Bituminous Sands vs The Environment

One of the greatest mountain biking, climbing, dirt-biking, four-wheeling, and hiking in the United States is in Moab Utah.  It has beautiful geology which attract tourist from all around the globe.  Utah also has the potential to be a contributor to producing tar sands or oil sands; naturally occurring mixture of sand, clay, water, and a dense, low maturity, extremely viscous form of petroleum know as bitumen.   Earth Energy Resources, a Canadian company, has permitted an area in eastern Utah (north of Moab, south of Vernal) to start mining oil sands.  The town of Moab looks at this in a negative impact towards their state and tourist attraction, but the drilling town of Vernal looks at this as an increase in petroleum production and revenue for Utah.  Here is a link to a film by CBC News which discusses this issue and some of the environmental impacts (Utah Oil Sands).

Neon green runoff sits at the bottom of Earth Energy Resources' PR Springs mine in Utah.

WRA filed an appeal on EER's commercial mine permit due to concerns

about groundwater contamination from mine operations.

As seen in the picture above and from the video, there are multiple environmental and social issues that must be addressed when mining oil sands.  EER says that they can mine the oil sands and replace the sand with very minimum chemicals in place by using a citrus based solvent to separate the bitumen from the sand mixture.  Mining oil sands, if not done right, can lead to surface water contamination, high water usage, destruction of land, disruption of wildlife, and climate issues from refining. 

The Salt Lake Tribune discuss how the refining process is energy and water intensive, "about 10 parts water per part oil are added and heated to 100 degrees, an energy-intensive step. The resulting slurry is agitated and then allowed to settle. The water is drained, centrifuged and about 80 percent recycled, leaving damp sand with water-soluble chemicals and residual citrus oil-bitumen to be redeposited in the ore body. The citrus oil is distilled from the bitumen and recycled, another energy-intensive step. What’s left — bitumen — must be heated to get it into barrels for trucking to a heavy oil refinery and heated again to get it out. As in Canada, bitumen must be upgraded to make synthetic crude oil, and upgrading requires roughly 17 percent of a barrel of energy. It uses water as well to cool the porous coke to get it in and out of transportation carts."

Mining oil sands can help supply the large oil demand of the world.  For the health of the environment, companies who are getting involved in mining oil sands need to be aware of their impacts and minimize their footprint.  Companies need to continue to research and develop cleaner techniques and processes which could help with the high energy inefficiency of mining oil sands. 

Related Links to this issue:
http://www.westernresourceadvocates.org/land/oilshale.php
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/51389205-82/oil-energy-sands-bitumen.html.csp