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Oil Shale
USTAR’s Eastern Utah Technology Outreach Team is assisting research, industry and entrepreneurial leaders to responsibly produce energy from Utah’s abundant oil shale resources. The most concentrated deposits of oil shale in the world are found in the Green River Formation in southeastern Utah, western Colorado, and southern Wyoming, which contains roughly 1.8 trillion barrels of shale oil in deposits greater than 15 gallons per ton. Visit the State Energy Advisor page on Oil Shale here.
USTAR is currently working with several Utah-based energy companies in conjunction with the University of Utah’s Institute for Clean and Secure Energy (ICSE), and Energy and Geoscience Institute (EGI) to advance promising oil shale technologies.
Examples of USTAR assistance includes producing analytic reports on regional oil shale companies for potential investors, assistance in establishing joint ventures between multinational energy companies and Utah-based oil shale companies, and connecting oil shale companies with resources at Utah’s research universities. Resources such as the ISCE’s advanced computer simulation modeling technology can help speed up oil shale development in Utah by reducing the costs associated with scaling up promising technologies that have been successfully demonstrated at a smaller scale.
USTAR is also actively exploring ways to reduce the environmental impact, water use and carbon emissions associated with oil shale development, including geologic sequestration of oil shale carbon emissions and/or utilizing it to grow oil-rich algae.
Additional Resources: Utah Heavy Oil Program www.heavyoil.utah.edu
