen to get a synthetic oil.

The latest technology used to turn the tar-like bitumen in tar sands into synthetic oil may be used to produce shale oil. I believe that there was a start-up project in Australia using the technology, but it went bankrupt in 2003 or 2004. It is unclear exactly what the problem was.

Shell is trying a new technique in Colorado. Electric heaters are dropped into holes in the oil shale formation, and the heat supposedly cooks the kerogen sufficiently that it can be extracted. The process is supposed to be cleaner than cooking the kerogen with fire or the tar sands technology. However, it is unclear whether it is energy-positive, given the fact that the electricity is probably generated from coal or gas-fired plants. In addition, the cooking only seems to extract the lighter factions, leaving the heavier factions in the ground. These heavier factions are usable if processed correctly, and it may be very inefficient to leave them in the ground.

My take is that all this talk about shale oil means that we are in serious, serious trouble with oil. In other words, Peak Oil is visible on the horizon if not upon us already.

[leftchick]

26. more about the shale oil in this article just posted...

in LBN. Peak Oil is indeed here but most are not admitting it...

~snip~

Oil shales

These are seen as the US government's energy stopgap. They exist in large quantities in ecologically sensitive parts of Colorado, Wyoming and Utah at varying depths, but the industrial process needed to extract the oil demands hot water, making it much more expensive and less energy-efficient than conventional oil. The mining operation is extremely damaging to the environment. Shell, Exxon, ChevronTexaco and other oil companies are investing billions of dollars in this expensive oil production method


http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,1464050,00.html

LBN link to the article..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1411222

[NickB79]

36. Better build a pipeline to Utah from the Great Lakes

The amount of water required to extract large amounts of oil from rock is extremely high. The Southwest is already suffering from one of the worst droughts in history, yet they think they could divert more water to oil extraction?

[LiberallyInclined]

55. let them use the poopy water-

all those people out there do a lot of flushing.

[SKKY]

28. We can't even get the "Big Dig" in Boston right...

...I'm not too optimistic on Utah.

[MeinaShaw]

60. Remember, the Big Dig is Government run project

Is Hatch talking about the government getting the oil or giving production rights to a private company? There is a big difference. If the government is going to try to get the oil itself, you are right.

[megatherium]

29. There is serious discussion of using nuclear energy

to supply the energy to extract the oil from tar sands in Alberta.

A colleague of mine, a geology professor, was part of the Carter-era synfuels project in the late 1970s. He said they did all the work necessary to show that this was feasible and would make the US energy independent in 20 years -- that would have been by 2000. Reagan shut it down (when the price of oil crashed in the 1980s).

As far as fusion goes, there is progress being made. In a few years (after political issues are resolved) the ITER project will be built. The scientists are getting confident that this will be successful, based on their latest computer models. (There have been tremendous increases in computational power and substantial progress on the mathematics of modeling plasma in the last several years.) ITER will demonstrate a self-sustaining fusion reaction (lasting hundreds of seconds, i.e., indefinitely) that puts out much more power than is required to contain it. ITER would be followed by 2030 or 2040 by a working fusion power station called DEMO. Then it will be clear whether fusion is economic. Probably it will be.

However, solar will make huge gains by then; it could easily win the race. (Solar may be cheaper than fission this coming decade.)

[customerserviceguy]

31. I follow you on that one

Advances in solar energy could make extraction of oil from shale doable. Yes, you might put more solar energy into recovering the oil than you get out, energy-wise, but you move energy from the sunnier parts of Utah and Colorado to other areas by converting it into oil from the shale.

Oil is a fuel, electricity is not. To appreciate this, think of how many electric aircraft you've (not) seen.

[daleo]

43. Would this be an efficient energy currency, though?

I see what you are saying - the oil recovered from the oil shale becomes the conduit for moving solar energy around. It seems unlikely to me that this would be as efficient as most other techniques, not to mention the extra environmental damage caused by the extraction process.

[customerserviceguy]

44. Well, think about it this way

You've got a significant source of solar power out in the Great American Desert, which would have to be transported by powerline rights of way, etc. Why not just use at least some of it on the spot to produce oil from shale, which can be transported by tanker truck over existing roadways?

No, it fails the test of stark efficiency, but it does pass other economic tests. We all know that more calories are consumed to make a pound of beef, pork, or chicken than we get out of these meats, but ranchers use foodstuffs that grow quickly, and are indigestable by humans. The inherent inefficiency of the production of meat has not put a damper on the ranching industry, because demand for meat products. There's a similar demand for products made from oil, and it doesn't matter if the oil comes gushing out of the ground quite easily, or has to be extracted from shale in a painstakingly energy inefficient process.

