Here's an update on oil shale production from The Denver Post. From the article:
But a series of interviews with analysts, oil producers and local officials shows that the increasingly politicized debate hides as much as it illuminates. On one hand, there is little doubt among experts that Shell's technology represents a breakthrough. It's a fundamentally different approach from the one that guided the failed efforts of Exxon here in the 1980s, producing an unconventional hydrocarbon -- technically a form of synthetic oil -- that is higher in quality and concentration even than conventional oil. (Consider the fact that the recovery rate in Shell's experiment was 62 percent, compared with 25 percent for the average conventional oil field.) On the other hand, the technology is in such early development that there is no realistic chance it will impact oil supplies (and thus prices) for at least 15 years, according to oil-company officials and analysts, putting it on the far side of other options such as offshore drilling and plug-in hybrid cars. It's also possible the technology simply won't pan out...
The furthest along among several companies exploring "in situ" extraction of oil shale, Shell concedes that it doesn't know if its model will work on a commercial scale. Although company officials have tested all the processes' various parts, they have yet to put them together in a single experiment, including the improbable-sounding combination of massive heaters with an underground ice wall to protect groundwater.
The tests so far "proved to us our core technology. It didn't prove we can scale it up to a commercial level. That's Beyond that, analysts say the debate is missing a key attribute that makes the risks of mismanagement enormous: The sheer concentration of the resource is unlike just about anything else in the world. At its richest point, the shale could yield an astounding 2 million barrels of oil per acre...
But it also means that one small area -- the Piceance Basin between Rifle and Meeker -- could contain one of the biggest resource-extraction projects the country has ever seen, with the potential of highly concentrated impacts on air, water and the environment. Full-scale commercial production would probably mean several new electricity plants on the Western Slope, as well as new refineries. Thousands of additional workers would reshape communities. The amount of water required by the process would shift regional supplies from supporting agriculture to supporting industry, according to a 2007 analysis by the Bureau of Land Management. "My concern is that they aren't recognizing how geographically compact the oil-shale resource is. There is this idea that there's 800 billion barrels of recoverable resource, but about half of that is in the Piceance Basin," said James Bartis, a national oil-shale expert at the Rand Corp., a California-based think tank. "This is sort of frightening, because you could really mess things up here. You get the wrong people . . . all of the sudden you're choking on the air quality in a Class 1 (pristine) area," Bartis said...
But the biggest impact may be on water. Rand estimates that it would take three barrels of water to produce one barrel of shale oil. Although that's significantly less than the amount of water needed to produce a barrel of ethanol, the water would come from the relatively scarce resources of the semi-arid Western Slope, some of which also feeds the Front Range. As Shell and other companies snap up conditional water rights in the region, the Front Range Water Users Council -- a group of water boards that serves the state's major cities -- formally requested an extension of the leasing regulation moratorium, believing, according to a letter to Congress, that the "development of oil shale in Colorado could significantly affect the Council's ability to serve existing customers and the future growth projected for the Front Range of Colorado."[...]
"Even though the benefits of oil shale are nationwide in terms of the impact on overall oil prices, the environmental impacts of oil shale are almost 100 percent Colorado," said Bartis, the Rand expert. But Bartis' biggest concern is that in a rush to nail down formal leasing regulations, the Bush administration is potentially giving away at fire-sale prices what may turn out to be among the biggest oil resources on the continent. Bartis said the royalty structure in the draft regulations is based partly on the experimental nature of the technology. If the Department of Interior waited until that technology was more proven -- and thus the value of a potentially lucrative resource more fixed -- the federal government could justifiably ask for a larger share in bonus payments and royalties.
Here's a look at 212 Resources' process for recycling water in energy production, including hopefully oil shale, from The Deseret News. From the article:
Funded to the tune of up to $250 million by GE Energy Financial Services, a Midway-based company called 212 Resources claims it can "dramatically" reduce the amount of water that a shale or sands operation will need with a technology 212 says it has already proven in commercial natural gas fields. The company's process of recycling dirty water, using a mobile "pod" at the drilling or mining site, is described by 212's Robert Waits as a "viable, large-scale solution to the 'water issue."'
Any number of companies could end up using 212's technology, which Waits said was pitched recently in Alberta, home to rich supplies of oil sands. It's also being used in Wyoming's natural gas fields. "We wanted to prove ourselves in gas fields," Waits said. "We've set about doing a good job on that."
Waits said one of his company's mobile pods can be built in about six months and that it requires a generator, with some emissions if the site is remote or doesn't have easy access to an electric grid. Beyond that, he added, there are no emissions from 212's "closed-loop" process of heating used water, which creates distilled water and a salty solid waste that Waits said can be injected deep underground and safely away from aquifers. Their process also produces a petroleum product that 212 turns around and sells. "We're substantially reducing anything that has to be disposed of," Waits said, noting that their methods also greatly reduce the need for water trucks, thereby reducing tailpipe emissions and airborne particulates from dust on dirt roads...
"Do we have a technology that exists today that does not require a lot of water?" asked Lawson LeGate, senior regional representative of the Sierra Club's Utah chapter. He hasn't seen it, yet. Colorado-based Western Resource Advocates' Peter Rossman is waiting for science and technology to prove -- and not just in a laboratory -- that large-scale shale oil operations will not siphon the area dry or contaminate groundwater sources.
More Coyote Gulch coverage here.
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