Contents

Brief History of Oil Shale

Waiting for the Next Boom

Interest in oil shale grew again during World War II, as petroleum shortages encouraged the search for domestically plentiful alternative fuels. In 1944, Congress passed the Synthetic Liquid Fuels Act, authorizing the establishment of federal demonstration facilities to produce synthetic fuel (an engineered substitute for oil) from coal, oil shale, biomass, and anything else that might power American tanks, ships, airplanes, and automobiles. Pursuant to the act, the Bureau of Mines opened a new research facility at Anvil Points, near the old Rulison Project, and experimented with a variety of oil shale mining and retorting methods.

An aerial view of the Anvil Points oil shale research mine near Rifle...

In 1952, President Harry Truman partially cleared the way for an industry revival by lifting Hoover's order and allowing the Department of Interior to entertain bids for the lease of oil shale lands. However, Interior officials were still wary of exploitation by speculators, some of whom the department was challenging in court over the validity of their claims. With these reservations and without proven technology to successfully develop the shale resources, Secretary Oscar Chapman, a Coloradan, declined to open the land for leasing. Congress dealt the final blow to hopes of the resurgence of oil shale in 1956 when it suspended funding for the Anvil Points facility. Unlike earlier in the century, federal interest had this time failed to prompt a commercial shale boom. But many of the basic mining methods and equipment designs developed at Anvil Points became the industry standard (albeit with some technological improvements) when a new boom did come to the Western Slope over a decade later. ¹¹