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US BLM Sets Aside 1.9M Acres of Public Lands for Potential Oil Shale Development
5 September 2008
The US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) finalized a plan to guide the use of public lands containing oil shale and tar sands. In a Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) published in the Federal Register, the BLM amends 12 land-use plans in Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming to set aside approximately 1.9 million acres of public lands for potential commercial oil shale development.
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| Oil shale deposits in the three-state area. Click to enlarge. Source: BLM |
The Final PEIS is one in a number of steps required before commercial leasing would begin. This document summarizes information on oil shale and tar sands technologies and their potential environmental and socio-economic impacts, along with potential mitigating measures that would be evaluated and applied when subsequent site-specific National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) analysis is undertaken for lease issuance or project approval.
Congress directed the BLM to develop the PEIS under the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The Act declares oil shale and other unconventional fuels to be strategically important domestic energy sources that should be developed to reduce the nation’s growing dependence on imported oil. BLM estimates that oil shale deposits on Western lands hold the equivalent of 800 billion barrels of oil.
One of the next steps required would be completing rules that govern the procedures for issuing leases for development of oil shale and tar sands. However, Congress placed a moratorium in the fiscal year 2008 federal appropriations bill directing the BLM not to finalize such regulations.
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| Lands available for application for leasing in Colorado. Click to enlarge. Source: BLM |
Most US oil shale resources are found in the Green River Formation of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. The PEIS identifies the most geologically promising oil shale areas in the three states that will be open to applications for commercial leasing.
The Draft PEIS was published in the Federal Register on December 21, 2007, for a 90-day public review and comment period. The BLM received more than 105,000 comments on the draft, resulting in the addition of clarifying text to the Final PEIS, but without significant changes to the land-use plan decisions proposed in the draft. The BLM will wait at least 60 days after the publication of the Final PEIS before signing and issuing a Record of Decision approving the land-use plan amendments.
Under the preferred management alternative in the Final PEIS, 305,000 acres of BLM-managed lands in the potential development area would be excluded from oil shale leasing. No leasing would be allowed in Wilderness Areas, Wilderness Study Areas, other units of the BLM’s National Landscape Conservation System, and Areas of Critical Environmental Concern closed to mineral development, along with other areas.
The BLM has issued research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) leases for five oil shale projects in Colorado’s Piceance Basin and one in Utah. In July, the BLM also proposed regulations to set out the policies and procedures of a commercial program for oil shale resources on Federal lands.
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Comments
This is a good idea for our energy independence. I've been out west, and there is a mind-blowing amount of BLM lands that are massive vast tracts of high plains desert & rangeland.....lots and lots of sagebrush. Why not allow drilling? Go for it! Drill baby drill!
Posted by: ejj | Sep 5, 2008 6:06:57 PM
I LIVE out west.
We have massive open pit copper mines and huge urban sprawl.
People are moving here in droves. Umm, do these two fit?
Conclusion: The mind-blowing amount of BLM lands is not significantly affected by man’s encroachments and the mines are hard to “find” unless you know where to look. The anti-tech extremists can find these places and become upset if they so choose.
The harm to the pristine desert (like drilling harming ANWAR) is a fraud justified by the blind desire to our oil/gasoline crisis worse.
Posted by: ToppaTom | Sep 5, 2008 7:05:20 PM
And how many millions of acres did they set aside for solar farms?
Posted by: corruption | Sep 6, 2008 12:10:12 AM
This oil shale is just a distraction, they have been trying for more than 30 years to extract them and the result is ZERO. You need more energy to extract it than what you get, and the technology can do little about it. Pristine or not the deset will not make the green the next Saoudia
Posted by: Treehugger | Sep 6, 2008 12:19:17 AM
Toppa: I LIVE out west.
We have massive open pit copper mines and huge urban sprawl.
People are moving here in droves. Umm, do these two fit?
Conclusion: The mind-blowing amount of BLM lands is not significantly affected by man’s encroachments and the mines are hard to “find” unless you know where to look. The anti-tech extremists can find these places and become upset if they so choose.
The harm to the pristine desert (like drilling harming ANWAR) is a fraud justified by the blind desire to our oil/gasoline crisis worse.
ejj: There is plenty of land out west for the east to send its riff-raff to AND drill (drill baby drill!) AND have a vast amount of scrub lands left over under strict BLM controls. I live in Florida which has been paved over enough with low-grade subdivisions filled up with white trash, minorities and their crime. The real estate crash here has been a blessing in disguise by radically slowing down the war on the environment by developers. This is a chance for environmental groups to go on a land preservation binge.
Posted by: ejj | Sep 6, 2008 11:50:40 AM
Corrupt: And how many millions of acres did they set aside for solar farms?
ejj: Poor question.....better: How many millions of acres did companies who build solar farms want set aside for their projects? Perhaps when these companies get their acts together and stop sucking on government teets so much & asking for handouts we can say Solar Baby Solar! instead of Drill Baby Drill!
Posted by: ejj | Sep 6, 2008 11:57:12 AM
Corrupt: And how many millions of acres did they set aside for solar farms?
Very little because of yet there are no large scale farms. Most solar devolopments are on private owned land or building like the Fed-ex one in southern california, which leases the roof for a set period and buys the electricity at a set price.
It would only take 10000 square miles of Nevada desert to equal the electricity needs of the entire US using 14% efficient cells. The majority if not all the pollution and disruption would come from the manufacturing.
Drilling, may be necessary, but it perpetuates the US addictive lifestyles and worse it creates multi-billion dollar vested interests as well as taking money away from green developements like green cars.
Posted by: aym | Sep 7, 2008 11:07:33 AM
There is no energy source that is not objected to by some people. There is no energy source available to all people. There is no way for people who want nuclear energy to do it in their basement apartment or to install wind power either. They can not even get satellite TV installed in some places.
Whilst oil shale may not be profitable at world price of $50 a barrel it may be profitable at $51 and certainly at a hundred. Speculators stole money out of the pockets of most of the small income people of the world by being allowed to bid on a commodity whose supply is limited by US government action and inaction. Congressional action to prevent oilshale prodution at the heighth of crude oil prices shows a willingness of Colorado and other politicians to sacrifice the lives of their constituents for the sake of oil lobbyist dollars into their campain. They would rather have the money of the low income people of Colorado go to Norway, Russia or Kuwait than to Colorado workers. Yes it takes time to produce shale oil facilities but just the verbal support of them would drop speculative prices quickly and save money tomorrow. Few will meet their demise in Colorado due to a bit of extra CO2 in the air, but some, including younger humans too young to vote, had an earlier demise because of a shortage of money for medical attention because much more was needed to pay for oil products by their families and the nation. Briefly after the invasion of Afganistan gasoline was less than a dollar at the pump. Recently it was more than four times that price. There are not many loud voices stating clearly that the collapse of major financial institutions was due to money being siphoned out for oil speculators. ENRON was nothing compared to the US congress and executive allowance of wild uncontrolled speculation in the US government limited oil market. ..HG..
Posted by: Henry Gibson | Sep 11, 2008 1:01:52 AM
