Oil deposits in Utah

nobody · Post by **nobody** » April 13, 2005, 12:11 pm

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,600125803,00.html

WASHINGTON — Utah, Colorado and Wyoming sit on a massive fortune in untapped oil — maybe more oil than in the Middle East — if they could just figure out a way to harvest it.

And therein lies the rub. The technology to recover oil from tar sands and oil shale is costly, and it just wasn't justified when oil was $30 or even $40 a barrel.
But with oil prices expected to remain above $50 a barrel for the foreseeable future, a lot of people in the oil industry want to revisit what could become a huge financial windfall for Utah and its neighbors to the east.

On one hand it will cost billions to develop and implement the technology. And there also is a problem in that the oil shale and tar sands are located in a portion of eastern Utah coveted by conservationists for its wilderness qualities.
"The wilderness advocates will say, 'Over my dead body.' But it looks like oil prices are going to stay above $50 a barrel, and I could see people moving into this business in a big way," Bennett said.
Congress could be the wild card when it comes to defraying the cost of jump-starting oil shale and tar sands oil production. If Congress were to infuse massive amounts of research capital into production through the Department of Energy, the United States could conceivably generate enough oil to wean itself from foreign oil.

There's more to the article than the quotes but those were the highlites. i for one think it has good potential. with technology what it is today, we are capable of tapping into the oil without harming the landscape.

on the other hand if we have that much oil to satisfy us where would the demand for other cleaner sources of energy go?

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » April 13, 2005, 1:22 pm

I have no problem with completely wiping the state of Utah of all living organisms and making it a huge oilfield/refinery. The sooner the better but send the mormons packing back east, not to nearby states.

Trias · Post by **Trias** » April 13, 2005, 1:26 pm

Winnow wrote:I have no problem with completely wiping the state of Utah of all living organisms and making it a huge oilfield/refinery. The sooner the better but send the mormons packing back east, not to nearby states.

i don't care either; whatever it takes to power all my computers, car, stuff untill i'm dead, haha ^^

Skogen · Post by **Skogen** » April 13, 2005, 1:45 pm

Ah yes...it was only a matter of time before the oils sands & oil shale came back on the table. The current method is to put the Oil sand into a centerfuge, and seperate it..which is costly & time consuming. The Oil Shale is just premature oil...Source rock that would yield oil if we left it alone for another 10 million years or so. So we heat that up, and try to crack it into oil. Another time consuming & costly process. You really gotta think about the state of the worlds oil reserves if these two sources are being seriously thought about for production ramp-up.

nobody · Post by **nobody** » April 13, 2005, 2:14 pm

it's costly yes, but, as the article says, it is cost effective now that oil is over 50 dollars a barrel. and i don't think it's that the world doesn't have enough oil but the US wouldn't have to be dependant on the middle east for oil anymore.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » April 13, 2005, 2:28 pm

nobody wrote:it's costly yes, but, as the article says, it is cost effective now that oil is over 50 dollars a barrel. and i don't think it's that the world doesn't have enough oil but the US wouldn't have to be dependant on the middle east for oil anymore.

It's a good move. Let the Euros and China duke it out with the Middle East for their oil. muahahahaha!

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » April 13, 2005, 2:31 pm

yeah thats why we are building a bunch of military bases in Iraq because it should be no problem to get oil in Utah!

nobody · Post by **nobody** » April 13, 2005, 2:36 pm

we're building bases over there so it will cost less to send our troops over there in time when armagedon starts.

Wulfran · Post by **Wulfran** » April 13, 2005, 2:47 pm

Actually Voro, a lot of it boils down to education and awareness of existing technology. Seems to me this topic has come up on this board before...

And therein lies the rub. The technology to recover oil from tar sands and oil shale is costly, and it just wasn't justified when oil was $30 or even $40 a barrel.

