Fighting Over Oil and Water

  • The richest oil shale deposits lie in the Piceance Basin, which runs northwest of the town of Rifle, Colorado. The bands of dark grey along the edge of this snow- capped ridge are oil shale. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

In the future, keeping your gas tank full could make disputes over water in the American
West a lot worse. It’s because energy companies hope to develop the oil shale industry.
Getting oil from shale requires lots of water, and the richest oil shale deposits happen to be
in the dry state of Colorado. Shawn Allee headed there to see why a fight over water and
oil could be in the works:

Transcript

In the future, keeping your gas tank full could make disputes over water in the American
West a lot worse. It’s because energy companies hope to develop the oil shale industry.
Getting oil from shale requires lots of water, and the richest oil shale deposits happen to be
in the dry state of Colorado. Shawn Allee headed there to see why a fight over water and
oil could be in the works:

Oil companies have their eyes on vast oil shale deposits in western Colorado, Utah and
Wyoming.

The federal government says companies could pull 800 billion barrels of oil out of that shale.

That’s about three times the proven oil reserves in Saudi Arabia.

Oil shale’s an impressive resource but it depends on water and there’s not much available
there.

How much would an oil shale industry need?

Shell Oil PR guy Tracy Boyd says the simple answer is that it will likely take his company
three barrels of water to extract one barrel of oil.

It’s because oil shale doesn’t really have oil in it – it’s got something called kerogen.

“You can heat this kerogen up. If you do it really slow, which we do for about 3.5 –
4 years, by putting heaters down in the rock formation, (you) produce a crude-oil
like material but with a little processing this is the first product we get out of it
which basically transportation fuels.”

Heating the ground require loads of electricity from new power plants and generators, and
they’d be cooled by water.

Oil companies are just experimenting with shale right now, but they’re securing rights to
water just in case.

Shell’s latest water claim is on Colorado’s Yampa River.

When Shell filed its court papers – some town governments warned they might fight the
claim.

One of these towns was Parker – a Denver suburb hundreds of miles east of the oil shale
region.

Frank Jaeger runs Parker’s water district.

Jaeger says, like other Colorado cities, Parker plans to expand.

“We know approximately what our numbers are and it will be somewhere in the
neighborhood of 150,000 people. In order to assure 150,000 people for another
150 years from now, I have to be proactive, I have to be at the front of the line for
the next drop of water available in the State of Colorado.”

Oil shale developers and cities across Colorado are set to fight over the water they might
need for the future, but some feel oil companies already have an edge.

“They’re actually one step ahead of the game.”

David Ableson is with Western Resource Advocates, an environmental group.

Ableson says energy companies tried developing oil shale several times in the last century.

They failed, but each time, they bought more water rights – just in case.

Now, they’ve got loads of water rights – and if the industry takes off, they’ll use them.

That could stop cities like Denver and its suburbs from getting water they hoped to have for
new homes and businesses.

Ableson says this isn’t just a Colorado fight, though.

He says some congressmen sell the idea of oil shale as an energy source the whole country
can depend on – even though its future could get tied up in Colorado water courts.

“And so, folks who are looking at this issue who do not live in CO, UT, or WY, need
to understand that when an elected official says, “this can solve our energy woes,”
that it’s actually a far more complicated situation than that and if there are severe
water impacts, that makes it much less likely that you could develop that
resource.”

The energy industry claims the concern over water is overblown – they say they just might
not need all that much water.

Ableson says that’s only true if oil shale fails. But if it succeeds, and we fill up on oil shale
gasoline – he predicts some towns or industries in the West will be left dry.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

T. Boone Pickens Weighs in on Energy

  • Michigan Gonvenor Jennifer Granholm and T. Boone Pickens, founder and chairman, BP Capital Management, shaire their alternative energy solutions at the Detroit Regional Chamber 2009 Mackinac Policy Conference (Photo courtesy of the Mackinac Policy Conference)

A Texas oil tycoon is trying to get America off of foreign oil. T. Boone Pickens has spent the last year and nearly 60-million dollars promoting his plan to use only US sources of energy. Rebecca Williams reports:

Transcript

A Texas oil tycoon is trying to get America off of foreign oil. T. Boone Pickens has spent the last year and nearly 60-million dollars promoting his plan to use only US sources of energy. Rebecca Williams reports:

T. Boone Pickens says he’s all for domestic oil drilling, solar, nuclear, coal – especially wind and natural gas. But anything, as long as it comes from the USA.