Once we get cheap solar from scientific breakthroughs, we have enough electricity to power the world, and wean the world off of oil as it switches to solar. Of course, certain areas will never be able to do this, like I said, aircraft won't be going electric for quite some time to come. We're going to need radical breakthroughs in battery technology for this to occur.

As for environmental damage, have you ever been to Utah? It's not like drilling ANWR. There are already deep holes in the ground from the extraction of copper, probably some of the copper you have in your computer right now. Waste byproduct could fill up some of those holes, right now they're being filled with garbage. Utah is not too keen on recycling, it was a big shock when I moved from WA. But then I figured it out, they find it more efficient to just fill a big fat hole than to spend a lot of effort (and energy!) on recycling.
I guess I have some faith in science to figure out some of how this is going to work, and there are some here who do not.

[daleo]

49. I am inclined to think solar could be "currencyized" more simply

This just seems like a remarkably complicated process, although I suppose it has the advantage that the final product is applicable to current engine infrastructure. Hydrogen and the like would require retooling the transportation infrastructure, of course.

I haven't been to Utah, but I don't live that far from the Athabasca tarsands (I haven't actually seen it in person yet). The footprint left on the environment is vast and not pretty. Of course northeastern Alberta is not on anyone's vacation wish list, so it doesn't receive the attention it might otherwise get.

I am not anti-science, but I do think ecological considerations are as important as engineering considerations (at least, actually more important in the long run).

[customerserviceguy]

54. Admittedly

There would be a right way, and a wrong way, environmentally speaking, to extract the oil from the shale, and it's possible that it's a different process from extraction of petroleum from tar sands. I think hydrogen is the way to go for land-based vehicles, but the weight you'd have in making strong-enough tanks for hydrogen aircraft, well, that's another thing entirely.

The potential ecological damage could be there, but I think people around here have learned something from the mining practices of a century ago, and there just wouldn't be any more giant holes in the ground allowed anymore, like they did with copper mines.

Solar and geothermal energy are in their relative infancy today, as these technologies mature, they will reap greater benefits. The rising cost of oil will force development of alternative sources of energy that can be set up anywhere in the world. An ex-wife of mine went to Venezuela back in 1992 to work on her master's thesis, and she noticed that cell phone towers were being put in everywhere, even though many people did not have a wired telephone. Venezuela was just able to leapfrog over wired telephone technology, and I can imagine the developing world moving quickly to electric vehicles that are powered by renewable energy sources as soon as the engineering to develop them exists.

[Thor_MN]

57. I would think geothermal could play a role...

What they need is steam, and provided that you have the water, geothermal would be a good way to make steam. I mean, who is better versed in drilling deep holes than the oil industry? I would would think this would be a slam dunk if you could get the oil industry to unfocus on extracting every cent they can get out of consumers....

[jpak]

34. Nixon wanted oil shale reserves designated "National Sacrifice Areas"

Which gives you some idea of the scale of environmental damage that would occur if these reserves were developed...

[amazona]

35. it is the destruction of landscape that makes the U.S. special

It is the death of the West to provide less energy than required to get it out, but the oil companies don't mind since the profit will be theirs and the social costs, respiratory disease, end of wilderness, and sacrifice of tourism will be ours.

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

[mmonk]

12. It should be more

expensive and difficult.

[wellst0nev0ter]

2. Well, I Heard There Were A Lot Of Terra'ists In Utah

Who's up for a little "nation building?" :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm:

[HeeBGBz]

4. Sounds like Utah needs democratized

[mmonk]

13. Yeah, I was wondering if there are any plans

for a new military base for Utah.

[KansDem]

41. How about seven new military bases?

Utah has an area of 84,904 square miles; Iraq has 171,599. If the US is building 14 new military bases in Iraq, then Utah, being a little smaller than half the size of Iraq, could use seven...

And check points...Utah's highways could use some check points to stop and search all Utah drivers, especially those suspected of fanatical religious activity.

And don't forget a prison on par with Abu Ghraib. Gotta have a place to put Utah suspects rounded up in raids on homes in hotspots like Salt Lake City so they can be interrogated and, of course, tortured if necessary...

[radar]

56. ...And the jobs!!!