The above statement is true for oil shale but is bullshit as far as tar sands go. In the Fort McMurray region in northern Alberta, 2 tar sand operations have been in operation for a number of years (one owned by Suncor and the other is called Syncrude which is a owned by a group of oil companies and both the Canadian and Alberta governments, unless they sold their stakes... Shell is also building one, I'm not sure if its online yet), and while the technology was expensive to develop, the break-even point for them is about $15-17 per bbl. When you add in the capital costs of the facilities, I imagine it pushes it up somewhat, but these guys were still recording very healthy profits at $25 and $30 per bbl.

The problem is finding investors willing to accept that their oil cost $10 more per bbl than conventional production. Oil shale is in the same boat only higher cost yet. Seriously, if the US devoted the same resources to R&D for these deposits that you are expending in Iraq, you'd probably make some significant breakthroughs on oil shales as well...

Marbus · Post by **Marbus** » April 13, 2005, 2:55 pm

Here's a thought, and I'm definite not a very "green" guy, but it seems to me that we could take that money they would spend on getting more oil and further develop alternative sources... of course that would make someone other than Bushies friends rich so I doubt it will even be considered under this administration...

Marb

Nick · Post by **Nick** » April 13, 2005, 2:56 pm

.....

Wulfran · Post by **Wulfran** » April 13, 2005, 3:07 pm

I agree Marb: tar sand harvesting isn't very environmentally friendly... you end up with what is essentially huge strip mines, and I don't see oil shale processing being any better. It will also have a finite supply and the same emissions that we deal with presently. I was thinking more in terms of shorter term energy solutions, that this type of development reduces dependancy on the middle east and fits into what our society is currently demands.

Niffoni · Post by **Niffoni** » April 13, 2005, 3:18 pm

I'm confused. Do we still have to bomb Utah before harvesting the oil, or is there a different procedure for oil reserves within the US?

cid · Post by **cid** » April 13, 2005, 3:36 pm

Too much money and politics involved in oil. I personally do not see them coming up with an alternative anytime soon.

Skogen · Post by **Skogen** » April 13, 2005, 4:27 pm

How much of the shale oil reserves have been explored? I'm curious on what is leading them to the gb/a production numbers they are coming up with. Source rock that does go through the "oil window" naturally vary widely in oil content (depending on permeability & pororsity of the source rock), It would seem to that whatever yields they can get from shale would too.

Post by **Xouqoa** » April 13, 2005, 4:34 pm

Orrrrrrrrr we could take those billions of dollars that we are going to use to figure out how to get premature oil and apply it towards developing alternative/renewable energy sources!

omg xouqoa 4 prez!

nobody · Post by **nobody** » April 13, 2005, 4:38 pm

i think the primary concern is becoming independant of foreign oil and then develope green technology.

bombing Utah doesn't sound like that bad of an idea. but really, if all the money spent in Iraq was turned into r&d we would be SO much better off.

masteen · Post by **masteen** » April 13, 2005, 4:45 pm

No, we must drain ALL the oil from the Mid-East before opening up our local sources.

HE WHO CONTROLS THE SPICE CONTROLS THE UNIVERSE!!!

Skogen · Post by **Skogen** » April 13, 2005, 4:58 pm

masteen wrote:No, we must drain ALL the oil from the Mid-East before opening up our local sources.

HE WHO CONTROLS THE SPICE CONTROLS THE UNIVERSE!!!

zactly!! Exploration in both Iraq & Iran ceased years & years ago...estimates are 90% of that region are unexplored. It's a veritable Iceburg on a sea of oil. You know what that means....IRAN IS NEXT!!!!

buy bye towel heads....the USA IS COMING!!

LETS ROLL!1!!!!!

the spice ,er uh oil, must flow.

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » April 13, 2005, 5:03 pm

pretty prescient of Frank Herbert to so intermingle Fremen culture with Islamic culture.

*~*stragi*~* · Post by ***~*stragi*~*** » April 13, 2005, 6:51 pm

hey voro what the fuck is up with cnn looping the same shitty news every 30 minutes
we moved to a different office and now i have two plasma screens hanging above my cube!