“I’m for anything that’s American. Anything that’s American. (applause) But we have to get off oil from the enemy.”

And he said he used to be an outspoken critic of ethanol. But not anymore.

“It is American. Is it a good fuel? It’s an ugly baby is what it is. But it’s our ugly baby.” (laughter)

He says Members of Congress tell him, whether it’s a good fuel or not, farm states want it.

He readily admits his plan would help him make some money. But he says he also wants the U.S. to get away from foreign imports for the sake of national security and the health of the economy.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Obama: Tar Sands Oil Will Work

President Obama indicates a willingness to continue to import Canada’s dirtiest source of oil. Lester Graham reports environmentalists don’t like it:

Transcript

President Obama indicates a willingness to continue to import Canada’s dirtiest source of oil. Lester Graham reports environmentalists don’t like it:

The United States gets about 20% of its imported oil from Canada. Half of that comes from tar sands in Alberta.

It takes two-tons of the asphalt-like substance to produce one barrel of oil.

Refineries in several states are expanding facilities to process the dirtier oil.

Henry Henderson is with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

He says takes a lot more energy to extract, transport and refine tar sands oil. That means a lot more greenhouse gases.

“At least three times what conventional oil involves. That brings with it a significant threat and impact on our national security in terms of changing global climate in a way that is a threat to us.”

Despite the environmentalists’ concerns, President Obama says the U.S. will work with Canada to use the tar sands oil reserves.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

How Much Help From Offshore Drilling?

  • Oil is a global commodity, so oil drilled in the US would not have to stay here (Photo courtesy of the Minerals Management Service)

There’s been a lot of talk lately
about drilling for more oil off the American
coasts. Rebecca Williams reports that oil
is not required to go to the US markets:

Transcript

There’s been a lot of talk lately
about drilling for more oil off the American
coasts. Rebecca Williams reports that oil
is not required to go to the US markets:

Oil is a global commodity. Oil drilled in the US would not have to stay
here.

But most of it probably would.

Alan Good is with Morningstar. He analyzes the oil and gas industries.

“It would generally go straight to America because it would incur the lowest
transportation costs to get to the United States refineries.”

But Good says it would be at least a decade before that oil would come
online. And even then it’s not clear how much offshore drilling here would
reduce imports from the Middle East.

“It will help somewhat with imports but it’s not likely to make a huge dent.”

And he says it’ll probably have little effect on the price you pay at the pump
because world demand drives oil prices.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Dirt on the Coal Supply

  • This coal fired power plant sits at the corner of the SIU campus in Carbondale, Illinois. It has sulfur scrubbers and other technology that allow it to burn Illinois coal. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

Presidential candidates John McCain
and Barack Obama are trying to sell us on a
clean energy future. And they’ve got a laundry
list of ideas, including conservation, solar
and wind power, and safer nuclear energy.
But they both want to tweak an old reliable
fuel, too. That would be American coal.
Shawn Allee looks at why McCain
and Obama are gung-ho on coal:

Transcript

Presidential candidates John McCain
and Barack Obama are trying to sell us on a
clean energy future. And they’ve got a laundry
list of ideas, including conservation, solar
and wind power, and safer nuclear energy.
But they both want to tweak an old reliable
fuel, too. That would be American coal.
Shawn Allee looks at why McCain
and Obama are gung-ho on coal:

One reason McCain and Obama tout coal is they’re convinced we have plenty of it.

And they even agree on how to make that point.

McCain first.

McCain: “Our coal reserves are larger than Saudi Arabia’s supply of oil.”

Obama: “We’re the Saudi Arabia of coal, we got more coal than just about
everybody else.”

