BY TED ZUKOSKI
The remote high desert south of Bonanza, Utah (population: 1) is a long way from Paris, France in more than distance.
But the two places are linked. How the Obama administration responds to a precedent-setting proposal in Utah poses a key test for the President’s climate commitments ratified in Paris last year.
Under the soil near Bonanza lie deposits of oil shale, a pre-petroleum material that, if baked at high temperatures for long enough, can be turned into a liquid synthetic crude oil. “Can” being the operative word. Because while it’s technically possible to turn shale into oil, it’s an expensive, dirty process.
And despite a century of trying, no one has been able to produce crude from shale in commercial quantities in the U.S. Enefit, a corporation owned by the Estonian government, wants to change that...