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » April 13, 2005, 8:13 pm

Stragi wrote:hey voro what the fuck is up with cnn looping the same shitty news every 30 minutes
we moved to a different office and now i have two plasma screens hanging above my cube!

Switch the channel to G4TV Stragi.

Video game reviews, anime, etc.

http://www.g4tv.com/

Xzion · Post by **Xzion** » April 13, 2005, 9:40 pm

Winnow wrote:I have no problem with completely wiping the state of Utah of all living organisms and making it a huge oilfield/refinery. The sooner the better but send the mormons packing back east, not to nearby states.

theres some good skiing in utah

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » April 13, 2005, 10:03 pm

Stragi wrote:hey voro what the fuck is up with cnn looping the same shitty news every 30 minutes
we moved to a different office and now i have two plasma screens hanging above my cube!

that's probably CNN Headline News which is a different channel than CNN =)

it is designed specifically for that purpose, to loop the same "shitty news", for people who want to quickly get a newscast at any time of day

.

that makes it a good channel for lobbies/bars/waiting rooms etc.

ESPN borrowed the concept when the launched ESPNNews.

Drasta · Post by **Drasta** » April 14, 2005, 1:08 am

but utah has the salt lake! its speeeeciah

a_guide · Post by **a_guide** » April 14, 2005, 3:17 am

The Great Salt Lake stinks! Having lived here for the last 2 years I say give me notice and then reduce it to rubble. I hate almost everyone here for their hypocritical condescending conformist ways and terrible selfish reckless driving and rediculous (non)cusswords like blast and fetch (as in What the fetch?!?)

nobody · Post by **nobody** » April 14, 2005, 3:28 am

amen a_guide, and double amen on the selfish wreckless driving. i mean, what the fetch are they thinking? those darn bastages!

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » April 14, 2005, 6:54 am

Get pucked, you crunt! http://www.rude.com.au/mp3/13.wav

Thess · Post by **Thess** » April 14, 2005, 11:54 am

Winnow wrote:I have no problem with completely wiping the state of Utah of all living organisms and making it a huge oilfield/refinery. The sooner the better but send the mormons packing back east, not to nearby states.

Agree with Winnow! Move them all to states in the east!

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » April 14, 2005, 11:58 am

sorry you guys have lots more free space worthless space out there.

thats the reason the Mormons are there in the first place, because we ran them out of civilization!

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » April 14, 2005, 1:04 pm

How are you gentlemen !!
All your base are belong to us.

Kilmoll the Sexy · Post by **Kilmoll the Sexy** » April 14, 2005, 2:43 pm

Winnow wrote:How are you gentlemen !!
All your base are belong to us.

That is a nice pic of Kelshara and Noel playing nicely together.

*~*stragi*~* · Post by ***~*stragi*~*** » April 14, 2005, 2:53 pm

Voronwë wrote:
Stragi wrote:hey voro what the fuck is up with cnn looping the same shitty news every 30 minutes
we moved to a different office and now i have two plasma screens hanging above my cube!
that's probably CNN Headline News which is a different channel than CNN =)

it is designed specifically for that purpose, to loop the same "shitty news", for people who want to quickly get a newscast at any time of day .

that makes it a good channel for lobbies/bars/waiting rooms etc.

ESPN borrowed the concept when the launched ESPNNews.

It is headline news

I'm seriously sick of seeing this disgusting punk rock kid with a pink mohawk and black lipstick every time i glance up at the monitor! can you pull some strings and get them to broadcast the hacked cellphone pictures from vida guerra?!

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » April 14, 2005, 3:53 pm

short of that i'll see if i can get a webcam feed from the public bathroom downstairs. couple homeless dudes "shower" there.

nobody · Post by **nobody** » April 14, 2005, 4:24 pm

i watch Headline news b/c they have perdy female news anchors.