While the fight over the Keystone XL pipeline and the Alberta tar sands has galvanized the environmental movement, far less attention has been paid to a related story here in the West. The state of Utah has begun making preparations for its own major tar sands and oil shale extraction projects. According to one U.S. government report, land in the region could hold up to three trillion barrels of oil — that’s more recoverable oil than has been used so far in human history. Critics say Utah is sitting on a tar sands carbon bomb. The Utah Water Quality Board has recently begun giving out permits for companies to extract from the state’s tar sands reserves. We speak to Taylor McKinnon, energy director of the Grand Canyon Trust.
TAYLOR McKINNON: In Utah, we have vast deposits of oil shale and tar sands, up to 20 billion barrels’ worth of oil in the tar sands deposits. And the USGS, the United States Geological Survey, estimates up to a trillion barrels of developable oil in the oil shale. These are unconventional fuels. Like Alberta’s tar sands, they need to be mined, melted, before they’re turned into a liquid hydrocarbon. So the energy investment on the front end of their development far exceeds that of conventional oil, and as a result, the resulting carbon emissions from developing these fuels also far exceeds that of conventional oil. When we’re facing climate change and the IPCC is saying we have a carbon budget within which to work in coming decades, this is the exact wrong policy direction from a matter of energy and climate.
AMY GOODMAN: So, I mean, we’ve heard so much about tar sands in Alberta. Why do we hear so little about what’s going on in Utah? And place it exactly for us in Utah.
TAYLOR McKINNON: We’re talking about deposits that are located in the Uintah Basin in eastern Utah and into western Colorado. It’s the heart of the Colorado River Basin. I think the reason we’ve heard more about Alberta’s tar sands is because they’re being developed. In Utah, the deposits are not being developed. It’s prospective. And we’re seeing really the onset of development, the onset of significant investment on the part of industry. We have—
AMY GOODMAN: What are the telltale signs? Like highways being built?
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