Oil Shale Development in the West, and you.

Hey guys-

If you can spare 5 minutes, this is worth taking part in. Shell Oil has developed a method of extracting oil in a profitable manner from the massive oil shale deposits in western Colorado north of I-70 and a huge swath of Eastern Utah and Southern Wyoming. Due to a knee jerk reaction by congress in the aftermath of 9/11, the energy bill of 2005 required the BLM to get a programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) in process in a time frame that is too short to allow for further study ito the comprehensive impacts of this extraction technology. The industry then lobbied to have the "preferred outcome" of the PEIS to be the wholesale opening a million acres of the west to oilshale resource development (read 'wide-scale rape of the land and water of the upper Colorado river drainage').

Test wellsite for Oil Shale resource exploitation - original is here.

There are two other options allowed for in the PEIS, a limited opening of roughly half a million acres, and the 'no action' option, which would leave the privately held lands that the industry currently owns and has developed as test sites for this technology for further testing.

The problem is this. The technology that Shell would like to use involves building a massive pad (3 acres or more) where they will sink heating wells, and extraction wells. (see Below).

Picture from Shell's "Project Mahogany" website here.
Also there is a sweet panoramic shot here. (requires Apple Quicktime)

By using massive amounts of electricity (currently not available in the oil shale bearing areas) to heat the underground shale for months, they can 'crack' the hydrocarbons from the rock, and collect the crude and natural gas in the extraction wells as it boils off. They claim that the ratio of energy-out to energy-in is 3:1. The problem is that they plan to use the gas coming off as a heating source as well, but the energy from the gas is not included in the 3:1 ratio. Based on the volumes of gas that they are talking about, the ratio is probably more like 1:1. So they have in fact found an extremely resource and pollution intensive way to turn natural gas into oil. At $100+ per barrel, this is a boon for the industry. I think it's a crock of shit.

While a trillion barrel's of domestic oil would be nice, to extract even a portion of this oil will require two large power plants, their associated pollution, and an estimated yearly water usage equivalent to the city of Denver, never mind the people, roads, power lines, well site pads and other disturbance in these remote and wild lands. The cost of this process is too high. The land, the air, and the water of the west will be severely taxed if the preferred option of the PEIS is granted.

What you can do:

Copy the following statement, and then go to this link for the public comment form on the PEIS website: http://ostseis.anl.gov/involve/comments/index.cfm

Enter your name and address, paste in the text and hit submit. The comment period will be permanently closed as of Monday, so please take the time to do this today. Feel free to pass this along to anyone who may like to see it.

_______________________Begin Statement_________________
BLM-

I am writing to express my concern that the Oil Shale PEIS has not adequatly addressed the connected actions and connected environmental impacts of granting the preferred option. Until the comprehensive impacts of large scale oil shale develpoment are better sutdied and understood, I ask that OPTION A, "No Action" be adopted as the outcome of this PEIS.

_______________________End Statement___________________

For those interrested here is the link to Shell's "Project Mahogany".

Thanks-

Rockin' Time 2

Need a break from the snow? Or Monday?

Desert ROCK!, power lines, and energy in the west.

This is an image of the Desert Rock Power Plant being proposed by Sithe Global for construction here in the four corners area just southwest of Farmington, NM and adjacent to the Navajo open pit coal mine. This would be the third power plant in the Farmington Area, and the fourth large coal plant in the Four Corners. The 2040 MegaWatt Four Corners plant, one of the dirtiest in the nation, sits a few miles east of town, also on the Navajo Mine. I got this groovy trading card for it off of this site. I wonder if there is a large collectable market for Power Plant trading cards...
Now - I have to admit that enerating power at the point where coal is mined is an efficient design based on the minimized energy requirements for transportation, but I think we have too much of a good thing here in the Four Corners. Already it is difficult most days to see the Shiprock from Farmington, 30 miles to the East. Sitting in between are the plant above, and the San Juan generating plant below.
These two units kick out A LOT of particulate matter, Nitrogen Oxides, Sulfur Dioxide, and Mercury amongst other foul emissions as well as a boatload of CO2. Now I like to flip to power switch on like the next guy and watch TV, or shed some light on things, but it seems like there has got to be a better way. One solution would be to bring DesertROCK! (<- it's just more FUN this way) online and then shut down the notorious Four Corners station. APS owns that sucker, and I suppose that putting pressure on them and the state of Arizona to eat it's own shit would be one way of going about this.

I had to include this lovely shot of the Navajo Power Plant near Page, AZ. Look a that lovely mesa. Don't the stacks really accent the red color of the rock?!

The picture below is of the plume this sucker puts off. The shot was taken near Kayenta, AZ on Feb 19th, 2008. To put this in perspective, that cloud of crap is sitting over Monument Valley.

I sincerely hope that within my lofetime we look back at this type of wanton pollution with some disdain, as an adult might look back on the excess of youth, and recall these technologies with some wonder at the foolishness of their simple nature.

The Melodians - headed out this way!

Talked to the i-Gene over at The Summit here in D-Town. Dude is the local reggae selector and promoter. He tells me the Melodians are back in business and headed our way! Ohhhh yeaaaahhhh. Check the tunes below.

And you can bet your bananna that I'll be rockin this about like Horsemouth is in the clip below. This IS a Take Over!

Rockin' time.

Caught Prezident Brown down at the summit in town last night. You can check him out here. CAUTION! Only follow the link to his site if your speakers are turned up LOUD!

If Eric B. had played guitar...

Ahh, to think what might have been had my buddy Eric been given a guitar as a kid instead of that Betty Crocker Oven and baking set... Though the pink shirt may have done little to stop those persistant rumors about the embarrassing beastiality incident that have recently surfaced...

Careful with that Axe, Eugene.

HEEEEER'S GRANNY!

More freaking snow!

Erica arrived home on Saturday morning, just as it started to snow. It didn't stop until monday morning. I was forced to climb up and shovel the roof. She later dug the path to the front door.

This is work fit for felons and miscreants.

There is some "hot action" video that she took of my handywork here.

Virgin Galactic - Check this out.

This thing will be taking people into space from new Mexico in a couple of years. Totally cool. Check out the promo video here!

Thought for the weekend...

SnowDown (Winter Carnival) in town this weekend.