American Shale Oil (AMSO), one of the three companies with oil shale RD&D leases in Colorado, has announced that it is preparing to launch the pilot test of its in situ oil shale production technology. If successful, the test will move AMSO closer to scaling up to a commercial oil shale industry that the company predicts could produce 100,000 barrels of oil per day. Read more details on AMSO’s process and what it might mean for the future in this article by Dennis Webb in the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. Read more about the RD&D leasing process in What Every Westerner Should Know About Oil Shale.
A new study claims that an oil shale industry may require significantly less water than previous estimates had suggested. The reduction comes from using natural gas to heat the oil shale deposits in place rather than building coal-fired power plants for heating. See the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel for more information.
Western Resource Advocates has released a new report that calls into question oil shale’s energy return on investment (EROI, as it’s commonly abbreviated). The report, by Dr. Cutler Cleveland of Boston University, suggests that after accounting for all of the energy necessary to extract oil from shale, oil shale produces, at best, only slightly more energy than it requires.
Read more about the report from Western Resource Advocates, or download the report itself.
Where are our flying cars? Our robot servants? Our oil shale bounty?
In a column in the Denver Post, Susan Green adds oil shale to the list of as-yet-unrealized visions of our future, recalling the projection Exxon made 30 years ago that by 2010 Western Colorado would be home to an 8-million-barrel-a-day oil shale industry.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service has recommended that three rare wildflowers native to the Western Slope - two of which grow almost exclusively on prospective lands in Shale Country - be listed for protection under the Endangered Species Act. The few known remaining populations of Parachute penstemon and the Pagosa skyrocket are found on oil shale outcroppings in Western Colorado. The third flower, the De Beque phacelia, is also found in the area’s oil and gas fields.
The recommendations will now be opened to public comment for 60 days. If they are finally adopted following that comment period, they would require energy developers and other users of the land to consult with the US Fish and Wildlife Service to ensure the protection of the endangered plants before any activity is permitted.
Read more about the recommended listings in this article from the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. Read more about the 210 species in Shale Country listed as sensitive, threatened, endangered, or otherwise protected by the federal and state governments in “Land and Ecology: New Ways to Count Coup” from What Every Westerner Should Know About Oil Shale.
A judge considering whether greater protection should be afforded to the Graham’s penstemon, a rare wildflower that grows only on oil shale outcroppings in a portion of Shale Country, has delayed his ruling until later this summer and asked the parties involved in the suit to submit more information. The Denver-based Center for Native Ecosystems and several other environmental groups want the judge to order the US Fish and Wildlife Service to reconsider its 2006 decision to retract a recommendation that the flower be listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The judge has asked for additional documents to be submitted by early July, and a ruling is expected after that.
Read more about the delayed ruling in this article published in the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. Read more about the Graham’s penstemon and the Center for Native Ecosystem’s views here. And read more about the Graham’s penstemon and the ecological questions surrounding the possibility of future oil shale development in the “Land and Ecology: New Ways to Count Coup” section of What Every Westerner Should Know About Oil Shale.
A federal judge has issued another - and perhaps the last - extension in two lawsuits filed against the Department of Interior over rules for commercial oil shale development issued during the last days of the Bush Administration. The Obama Administration inherited the lawsuits, and under Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, officials have pleaded for time to familiarize themselves with the issue and attempt to resolve it through negotiation. The administration has requested and received nine extensions in the suits. But, according to a report in the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, US District Court Judge John K. Lane has suggested that the most recent, which delays the hearing until July 16, may be the last he is inclined to grant.
For going on a year now, Western Resource Advocates have been publishing an informative email newsletter called Oil Shale News that collects a range of environmental viewpoints on the resource in one place. The environmental advocacy organization makes no pretense about its belief that the West’s oil shale should be left in the ground, but its collection of recent news from Shale Country can be valuable to anyone following the issue. The May issue features news on upcoming lawsuits, the thirtieth anniversary of Black Sunday, helpful vocabulary lessons, and more.
Andrew Gulliford, author of Boomtown Blues and an eye-witness to oil shale’s last great bust, has written some reflections on Black Sunday thirty years on for the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel.
Once again, an official in the Obama Administration is emphasizing the administration’s “go-slow” stance toward oil shale. According to a report from the Associated Press, Steve Black, a senior adviser to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, used his address to the Unconventional Fuels Conference in Salt Lake City that the time line for developing oil shale remained uncertain and that the industry is “not ready for prime time.”