The good news is the Obama administration has tossed out the Bush administration’s midnight regulations designed to rush oil shale development in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.
The bad news is they intend to replace it with their own plan for a second round of research, development, and demonstration leases for oil shale.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar yesterday announced he would cancel the oil shale leasing proposal issued by the Bush administration in January, because it was flawed and royalties to be paid by the oil industry were too low.
The Department of Interior will now open a 90-day comment period allowing the public to weigh in on what oil shale research and development leases should contain.
"We need to push forward aggressively with research, development and demonstration of oil shale technologies to see if we can find a safe and economically viable way to unlock these resources on a commercial scale," Salazar said.
"The research, development, and demonstration leases we will offer can help answer critical questions about oil shale, including about the viability of emerging technologies on a commercial scale, how much water and power would be required, and what impact commercial development would have on land, water, wildlife, and communities," he said.
Producing a liquid fuel from oil shale entails heating solid rock to temperatures in excess of 600°F. The large amounts of energy needed to heat and process oil shale would increase the global warming emissions that contribute to climate change.
Oil shale development also requires a great deal of water, a limited resource in the arid West. The BLM estimates that in Colorado alone, oil shale development could consume more water than the Denver Metro area, home to over 2 million people.
There is also a concern that oil shale development will destroy key wildlife habitat in places like Utah’s Book Cliffs and Colorado’s Piceance Basin.
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