Oil Shale — Federal Policies and the Public Interest

Oil Shale — Federal Policies and the Public Interest Glen D. Weaver* In 1882 a pioneer settler built a log cabin in Rio Blanco County, Colorado, and invited some of his Indian and white friends to his housewarming. The fireplace of his cabin was built of gray laminated rocks gathered from the base of a nearby cliff. When he lit his first fire there, the fireplace melted and the house was destroyed. This alleged incident marks the discovery of Green River oil shale as a potential source of energy.1 Whether true or not, the story seems particularly appropriate, for, like Mike Callahan's abortive attempt to utilize oil shale as construction material, repeated efforts over the last half century to establish a commercial shale oil industry have met largely with disappointment and frustration. The pioneer's volatile fireplace also has a simile in the heated controversy which has flared from time to time regarding the role of the Federal Government in oil shale exploitation. This controversy, still very much alive today, involves Government's dual function as promoter of the general welfare and as custodian of the publicly owned oil shale lands.2 * Mr. Weaver is an instructor, Department of Geography, The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee 53201. 1 K. Monroe, "Introduction," in H. K. Savage, The Rock That Bums (Boulder , Colorado: Pruett Press, 1967), p. xi. - The literature on this and other aspects of oil shale is so profuse that only selected references will be cited here and in the footnotes to follow. Oil Shale Advisory Board, Interim Report of the Oil Shale Advison/ Board to the Secretary of the Interior (Washington, D.C: Report prepared for Secretary Udall, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1965), 40 pp.; U.S. Department of the Interior, Prospects for Oil Shale Development (Washington, D.C: U.S. Department of the Interior, 1968), 134 pp.; U.S. Senate, Competitive Aspects of Oil Shale Development (Washington, D.C: Hearings before Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly, on S. Res. 26, U.S. 90th Congress, 1st session, 1967), 636 pp.; D. D. Dominick, "Oil Shale—The Need for a National 21 22ASSOCIATION OF PACIFIC COAST GEOGRAPHERS Mineral Resource Pool At issue are the vast oil shale and related economic mineral deposits occurring in the Green River Formation of northwestern Colorado , northeastern Utah, and southwestern Wyoming (Figures 1, 2). Investigations by the U. S. Geological Survey and others indicate that the Green River lands constitute a storehouse of potential mineral wealth perhaps unparalleled elsewhere in the world by any area of comparable size (Table I).3 Recent discoveries of rich and extensive sodium mineral deposits, particularly trona and nahcolite, which yield soda ash, and dawsonite, a potential source of alumina, have generated new enthusiasm for development.4 Principal interest still centers on the solid hydrocarbons. More accurately described as organic-rich dolomitic marlstones (Table 2), the Green River oil shales underlie an area of at least 17,000 square miles. Appraised deposits contain the equivalent of 1.7 trillion barrels of oil in place. By comparison, the amount of well oil originally in place in the United States and its continental shelf is estimated to have been only 2 trillion barrels.5 Thus, concentrated within the Policy," Land and Water Law Review, Vol. 2, No. 1 (1967), pp. 61-97; G. L. Widman and T. P. Brightwell, Legal Study of Oil Shale on Public Lands (Denver , Colorado: University of Denver College of Law, Report prepared for Public Land Law Review Commission, 1969), 412 pp. 3 U.S. Department of the Interior, op. cit., footnote 2; F. C. Jaffe, "Geology and Mineralogy of the Oil Shales of the Green River Formation, Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming," Colorado School of Mines Mineral Industries Bulletin, Vol. 5, No. 3 (1962), 16 pp.; W. B. Cashion, Geology and Fuel Resources of the Green River Formation, Southeastern Vinta Basin, Utah and Colorado (Washington, D.C.; U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 548, 1967), 48 pp.; J. R. Donnell, W. C. Culbertson, and W. B. Cashion, "Oil Shale in the Green River Formation," Seventh World Petroleum Congress Proceedings, Vol. 3 (1967), pp. 699-702. 4 U.S. Department of the Interior, op. cit...