**UPDATE** API’s Erik Milito may want to check with Estonian Environment Minister Keit Pentus-Rosimannus before continuing to pressure President Obama to double down on costly oil shale speculation. In an article in today’s Postimees, Minister Pentus-Rosimannus said,
“Eighty percent of our waste, water use and greenhouse gas emissions are connected with the oil shale industry. We must think together how to reduce the negative impact. With that as bottom line, I do not consider it possible for the annual extraction volume of oil shale to grow in the future.”
Estonian oil shale giant Eesti Energia’s U.S. arm, Enefit, is one of the companies trying to develop oil shale in Utah. For more on that, see our recent series Eyes on Enefit.**UPDATE**
The American Petroleum Institute (API) – see: Big Oil – called on President Obama, today, to double down on a century of failed oil shale experiments and risk western water supplies.
API’s response to outgoing Interior Sec. Ken Salazar’s smart oil shale plan was shameless, but predictable (for more on the Salazar Plan, see articles in the SL Tribune, Denver Business Journal and an editorial in the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel). Sec. Salazar adopted a reasonable approach that requires oil companies to prove any oil shale technology they might develop is commercially viable and won’t devastate water resources and air quality in the West.
The Government Accounting Office and industry experts have said oil shale could use up to 140 percent of what Denver Water provides its customers, today.
It turns out that common sense and good business practice aren’t slowing down API’s insatiable lust for taxpayer handouts. API wants to double down on 100 plus years of abject oil shale failure, despite the huge risks to the West’s scarce water supplies.
Erik Milito, API’s director of upstream and industry operations, claims that ensuring the safety of western water might delay investment in the development of oil shale technology. He ignores the fact that oil shale speculators have failed for over a century to develop any such technology, despite the billions in taxpayer subsidies – and private investments – already risked.
Western families, farmers, ranchers and business owners, already in year two of the worst drought in a decade, can’t afford to have any more of their water risked on costly oil shale speculation. We need President Obama to put the security and safety of the West’s water and communities before Big Oil’s hunger for more taxpayer handouts.
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