The Colorado Plateau has seen its share of energy booms and busts. In eastern Utah, another one may be poised to begin.
The target this time is oil, or tar, sands — not to be confused with the shale oil associated with fracking, nor with oil in liquid form that can be pumped from the ground.
Instead, the hydrocarbons in oil sands are trapped in rock as a thick, viscous substance called bitumen. On the plateau it occurs in the Green River Formation primarily in the Book Cliffs and the Uinta Basin north of Moab and some near Canyonlands.
Oil sands near the surface can be extracted through strip mining. The oil then must be separated from the rock, upgraded and refined.
So far, large-scale commercial production of oil sands has occurred mainly in Alberta, Canada. Now, the Colorado Plateau’s reserves — containing at least 20 billion barrels of oil — are being sought. Many of the prospective leases are on state and federal lands, and some strip mining has already begun on the Book Cliffs.
Industry points to a need to develop domestic oil, while environmentalists have expressed many concerns. It takes a lot of energy to extract oil sands, to say nothing of impacts on plants, animals, air and water. Many rural residents don’t want their neighborhoods industrialized. And, the problems associated with greenhouse gasses are increasingly obvious.
The stakes are high. Do Utah’s oil sands represent an economic boon, or an environmental disaster in the making?