A new area of opportunity for Halliburton et al..

http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/

[NJCher]

3. it would be exploiting Alaska, too

--While conventional crude oil is either pumped from the ground or flows naturally, oil sands must be mined or recovered in situ (meaning in place). Oil sands recovery processes include extraction and separation systems to remove the bitumen from the sand and water.

--Although tar sands occur in more than 70 countries, the two largest are Canada and Venezuela, with the bulk being found in four different regions of Alberta, Canada: areas of Athabasca, Wabasha, Cold Lake and Peace River.

--the reserve that is deemed to be technologically retrievable today is estimated at 280-300Gb (billion barrels). This is larger than the Saudi Arabia oil reserves, which are estimated at 240Gb. The total reserves for Alberta, including oil not recoverable using current technology, are estimated at 1,700- 2,500Gb.

--With the United States domestic decline in oil production, it is important to research possible tar sand production in America (Alaska). Our consumption continues to increase, as well as our dependence on oil imports.

above is from:

http://ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu/102spring2002_Web_projects/M.Sexton/


Cher

[highnooner]

5. This is a smokescreen

This is what Peak Oil is all about. As oil becomes scarcer, it becomes more expensive to get from the ground what is left. The easiest oil is about depleted. Heck, we are currently drilling in the North Sea, Russia and Alaska to get what is left of the easy stuff. At some point, the cost of drilling/mining for oil becomes excessive relative to other resources. This coupled with increased worldwode demand is leading to higher prices. It will still only get worse over time.

[NVMojo]

11. When are we gonna talk about conservation?? Huh, huh???

[grumpy old fart]

17. um, that would involve "sacrifice". Not in the Talibush lingo.....n/t

[Lorien]

40. That won't enrich BushCo and friends

therefore, mum's the word! :grr:

[DoYouEverWonder]

6. So how much does it cost

to extract this type of oil? And what damage will it do to the environment in the process?

If they would just legalize industrial hemp, we wouldn't need to bother destroying everything else to keep driving where ever we want to.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

7. The cost.

It's incredibly expensive, since it's never been proven to actually work reliably. (Anyone with more recent info feel free to correct me.) It will do massive damage to the environment, as you basically have to mine the oil shale. Some work has been done with respect to extracting oil w/o having to rip the shale out of the ground, but to my knowledge it's never been successful.

>If they would just legalize industrial hemp, we wouldn't need to bother
>destroying everything else to keep driving where ever we want to.

I think that's a bit simplistic, but I see where you're coming from.

[truthisfreedom]

8. hey, everybody knows stoners are too paranoid to drive.

and if they do drive, they drive really really slow. 8^)

[malmapus]

23. would be a strip mining operation wouldn't it?

eom

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

61. For the shale, yes.

I'm not sure about the whole tar sand deal. I'm not familiar with that particular bit of oil geology. If Dino Boy is floating around somewhere in this thread you might want to ask him.

[xchrom]

9. quick, dig up utah!

well? what are you waiting for?

[SOS]

32. And dig it using eminent domain

Utah is Bush country. Wonder how the Bush voters will feel when Exxon comes for their land at a "fair market price"? Eminent domain is used frequently nowadays for private commercial interest.

[ImpeachBush]

39. Most locals in Utah would be all for it ...

I lived there for over 20 years, and can vouch for their general disregard for preservation. They fight wilderness area, support open ranging, and beg for more and more and more logging and drilling, because they're more interested in $$$ than keeping safe, clean, untainted public lands. There are notable exceptions, but the conservationist and preservationist are rare breeds in Utah.

[BadNews]

47. Very, very true.

If the state were to designate protected areas, that might fly. However, they get upset quickly when the federal govt is involved. When Clinton dedicated a couple of national parks in Utah, he did it from Arizona because he new the locals were against it. There was coal under the desert he protected that they wanted to dig up.

Yes, most people from Utah are VERY anti-environmentalism. I would not be surprised if someone used environmentalist as a curse word in many parts of the state. I have family from the Moab area of Utah and the only thing they complain about more than tourists is environmentalist. My Uncle is has often told me that he would shoot anyone who tried to tell him what he could and couldn't do on his land. (Damn redneck probably would do it too.)

He owns several square miles of land and does his own prospecting where ever he thinks there might be something in it for him, and shoots game on his land all year round. In the West, many issues come down to personal property (land) rights. That is why they literally hate environmentalists.

[Strelnikov_]

14. Considering The Net Energy These Sources Yield

We would be better off just using them for petrochemical feedstock.

Peak oil is about economics and thermodynamics (cheap, high energy yield), not scarcity.

