Obama accused of stalling on Colorado oil shale but fast-tracking Wyoming coal, tar sands in Canada

While critics on the right have accused the Obama administration of moving too slowly on the still-unproven potential of oil shale on Colorado’s Western Slope, observers on the left say the White House has been pushing too fast on an agenda promoting Wyoming’s Powder River Basin coal and tar sands oil production in Canada.

Despite spiking gas prices, Colorado oil shale years from production … if ever

Observers of the century-long quest to extract oil from the shale rocks of Colorado’s Western Slope are fond of saying “oil shale is the fuel of the future … and always will be.” Never commercially viable because of the costs and resources needed to heat and extract the kerogen trapped in the rocks, an estimated 2 trillion barrels of shale oil remains locked up – perhaps forever.

Mines prof says Obama, Salazar stalling on oil shale the way Bush did on climate change

Dr. Jeremy Boak, a leading expert on oil shale technology at the Colorado School of Mines, says the Obama administration is dragging its feet on oil shale production in the United States much the way the Bush administration stalled on climate change policy. “It’s curious to hear the same sort of arguments being made by this administration that were made by the Bush administration for not doing anything on climate change,” Boak told the Colorado Independent. “We’ve got to have all the answers before we can move.”

Report: Colorado facing severe water shortages by 2050

Population growth on Colorado’s Front Range and Western Slope, coupled with rising demand for energy production, will have the state in dire need of more water by the year 2050, according to a new report by the Statewide Water Supply Initiative.

Mountain real estate crash breaks records set during 1980s energy bust

VAIL — Last year saw a new record number of foreclosures in Vail, Beaver Creek and surrounding Eagle County, but it also saw a significant increase in home sales over 2009, which may wind up being the low mark in a mountain real estate crash unlike anything since the 1980s. Counties throughout the high country — from Pitkin (Aspen) to Routt (Steamboat) to San Miguel (Telluride) – all set new records for the number of foreclosures, according to the Denver Post, surpassing dubious marks all established in the 1980s.

GAO calls for study on water requirements tied to oil shale development

A new Government Accountability Office report (pdf) issued this week concludes that a lot more study of water resources needs to be conducted before there’s a full-blown resurgence of the Colorado’s Western Slope oil shale industry.

Actually, resurgence isn’t…

Ghosts of ‘Black Sunday’ hover over BLM’s cautious oil shale move

Wednesday’s move by the Bureau of Land Management to proceed with more oil shale leases for Exxon Mobil and two other companies conjured up memories for some of the “Black Sunday” bust of May 2, 1982, when Exxon laid off 2,200 oil shale workers on Colorado’s Western Slope. But this time will be different, an Exxon spokesman told the Colorado Independent Thursday.

Oil shale producers risk Biblical wrath with Holy Land extraction plan

A key national park beloved by hikers, bikers and outdoor enthusiasts is threatened by an experimental oil shale extraction plan. Area residents rally to save their park, citing a lack of water, the unproven nature of oil shale production, a…

Sentinel series dubs Energy Alley along I-70 western Colorado’s ‘Road to riches’

The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel on Sunday did a good job of painting the big picture in terms of the massive scale of energy resources under the arid ground of western Colorado and eastern Utah in an area dubbed “Energy…

Estonian energy firm wants to site windmills atop oil-shale ash fields

Estonia, a nation ravaged by unchecked oil shale production and its environmental consequences, according to international studies, has finally hit on a greener use for fields of oil shale ash.

According to the Baltic Course, described as an “International…