The Saudi Arabia of Coal.

That’s a sexy political metaphor – it sounds like coal’s just waiting to be scooped up.

Where do politicians get this idea?

“It is really based on data published by the Energy Information Administration.”

That’s Mike Mellish. He crunches coal projection numbers for that agency.

Politicians cite a government figure that we have 250 years worth of coal.

Mellish calls that a very rough estimate. Mellish says we get that number by estimating
how much coal we can get out of the ground economically.

Then, analysts compare that to how much we burn in factories and power plants right
now.

“So that’s really the basis of that statement of 250 years.”

Mellish says, if we use more coal, we’d literally burn through the supply faster.

There are critics who pounce on the idea we have plenty of coal. One of them’s Richard
Heinberg.

Heinberg studies energy for the Post-Carbon Institute, a green think tank. He says
politicians should not expect cheap coal for centuries.

“It assumes we can continue extracting this stuff out of the ground at constant rates
until, one day, it all just runs out.”

Heinberg says America does have lots of coal, but the amount under the ground isn’t the
only thing that counts.

“We tend to get the cheap, easy stuff first, then the production peaks and tails off
afterward.”

Heinberg predicts companies will have to invest money to keep finding new coal, and
that will raise coal prices – not in centuries – but in a few decades.

And Heinbergs says there’s another reason Obama and McCain shouldn’t have so much
faith in coal.

Coal plants put loads of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and that makes the global
warming problem worse.

Both candidates want new technologies to put coal’s carbon emissions in the ground.

“But there are a lot of questions as to whether this is really going to work. The cost
of capturing all that carbon dioxide and moving it around and burying it will be
enormous and they will add to the cost of electricity we can make with coal.”

For Heinberg all this talk about the Saudi Arabia of coal, and that 250 year figure, it’s all
a big bet – and it could have a high cost if we’re wrong.

“If we’re going on the assumption that there’s plenty of coal out there for many
decades to come at current prices and we build infrastructure accordingly and then
a couple of decades from now, suddenly coal becomes much more expensive and
scarce we will have gotten ourselves in a very difficult place, sort of like we’d done
with oil.”

A lot of energy experts are more upbeat on coal than Heinberg.

They admit it’s not clear how much coal we have, but it’s a heck of a lot, and we know
how to get it.

They say they don’t blame Obama and McCain for giving clean coal a chance. It’s just
that we should have started testing it a decade ago.

Hmm, a decade ago?

Politicians don’t like to say we’ve missed the mark by a decade.

It’s no wonder we haven’t heard that on the campaign trail.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Enviro Group Calls for Drilling Ban

An environmental group is calling on Great Lakes states to ban drilling for oil and gas under Lake Erie. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Natalie Walston reports:

Transcript

An environmental group is calling on Great Lakes states to ban drilling for
oil and gas under Lake Erie. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Natalie
Walston reports:


At least four drilling companies have tried to gain access to oil and gas
deposits under Lake Erie since 1998. That’s according to a study by the Ohio
Public Interest Research Group. The group found a significant amount of
cooperation between the Council of Great Lakes Governors in considering
allowing companies access to the lake. Bryan Clark wrote the report for the interest
group. He says there are a number of problems associated with drilling for
oil and gas.


“Drilling operations routinely utilize dangerous toxic chemicals. Many of
these chemicals, such as those found in drilling mud, can cause problems as
diverse as wildlife cancers, developmental disorders, and shortened life
spans.”


Ohio governor Bob Taft has stated he will sign an executive order banning
drilling under Ohio’s part of Lake Erie. The state of Michigan recently voted to ban
new drilling. Clark says New York, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana need to
consider a drilling ban as well.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Natalie Walston.

Attacks Change Nature of Enviro Debate

Before the terrorist attacks on the U.S., environmental groups were often critical of the Bush Administration’s policies. But since September 11th, most of the environmental organizations have erased all traces of criticism of the White House. Some politicians, though, see opportunities to push through energy policies in the name of national security – policies that could damage the environment. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Before the terrorist attacks on the U.S., environmental groups were often critical of the Bush Administration’s policies. But, since September 11th, most of the environmental organizations have erased all traces of criticism of the White House. Some politicians, though, see opportunities to push through energy policies in the name of national security, policies that could damage the environment. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports.


