Bush Administration Eyes Utah for Oil
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has identified about 630,000 acres in Utah that are made up of tar sands suitable for oil extraction through an expensive and grueling process. 431,000 of those acres are being assessed for development in South East Utah of which many of these acres are considered wildlife quality land.
A petition rolled through my inbox today asking to sign and add comments to send a message of wildlife protection in Utah.
Getting oil out of shards and sand of tar requires a process that does extreme damage to the environment in terms of energy as well as contributes significantly to greenhouse gases.
Shale does not contain crude oil, but a substance called kerogen, a precursor to crude oil. Kerogen must be heated in an energy-intensive process to produce oil, either in the ground or after the shale is mined, usually by large-scale surface mining. Huge piles of toxic waste rock are produced. And the shale oil must be extensively refined. -Salt Lake Tribune
The cost to the environment including the air, water, and wildlife could be detrimental for residents of Utah. The lands of Utah should be left alone and protected from further development rather than exploited for oil.
Your petition signature today is urgently important. Unless the public speaks out now, President Bush's land management team will forge ahead aggressively, with little thought to the permanent impact on this fragile, irreplaceable ecosystem.
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9 COMMENTS, ADD YOURS HERE:
I echo your sentiments exactly - extraction from the Alberta tar sands in Canada have shown how devastating this type of mining truly is. Not only is it far too energy-intensive, but this method of getting oil is only economically feasible when oil hits record highs, far above a formerly-unheard of price of $50/barrel!
Environmental Working Group (EWG) has done quite a bit of research on this topic, in addition to mapping exactly where public lands exist in the western U.S. and how states are trying to utilize them for harmful mining practices (http://www.ewg.org/featured/173).
-GreenOx
www.greenox.blogspot.com
It's just too bad that our country is so dependent on oil that we will stop at nothing to get to it, even it if means destroying beautiful habit.
One way for people to learn more about this issue is to read the Fortune magazine issue on this topic. One of their feature stories outlined how this process works and the amount of time money and energy Shell Oil has spent on some new "cleaner" technologies. It provides some great content on this topic and I'd highly recommend the article
I believe that we should switch to renewable resources. If we all had cars that used enviornmentally freindly cars we could be paying as little as 64 cents a gallon if we payed money to pump gas from our homes. Say we had a gas burning stove. If we payed a couple thousand dollars we could pump gas from our homes for about 64 cents a gallon.
I had heard about this oil sands extraction coming to Utah when I was researching what is happening in Alberta, Canada. To see how people will turn our planet into a toxic swamp for fuel when there are viable and affordable alternatives shows the extent that oil companies will go to keep themselves in power. I hope the petition has some effect in preventing this horror from coming to Utah. I followed the link, but the petition was closed.
At my global warming site, I posted a video from YouTube about the oil sands in Alberta.
Alberta oil video
I totally agree with you and I am strongly against this old fashioned dirty, energy consuming, and waste creating methods.
But, Big boy from Texas owns far too many oil shares to change old habits. There are so many renewable resources such as, solar power (as heat or direct electricity), wind, geothermal, biomass, tidal power, sea currents, hydrogen, but most important of all is more efficient use of energy (transport, lights, heating/cooling, industry,plastic/glass/metal/paper waste, etc.).
Utah's fighting oil, while Wyoming and others are fighting uranium mining proposals. What's scarier? If you haven't read much about it, check on the investigative report on http://uranium2008.blogspot.com and there's a link for it. Sigh...
Everyone on blogs like this complain about the evils of oil, nuclear, coal, etc. How do you propose running your computer if all these terrible energy options go away? Maybe a windmill on your roof, but then your "green" community would object on esthetic principle, just like Ted Kennedy objected to windmills off the coast of Cape Cod. Get real, greenies, you need energy or your life would be miserable.
^^ I think the argument is not for coal, nuclear, and oil to just disappear overnight because we obviously need it, rather the argument is for the government or the private sector to invest into newer and renewable methods of energy instead of our current antiquated and limited energy sources.
We would like to transition to cleaner energy...not drop everything at once and go wind power. This is a process that takes time and is gaining more attention and awareness as time goes on.
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