U.S. Backs Squeezing Oil From a Stone

Seeing potential in shale, Interior is opening federal lands to industry. But extraction methods are unproven, and in Colorado some see risks.

MAHOGANY TEST SITE, Colo.
Legislation recently signed by President Bush instructs the Interior Department to lease 35% of the federal government’s oil shale lands within the next year; provides tax breaks to the industry; reduces the ability of states and local communities to influence where projects are located; and compresses multiple, lengthy environmental assessments into a single analysis good for 10 years.

Oil shale is immature rock that, left alone, would require millions of years of natural heating to produce oil.

Modern techniques greatly accelerate that process by cooking underground rock. But some experts warn that the process could use more energy than it yields, and conservationists and many local residents point to the massive amounts of water it will consume and to the disturbances to land, wildlife habitat and the lives of rural people.

LA Times