If you’d visited the Sierra Club Internet web site before September eleventh, or that of the Natural Resources Defense Council, or any of a dozen or more major environmental groups’ sites, you likely would have seen sometimes harsh criticism of the Bush Administration’s energy policies, environmental policies, and a host of other complaints the groups had against the White House. Some environmental groups were also running TV ads attacking the Bush Administration’s policies. But, after the terrorist attacks, the ads were pulled and many of the environmental groups removed those criticisms from their web sites in the name of national unity.


Joe Davis is editor of a tip sheet compiled for environmental journalists. He’s watched as most environmental groups have stifled their criticism since the attacks.


“I think everybody’s waiting just to see, you know, what’s going to happen in the next few days and weeks. And, of course, environmental groups are, for the most part, as patriotic as everybody else and people do understand that national unity is important.”


Some journalists have questioned whether the environmental groups are backing down from their positions or merely lying low for a little while. The environmental groups aren’t saying much. But behind the scenes, there’s concern that environmental protection will get trampled in the name of national security.


Meanwhile, some politicians have seen opportunities in the wake of the tragedy. Immediately after the attacks, the Alaska congressional delegation began pushing harder for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The members said such drilling would reduce America’s dependence on oil from the Middle East. They were admonished, though, for being opportunists in the wake of tragedy. The Alaska politicians quickly backed off and took the fight for drilling behind the scenes.


Outside of Washington, it’s a different story. Some state politicians have become even more vocal in their support of oil and gas exploration. Just before the terrorist attacks, Michigan’s Natural Resources Commission lifted a moratorium on drilling for oil and natural gas under the Great Lakes. The Michigan Legislature could still step in to block any such drilling. But some of the lawmakers say because of the terrorist attacks, Michigan should drill. Dale Shugars is a Republican State Senator who supports drilling under the lakes.

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“With the sustained war that we’re going to be going into, I think it’s very important from a national security point of view that the country be more independent for oil and gas.”


Environmentalists in Michigan are appalled that Senator Shugars and some of their colleagues are taking that tact. James Clift is the policy director for the Michigan Environmental Council. He says the reserves under the lakes are so miniscule they’ll have next to no effect on the nation’s energy security and using the terrorist attacks to justify drilling under the Great Lakes is wrong.


“We do not believe that the unfortunate incident of the terrorist attack has changed anything as far as energy policy in the United States. The same conditions that applied before apply afterwards. And, even more so, I believe, is the importance for energy conservation. The United States only has four percent of the world’s reserves of oil and gas. Using those reserves up faster isn’t going to make the United States any more secure.”


But Senator Shugars thinks it is naïve to believe using less fuel will be enough. He says now that we’re at war with terrorists, it’s important to drill for fuel for the military and needs at home.


“It’s a fact that we’re going to be having a war against terrorism for a long time and I think that if one is going to look at a national energy policy, it has to include increasing supply and definitely – definitely has to be environmentally sensitive.”


Senator Shugars and others using the terrorist attacks to justify the energy and environmental policies that they want might be walking a tight rope. History shows Americans tend to frown on opportunism during times of national crisis. Environmental journalist Joe Davis says if politicians and energy industry leaders do use that approach, it could backfire. Especially since environmental groups are being quiet for the sake of a united patriotic front.


“Any party who tries to make short-term advantage out of a national crisis like this, I think, is very quickly going to be perceived as being exactly what it is: opportunistic. I don’t think the environmentalists will lay low forever and I don’t think they’re alone in questioning these things.”


But for now, most of the environmentalists are not saying much – at least publicly – about their opposition to the government’s energy and environmental policies. At least not until the nation begins to get past the shock of the terrorist attacks on the U.S.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

Whooping Cranes Find a Home

Wisconsin could become the first state in the eastern U-S to host a
nesting area for migrating whooping cranes. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports: