Though Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has been on the job only weeks, he knows all too well the problems with expanded oil shale leasing.
Colorado’s former U.S. senator and director of the state Natural Resources Department has been immersed in the issue for years, and has expressed grave reservations about environmental impacts, water usage and community effects.
So we were glad to see Salazar stick to his roots in announcing that the Obama administration would block a last-minute push by the Bush White House for expanded oil shale development.
Frankly, we would have been surprised if he had done otherwise.
The Bush plan would have set up a framework for commercial development, even though industry still doesn’t have an economically viable way of extracting oil from shale.
Oil shale development in the mountain West has a long history, fueled by the promise of vast reserves but pockmarked with untenable economic and environmental realities.
For the hopeful, it has been tempting to think oil shale development could be the domestic answer to wildly fluctuating oil prices and even provide energy security. And it’s true the potential of oil shale is huge.
The Green River Formation, which includes parts of Colorado, Wyoming and Utah, has the largest known oil shale deposits in the world. And most of those deposits are on 2 million acres of federal lands managed by the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Estimates on recoverable oil shale vary widely, but 800 billion barrels is a midpoint number. That is more than three times the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia.
There are, however, significant environmental concerns and unanswered questions about the viability of oil shale development.
While the potential is vast, the technology just isn’t there yet. From our perspective, it seems counterproductive to focus too much on this dicey proposition when the nation could be developing clean energy.
If it someday becomes economically viable for companies, then fine. The country certainly will need oil in the foreseeable future, but there already are leases for experimental development of oil shale extraction technologies.
Beyond the implications for national energy policy, oil shale development could exact a significant environmental toll on the region.
The technology that now exists uses a lot of water, a commodity in short supply in the parched West. Western Resources Advocates estimated that the water required for commercial-scale production, including power generation, could supply household needs for two cities the size of Denver.
There also are concerns about air pollution and damage to surface topography, in addition to salts and toxic chemicals that could leach into groundwater.
Salazar said Interior would study these and other issues. “We want to be thoughtful and deliberate as we move forward,” he said.
It’s a prudent move on Salazar’s part, and one that, as Westerners living on the front lines of oil shale development, we applaud.
