What happened to the “all of the above” energy strategy Obama espoused in his State of the Union?
The Associated Press reports:
Chevron Corp. is giving up its experimental oil shale lease in northwest Colorado, saying it wants to free up its resources for other priorities.
The company is working with the Bureau of Land Management to figure out what to do with the lease, including possibly transferring it to another company, The Grand Junction Sentinel (http://bit.ly/xeTXVx) reported Tuesday.
Getting petroleum-like substances out of mined oil shale is tougher than pumping oil out of traditional wells. Companies haven’t found an economical way to do it in the U.S.
Chevron had been studying using carbon dioxide to draw out kerogen, a petroleum-like substance, from rock. The company said in a statement that the research was “productive.”
The announcement comes as the Interior Department is considering reducing the area where oil shale research could be conducted in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. The administration of George W. Bush opened up 1.9 million acres to oil shale research in 2007, but the Interior Department is looking at reducing that area to as few as 32,640 acres.
Public comments are due May 4, and a decision is expected by the end of the year.
Two other companies hold oil shale leases in Colorado—Royal Dutch Shell and AMSO.
Chevron had three people working full-time on oil shale research along with some part-time workers and all will be reassigned to other projects, Chevron spokesman Cary Baird said. [Emphasis added]
Most fracking earthquakes are small. Some are larger. Some do cause damage. Those who have experienced damage have to fight like heck to get compensation, and they normally don’t get it because the can’t ‘prove it’. It’s the giants against the ants. The giants want more money, more power. The ants just want to live their busy lives without the fear of huge companies running rampant over their rights.
For years the fracking companies have denied that their activities cause earthquakes and poison the water. They ‘sort of’ admit now, but are basically saying ‘so what…live with it’.
If these companies had the common decency to provide compensation or correction to the common people whose lives they’ve intruded into, the problem would be less severe. But for all their jillions of dollars, they’d rather pay lawyers to fight the residents.
Priscilla, you do realize you probably experience “fracking size” earthquakes every day, don’t you? You just don’t notice them because they about the equivalent of a bus traveling in the next street. I don’t think anyone suggests fracking might cause ‘quakes of sufficient strength to do any damage.
Colorado’s gain is whose loss? Not the Eastern States’, I hope! I’m actually in the line of succession to some land in Colorado that might be frackable, and I say keep the money and sit on it, rather than causing more earthquakes.
Petrochemical production companies (trhose that actually take the stuff out of the ground) pay beaucoups bucks for leasing the rights to do so from the landowners. West of the Mississippi this means, far more often than not, that they pay the bucks to the largest landowner in the West – the Federal Government’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM), through the Office of Natural Resources Revenue (formed from the ruins of the Mineral Management Service after their huge scandal.)
Now how is the Federal Government going to make up those lost revenues???