Oil Shale Resources and Fact Sheets

The US Department of Energy (DOE) states on its fossil energy website that “an objective look at [alternatives to petroleum] points to the Nation’s untapped oil shale as a strategically located, long-term source of reliable, affordable, and secure oil.” A task force to develop a program and make recommendations to advance the commercialization of the United States’ strategic unconventional fuel resources, including oil shale was established by the Energy Policy Act of 2005.  The Strategic Unconventional Fuels Task Force website contains links to educational posters and fact sheets  titled Oil Shale Resources, Oil Shale Economics, Oil Shale and the Environment and Oil Shale Water Resources prepared by the Department of Energy’s Office of Petroleum Reserves.

According to the USGS, the Eocene Green River Formation of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming contains the largest oil shale deposits in the world and the DOE estimates that U.S. oil shale resources amount to more than 2 trillion barrels.  This energy source is at the bottom of the Resource Triangle because historically it has been cost prohibitive to develop this resource and the associated technology given the lower cost of petroleum.

The U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management (BLM), is preparing a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) for Oil Shale and Tar Sands resources on lands administered by the BLM in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. Their online center for public information contains an About Oil Shale page with general information as well as photos.

Released Today: Duke Report On Shale Gas Extraction in North Carolina

Duke University’s report, Considering Shale Gas Extraction in North Carolina: Lessons from Other States, was released today.  According to the press release, this report (pdf)  “offers several health and environmental measures for North Carolina lawmakers to consider as they debate legalizing horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing for natural gas. “

The researchers cite seven measures that policymakers should consider “to help avoid and mitigate any possible negative effects.

These include:

• Securing baseline data on groundwater prior to shale gas production and at each stage of the drilling process;
• Funding for regulatory programs and an agency to carry them out;
• Planning for withdrawals from area water supplies related to the production;
• Minimizing the risks of spills and contamination caused by equipment failure and human error by implementing safety requirements;
• Thinking through options for the disposal and treatment of wastewater resulting from the hydraulic fracturing process;
• Assessing the impacts on air quality and assure attainment of federal ground-level ozone standards; and
• Requiring some degree of disclosure regarding the chemicals used in fracturing fluid.”

New York Times: Times Topics- Oil Sands

Times Topics is a great resource for teachers seeking news, commentary and archival articles including photos and graphics published in The New York Times about a variety of topics.  Check out their Times Topic on the subject of Oil Sands.

There is also a Times Topic about the Keystone XL Pipeline Project.

From National Geographic: The Canadian Oil Boom

The Canadian Oil Boom, a National Geographic article published in March 2009, includes a photo gallery that depicts the various stages of extracting oil from tar sands in Alberta.  According to the article, the U.S. is Canada’s biggest oil customer, importing more from its neighbor than from any other nation.

PBS Newshour Segment on Keystone XL Pipeline Proposal

The proposed Keystone Pipeline Project provides great material for a class debate or if a debate isn’t possible, you can at least introduce students to this topic and expose them to this issue from diverse perspectives.

This 11 minute PBS Newshour segment provides an overview of the proposed pipeline that would carry oil from Canadian tar sands fields to Texas refineries and introduces viewers to both sides of this controversial project through interviews with the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research’s Robert Bryce (for) and environmentalist Bill McKibben (against).

About Tar (Oil) Sands

One unconventional fossil fuel making headlines is tar (oil) sands in light of the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline project.   In order to prepare your students for contemplating the pros and cons of this controversial project, a good place to start is to introduce them to the energy source  in this story.

The U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management (BLM), is preparing a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) for Oil Shale and Tar Sands resources on lands administered by the BLM in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. Their online center for public information contains an About Tar Sands page with general information as well as photos.

Also, the government of Alberta has devoted a section of its website to Oil Sands including a page titled “About Oil Sands” which contains a visual depiction of the composition of oil sands along with a glossary.

Please share other resources that can be used to introduce students to the basics of tar sands.

Fossil Energy Today Newsletter from US Department of Energy

To keep up with initiatives in the fossil energy sector to create “pollution-free coal plants, more productive oil and gas fields, and the continuing readiness of federal emergency oil stockpiles” you might be interested in checking out or subscribing to Fossil Energy Today, a free digital newsletter launched in January 2011 and published quarterly by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy.

