Word: processing
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Their attitude was, The pilots have gone back to flying, so why can't you?' " In fact, says Clinical Psychologist Dan Johnson, the healing process is often slow; psychological symptoms may still be increasing a year or more after the accident...
...shale is "distilled" in somewhat the same way that moonshiners extract alcohol from corn mash. After the shale is mined, the rock is crushed. Union Oil then moves shale chunks through a towering surface retort, where hot gases heat it to release the kerogen. Colony uses a different process: it cooks finely ground shale in giant drums by mixing the marl with superheated, marble-size ceramic balls that distribute the temperature evenly and vaporize the kerogen. The balls are then separated from the spent shale by a screen, reheated and used again...
...second, more radical method involves cooking the shale underground. Occidental, which has pioneered this process, plans to dig at least 2,000 chambers connected by tunnels under a 5,000-acre shale tract leased from the Government. The chambers, each about the size of a football field and 250 ft. to 300 ft. high, are created by drilling parallel tunnels leading from a vertical mineshaft into the rock at two different depths. The shale in between is then reduced to rubble by explosions in both the top and bottom. Each chamber is sealed, and pilot-light burners are lowered...
Whatever extraction method is used, the investment will be enormous. Union's proposed 9,000-bbl.-a-day plant would cost $130 million; Occidental's 50,000-bbl.-a-day operation carries a $1 billion price tag. Colony's process, because of its size and capital investment, would be the most expensive: $1.5 billion to $2 billion...
...precious resource in the tri-state region, is one of their greatest concerns. Conservationists claim that shale extraction could use from one to five barrels of water for each barrel of oil, but company officials maintain much less would be required. Critics also argue that the underground marl-cooking process could release salts, and perhaps even arsenic, into the region's ground water. Shale opponents protest finally that the surface-retorting process leaves piles of rubble and dust behind that would ruin the pristine Rocky Mountain valleys. A 400,000-bbl.-a-day industry would require 500,000 tons...