Word: shales
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...place has the pace of exploration and the intensity of development to match the Rocky Mountain region that embraces Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and Montana. Locked in the area's majestic peaks and prairies are the nation's most lavish supplies of undeveloped coal, oil, natural gas, shale oil, uranium and almost everything else that creates power...
...randomly located and perched on top of one another, and such formations make traditional exploration and analysis difficult, if not impossible. Says A.B. ("Pete") Slaybaugh, chief of Continental Oil's exploration team in the area: "Frequently we find ourselves drilling through more than one layer of soil, shale and rock, only to find another layer of the same. With a normal well there is usually only one layer. Mother Nature didn't do us any favors...
America's oil shale, which is estimated to contain about 75 billion bbl. of recoverable crude, is also concentrated in the region. Elaborate pilot projects to get the oil are planned by Occidental Petroleum in western Colorado and Union Oil in southeastern Wyoming. The investment would be hefty-$120 million for Union's 20,000-acre test site designed to produce 9,000 bbl. daily-but there is a strong chance that Congress will approve a $3 tax credit for each barrel produced...
...lack of understanding can be seen in the decision to pump billions of dollars into the development of synthetic fuels. As Colorado's Democratic Governor Dick Lamm put it: "For us in the West the implications are almost unfathomable. Colorado has 80% of the nation's developable shale, vast amounts of coal and a great deal of uranium. Now we are being subjected to a crash program...
...major problem is not financial but environmental. Extracting oil from shale is thought to be the greatest pollution threat. Thus, the toughest environmental battles will probably rage in Colorado and other shale-rich Western states, which have generally strict pollution-control laws. There will also be local resistance to coal gasification and liquefaction plants because they pollute the air with fumes from burning and lead to a noisy, dust-spewing increase in rail traffic to bring in the coal. On the other side, labor unions and various local groups will be eager to attract synfuel plants-particularly in Appalachia-because...