The Mountain West needs a balanced approach to energy production, one that allows for the responsible development of gas and oil resources, while protecting water, air and key natural areas where westerners farm, hike, hunt and fish.
In practice this means that we have to make a distinction between lands that should and should not be opened to drilling. It also means that we have to decide which extraction techniques make sense on western lands, and that strong protections for public health and taxpayers need to be maintained.
The public debate around energy extraction on Western lands is more constructive when both sides recognize the need for balance. But in recent times, the oil industry and its allies have taken to overheating at even the most reasonable curbs on extraction.
Case in point: oil industry supporters hyperventilated recently when the Bureau of Land Management released a sensible new rule allowing continued experimentation with oil shale on public lands, while placing reasonable limits on how many acres of land would be open to the practice.
Oil shale (not to be confused with other kinds of shale resources) are rocks containing the substance kerogen, which must be subjected to tremendous heat and pressure to become usable oil. The process for extracting oil from oil shale is strikingly destructive, and uses large amounts of energy and water. It’s also difficult and expensive, and industry has tried and failed for decades to take oil shale from the exploratory to the commercial stage. So a policy of continued limited experimentation makes sense.
Unfortunately, drill-baby-drill voices, including Sen. Orrin Hatch, are refusing to accept even reasonable limits on unproven, destructive oil shale development. And, in the first week of December, Rep. Ralph Hall (R-Tex.) introduced H.R. 6603, which includes $50 million in new subsidies for oil shale speculation. This is the latest in a legacy of handouts in the name of oil shale, a legacy that’s risked billions of taxpayer dollars.
Keep in mind that oil shale has never reached commercial scale in United States after decades of trying, and that the BLM decision just added 667,000 acres to the lands available for research and development.
A little more background here on the downside of oil shale extraction. The extraction process is popularly known as “scorching,” because it literally involves heating large tracts of land to 700 degrees for 2-3 years. Other experimental techniques for oil shale closer to the surface involve essentially strip mining and scorching large tracks of land.
Add to that the Government Accountability Office’s estimate that oil shale development could use 123 billion gallons of water, enough for 750,000 households, and that the largest deposits of oil shale are near the headwaters of the Colorado River. It’s hard to image this technique as part of a balanced energy future, but oil industry supporters refuse to make a distinction between oil shale and more viable energy sources and techniques.
The recent debate over oil shale puts the issue of balance on western lands into sharper focus. Oil companies and conservationists have at times agreed, at least rhetorically, about the need for a balanced approach to conservation and energy development. Conservationists can’t adopt a “not here, not ever” stance for every acre of American land, but the oil industry and its allies must finally recognize that not all places and not all methods have the same place in our energy future.