Carbon Capture Utilizing Direct FuelCells

FuelCell Energy, Inc., a manufacturer of ultra-clean, efficient and reliable power plants, announced earlier this month that it had received $3 million  from the U.S. Department of Energy to evaluate the use of Direct FuelCells ® (DFC®) to”efficiently and cost-effectively separate carbon dioxide (CO2) from the emissions of existing coal-fired power plants.  Efficient and cost-effective carbon capture can then lead to sequestration of this greenhouse gas, preventing its release into the atmosphere.”

For those of you interested in teaching your students about fuel cells and their underlying chemistry, you may find it useful to teach about fuel cells in the context presented above: how might fuel cells be used to mitigate CO2 emissions from coal-fired power plants?

Perhaps start by introducing the basic parts of any fuel cell.  The Smithsonian Institution provides a nice overview of fuel cells on their website.

A two page pdf is available from FuelCell Energy, Inc that describes and diagrams the “unique chemistry of the high efficiency carbonate fuel cell.”  In this case, CO2-containing flue gas from coal-fired power plants is utilized as oxidant for the DFC® cathode.  Natural gas, propane, or syngas can be used as the fuel cell anode feed to provide H2 needed to complete the electrochemical power generation cycle.

To learn more about carbonate fuel cells and other types of fuel cells under development visit the DOE’s EERE website.

Fuel Cell Energy also has an 8 page white paper(pdf) about Fuel Cell Technology.

The website HowStuffWorks has a three minute video about fuel cells.

NC’s Shale Gas Study

The Union of Concern Scientists says it well: “A convergence of factors is driving our society towards greater reliance on natural gas as a source of energy.  An increased focus on the potential reductions in carbon emissions and air pollution from burning natural gas instead of coal or oil have made natural gas an environmentally attractive alternative to other fossil fuels.  Concurrently, improved techniques for extracting unconventional sources of gas have dramatically raised estimates of the U.S.’s available gas resource.”

For North Carolina this means exploration of its shale gas reserves and the potential for extracting this gas through the process of hydraulic fracturing.

Session Law 2011-276 requires the NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), in cooperation with the Department of Commerce, Department of Transportation, Attorney General’s Office and Rural Advancement Foundation International, to conduct a study of the potential development of shale gas in North Carolina and make recommendations regarding the regulatory framework necessary for development of this resource. The study must be presented to the legislature by May 1, 2012 and at least two public hearings on this issue will be held in the Triassic Basin  where approximately 80,000 acres have been deemed to contain a commercially viable reserve of natural gas.

The webcast from the first public hearing, held on October 10th in Sanford (Lee County) about the oil and gas study being conducted by DENR is available and includes information about hydraulic fracturing in general as well as an overview of shale gas resources in NC. The presentation is also available for download and includes slides you may find useful when teaching about this topic.

For those of you teaching in counties in the Triassic Basin that are under consideration in this study, your students may be interested in listening to and summarizing the public comments and concerns encountered during the webcast which start around 44 minutes into the 2 hour public hearing.

“Coal a Love Story” by Delphine Andrews

What happens when you take 11 highly talented students from the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Mass Communication and tell them to produce a multimedia news site on energy use in the United States? This year, you get a story about coal. Despite the fact that we rely on electricity for nearly everything we do, few of us are aware of how our electricity is generated. Right now, almost half of the nation’s electricity comes from the burning of coal. It’s not just a rock. It’s power. It’s people. It’s a relationship.

The 2011 team officially launched their Special Report “Coal: A Love Story”  on Friday, July 22.

“Coal: A Love Story” is an interactive film that explores our nation’s dependence on coal.

Using an immersive online experience, the website will challenge the viewer to engage with energy issues in a highly personalized way.

Relationships are complicated. Coal is complicated. Storytelling is complicated. Major issues, such as energy use in this country, do not exist in terms of right or wrong, black or white. The Powering a Nation team hopes to show the grey. They hope to allow viewers to see the issue of coal through the perspective of a person who is different from them and realize they aren’t so different after all. At the end of the day, we are all humans fighting for the same things – love, family, our past, our future.

Powering a Nation is a multimedia news project at UNC-Chapel Hill that is part of News21, a national initiative sponsored by the Carnegie and Knight foundations to innovate the news business. The team is made up of 11 students who are attending or have just graduated from the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at UNC.