Water Scarcity Major Obstacle to Oil Shale Development in the West
A dried-up reservoir in Colorado. (image: rockymountainwater.files.wordpress.com)
Water has long a valuable treasure in the American West: everyone wants it, and there’s never enough. The history of the West has been shaped by water’s availability, from the drought-related collapse of the Anasazi Indian civilization before the first Europeans came to the Americas, to the current tension between western states over water for their thirsty populations. The simple fact is, the High Plains never have enough water—that’s why they were called the Great American Desert in the 19th Century.
Not only is there now a struggle for water among different communities, there’s also a struggle among different uses, such as the tension between agricultural and residential uses. A new combatant is now seeking to enter the fray: shale oil.
The potential amount of oil locked up in American oil shale deposits is enormous. Some estimates see up to 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil available in the Green River Formation—three times as much oil as in proven Saudi reserves. There are technical and economic challenges to extracting oil from shale but it may be that the greatest challenge, as reported recently by the New York Times, is a different liquid: water.
Most U.S. oil shale is in the West, with significant portions in states which chronically worry about water scarcity—and which face future water shortages from a combination of climate change and growing populations. This would be a challenge for any development or new industry, and oil shale extraction and processing requires more water—a lot more water—than conventional oil production.
The Green River Formation, the richest oil shale deposit, lies in parts of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming two of which are on the watch list for water scarcity. (image: circleofblue.org)
How much water is required for oil shale production? Common estimates vary from two to five barrels of water to each barrel of oil. Using the median estimate of 3.5 barrels, if 1 million barrels per day could be extracted (equivalent to what Canada took out of its Alberta tar sands in 2006), that would require 3.5 million barrels of water per day. 3.5 million barrels per day is around 1.25 billion barrels per year, over 50 billion gallons, or 153,000 acre-feet, which is the usual unit used for Western water consumption. That’s enough water to supply 300,000 households in Las Vegas for a year. Since Las Vegas has 600,000 people, with an average of 2.6 people per household, that means producing 1 million barrels of oil a day from oil shale would be the equivalent of adding one-and-a third Las Vegases in terms of water usage—to a West that is already struggling to hydrate the Las Vegas it has.
So, it is reasonable to fear that there may not be enough water, based on current supplies, to support extensive oil shale exploitation. But the reward if the U.S can tap this resource…every 1 million daily barrels we could produce from oil shale would feed 5 percent of our consumption, or eliminate over 8% of crude oil imports. Analogizing back to Canada’s tar sands, Canada believes they could produce 5 million barrels a day by 2030. If U.S. oil shale could get to that level, it would by itself replace 40% of our oil imports. And it’s not just us who see the potential in oil shale—as The HEAT Zone recently reported, Jordan has been pursuing oil shale development, too.
But how to get there, given water constraints? There’s nothing definite yet, but there are possibilities for reducing shale oil’s water needs and/or increasing the region’s available water resources:
• Glenn Vawter of the National Shale Oil Group believes that water released during shale-processing and also from regional oil and gas wells could offset extraction’s water needs.
• Western states are looking at desalination of sea water as a way to produce more fresh water. While large-scale desalination has its own economic and technical challenges, it is a viable and proven option. For example, Saudi Arabia gets most of its drinking water from desalination.
• Some of the new processes for shale oil extraction, like Shell’s in-situ method, have water requirements on the lower end of the estimates (3 barrels) and the potential to reduce those requirements further as the technology matures.
That’s not to deny that Western water scarcity is a real challenge for development of shale oil, but to note that there are possible remedies for the region’s and industry’s water ills. Water scarcity seems a reason for caution going forward, not for a refusal to look into tapping this valuable American resource.
