Laserfiche WebLink
<br />o <br />en <br /><0 <br />en <br /> <br />Availability of Surface Water for Emerging Energy <br />Technology Developments <br /> <br />Based upon a "worst case" set of assumptions, it is estimated that the <br /> <br />water demands of a synthetic fuel industry (i.e., oil shale and goal gasifi- <br /> <br />cation deve10pments~of up to about 1.5 million barrels per day,l as well as the <br /> <br />water demands of the associated growth, could ,be satisfied from surface supplies <br /> <br />without having to significantly, if at all, reduce other projected consumptive <br /> <br />water uses in the Upper Basin. This conclusion must, however, be placed in the <br /> <br />context of four major qualifiers. <br /> <br />First, surface water supplies can be made available for the development of <br /> <br />the subject emerging energy technologies (EETs) only if: <br /> <br />1. water not presently under contract is purchased from existing U.S. Bureau <br /> <br />of Reclamation reservoirs, and/or <br /> <br />2. new reservoir and pipeline and pumping facilities are constructed in <br /> <br />order to capture, store, and transport the water. <br /> <br />1. Outputs from the industry, which would be in the form of both high-Btu gas <br />and crude shale oil, are expressed here in terms of barrels of oil equivalents. <br />That is" a 1.5 mi11ion.barre1 per day synfuel industry is taken to be one which <br />produces an output of about 8.7 tril110n Btu per day, whether in the form of high- <br />Btu gas from gasification plants or crude shale oil from oil shale retorting <br />facilities (by-product off-gases from oil shale retorting are not included here <br />as an output). <br /> <br />For the purposes of this assessment, the mix of EET developments which was <br />actually assumed was an oil shale industry of 1.3 million barrels per day (i.e., <br />26 unit-sized plants) and a high-Btu gasification industry of about 2,000 million <br />standard cubic feet per day (i.e., 8 unit-sized plants). Referred to as the <br />baseline case EET projection, this assumed synfuels industry would produce about <br />950 billion Btu per day. <br /> <br />ci <br />