The US has an oil reserve at least three times that of Saudi Arabia locked in oil shale deposits beneath federal land in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, according to a study released on Wednesday.
But the researchers at the RAND think tank caution the federal government to go carefully, balancing the environmental and economic impacts with development pressure to prevent an oil shale bust later.
"We've got more oil in this very compact area than the entire Middle East," said James Bartis, RAND senior policy researcher and the report's lead author. However, he added, "If we go faster, there's a good chance we're going to end up at a dead end. You could end up bogged down."
For years, the industry and the government considered oil shale -- a rock that produces petroleum when heated -- too expensive to be a feasible source of oil.
However, oil prices, which spiked above US$70 a barrel this week, combined with advances in technology could soon make it possible to tap the estimated 500 billion to 1.1 trillion recoverable barrels, the report found.
That could meet a quarter of the nation's current oil needs for the next 400 years.
But the risks are high. It's unclear how new technologies will affect the land, air and the Colorado River, Bartis said.
The study, sponsored in part by the US Department of Energy, comes in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, which disrupted Gulf oil production and sent crude oil prices surging.
It also comes about a month after the president signed a new energy policy, which dramatically reversed the nation's approach to oil shale, opening the door within years to companies that want to tap deposits on public lands.
Bartis said he hopes lawmakers will take the study's recommendations into consideration as they make future decisions on oil shale.
The US has tried to develop oil shale in the West before. Sky-high oil prices in the 1970s led Congress under former president Jimmy Carter to create the Synthetic Fuels Corp, to find new, domestic sources of crude.
The report also says oil-shale mining, above-ground processing and disposing of spent shale cause significant adverse environmental impacts. Shell Oil is working on a process that would heat the oil shale in place, which could have less effect on the environment.
"We need to be focusing on what are the implications," Bartis said.
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
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