[wishlist]

15. More tax breaks and economic incentives for the poor oil companies

Those 'struggling' oil company executives would love for the Government and taxpayers to line their pockets providing financial incentives for developing these resources with no guarantee of any benefits to American consumers.

[wallwriter]

16. What about market forces?

It amazes me that when it comes to screwing the poor out of wages, it's all about market forces. But when oil becomes more expensive because it's running out, well, that's just unacceptable.

[DFWJock]

19. UTAH HAS WMD'S

Let the bombing begin.

[hatrack]

18. Ah yes, the oil shale chimera

They've been trotting this one out for years now.

Couple of things.

First, it takes huge amounts of energy (likely natural gas, assuming that we wouldn't need it for little things like heating homes or producing fertilizers) to heat up the shale to drive off the kerogen, which can then be refined into synthetic oil.

It also takes huge amounts of energy to refine and store and transport the kerogen. I don't know what the EROEI is for this kind of process, but even if it's positive, it would likely be a very low positive return. For purposes of comparison, tar sands a la Alberta produce a net EROEI of about 1.1 - 1.2. That is, for every barrel of oil energy invested in tar sands, you get a little more than one barrel of energy equivalent out.

Second, there's a serious waste problem with shale. The problem is that the waste rock that's left over after kerogen extraction expands to several times its original volume. So, if a big shale operation digs up, say, 1,000,000 cubic yards for extraction, it's left with 3,000,000 or 4,000,000 million cubic yards of rock waste to dispose of. Where do you put the waste?

Third, it's an extremely water intensive process. Much of the oil shale lies along and around the Green River, which is the master stream of the Colorado River system. Any shale process large enough to have any effect on the national energy picture would likely remove millions of acre-feet from the Colorado River system, and something tells me that California, Nevada and Arizona would collectively have the political clout to prevent any such thing from happening.

[Roland99]

20. Utah's filled with religious fundamentalists...Sick 'em!!

[medeak]

21. Utah's filled with dinosaur remains

in Eastern part of state.. it makes sense re tar...but what about artifacts?

[4MoreYearsOfHell]

24. Artifiacts, why bother?

ain't none of them older than 6,000 years anyways and there probably isn't going to be anybody left to look at them either once we've all been rapturized...

[BadNews]

48. Locals have their own collections.

I have family that goes out and gathers dino bones and Indian artifacts to sell to tourists. Honestly, Outside of the Salt Lake Valley, the state is full of ignorant hicks. I love my family but when I talk to them my head nearly explodes.

[Boo Boo]

25. Cripes. Talk about

Pork.

Oil is pumped out of the ground. That's the beauty part. See? Nice and easy. Drill a hole. Get the Oil. Sell the Oil.

Extracting Oil from sand takes energy. Lots of it. If this "Oil" was such a great treasure trove, you can be damn sure that Dick Cheney's boys would have been all over that shit a long time ago. It's not like this tar sand stuff is some kind of secret.

Hatch is such a Scheisse-ter.

[4dsc]

27. Shale oil, snake oil

These are seen as the US government's energy stopgap. They exist in large quantities in ecologically sensitive parts of Colorado, Wyoming and Utah at varying depths, but the industrial process needed to extract the oil demands hot water, making it much more expensive and less energy-efficient than conventional oil. The mining operation is extremely damaging to the environment. Shell, Exxon, ChevronTexaco and other oil companies are investing billions of dollars in this expensive oil production method.

[Boo Boo]

33. Yeah. When the easy stuff starts

running out I'm sure the shale/sand will become more and more economically feasible. But from the standpoint of our overall economy there's just no substitute for the real thing.

OTOH, it's hard for alternative sources of energy to compete with cheap Oil in a free market, but much less so to compete with shale or tar sand. The stuff may yet prove to be just too damned expensive.

We'll see, I guess.

[louis-t]

42. Uh, uh, u-u-u-h!

Not "drilling", it's "responsible energy exploration"! bushie sez so.

[Boo Boo]

51. And when Bushie says something

he means it. At least that's what he says.

:shrug:

[louis-t]

53. At least, I mean, he means to say, what, uh, ye see, there's

a whole lotta folks fixin' to... uh, never mind.

[robcon]

30. We spent about $8 billion in the late 70's/early 80's

We didn't get a barrel of oil.

That was the government's money, not oil companies' money. We would need a technical breakthrough to get anything out of there.

[moondust]

37. Then why rape Alaska?

:shrug:

[hunter]

38. This should scare you. This should scare you a lot.

This is your specialist telling you he can't do anything more, but he's heard of a study out at Stanford, and, um, um, (looks at shoes) maybe you qualify.

The "economically successful" tar sands operations in Alberta are basically a convuluted way of turning cheap natural gas into expensive oil.

The only way oil shale extraction will work is if we use nuclear power or coal to supply the process heat, and in this case again it becomes a very convuluted way of turning coal or nuclear power into oil. It is very unlikely that the oil shale extraction process could economically fuel itself, and even if it could the emissions of greenhouse gasses would be overwhelming.

The direct synthesis of fuels and chemical feedstocks from biomass, coal or nuclear power does not require the very expensive and very destructive intermediate step of oil shale extraction. Oil shale extraction will always be a waste of time, money, and energy.

It is absolutely incredible to me that our leaders cannot see beyond their noses towards an economy that is built on something other than oil. They are seeing the end of cheap oil as a disaster to be put off for as long as possible, and not as an oportunity to change our emvironmentally destructive ways.

[davekriss]

45. I agree about Shale Oil, however...

hunter writes: "The direct synthesis of fuels and chemical feedstocks from biomass, coal or nuclear power does not require the very expensive and very destructive intermediate step of oil shale extraction. Oil shale extraction will always be a waste of time, money, and energy."

You imply that biomass is a better alternative?

First, all alternatives have value in that they will soften the downward slope of Hubbert's Peak, buying time for restructuring and technological discovery. But none -- let me repeat, none -- of the alternatives that are currently conceived come anywhere close to providing the net energy now supplied by oil.

If biomass were to supply the same BTU's gained by oil, we'd need a land-mass 6 times the current dry land found on earth.

We need to restructure (grow local, buy local, consume less, turn off the lights). We need, yes, to exploit all alternatives. We need technological breakthroughs. But it's important to note that the world population at the start of the Oil Interval was about 1.8 billion people. It's 6.5+ billion today. What will happen to all that extra biomass when the easy energy kick provided by oil withers away? Resource wars, perhaps? Global famine? Dystopia, pure and simple!

Surely that's the future Bush and PNAC see, as it would explain many of their actions, including their interest in genome-specific (racially differentiated) biological warefare. Ever hear the term "useless eater"? In a time of intense competition for dwindling resources, what do you think the Straussian solution would be?

We live in truly scary times. We need to sieze the steering wheel of State before the vehicle carrying us all careens into the brick wall ahead.

[hunter]

58. Well, like a smack from a stick is better than a smack from a brick.

If the Bush-PNAC plan is to turn the United States (or the world) into a feudal economy with them at the top of the food chain, then that's a stupid idea. There are many other nations that will hold together tightly as the United States is coming apart at the seams. Thus the survivors of this "Straussian solution" will become very little dogs in a big dog-eat-dog world, even if they are holding onto some secret biological or nuclear "doomsday" weapon.

The United States is the punk here. All it takes is some nation like China, or India, or Europe to say, "Go ahead, make my day!" and the economic fantasy of the United States dies with its back to the ground. We go the way of the Soviet Union.

The resources of the United States are very volatile -- turn up the heat just a little, and they evaporate.

Is the United States even a "superpower" anymore? I doubt it. There is a growing list of nations this "Evil Empire" fully intended to subjugate during the eight years of the Bush administration that have simply told us to go to hell.

Afghanistan and Iraq, which the Evil Empire thought would be easy, were not. Any extensions of war beyond that, and we will have to start drafting people. That would probably start a civil war here. Too many parents and grandparents remember Viet Nam.

We have almost endless energy resources beyond oil. Solar, wind, biomass, nuclear... these are all "mainstream" technologies now.

The biggest problem the United States faces is that our brain-dead corporate and political leaders can't figure out how to fit these new realities into their narrow little "business plans."

Gosh, if some shortsighted Dow Jones Industrial Average company dies because they can't imagine a world without cheap oil, doesn't that mean God-Bless-America dies? Must we raid Social Security to prop the dying beast up?

I don't think so.

[davekriss]

59. Great post, hunter! (n/t)

[Zhade]

46. So when do we invade Utah?

NT!

[Az_lefty]

50. Hooray !!!!

lets exploit Utah and drill holes all over that red f*cking state!

my apologies to Utah DUer's, I just couldn't resist.

[BadNews]

52. Outside of Utah DUers, that state would probably subsidize it NT/