18th oil shale symposium proceedings (table of contents and two conference papers)

Abstract

From the Forward: This year is a critical one for the commercial development of oil shale because so much depends upon the successful operation of the Union Oil Company of California plant at Parachute. With the soft crude market and the corresponding drop in prices of crude oil there is little incentive to invest large sums of money into the development of alternate sources of liquid fuels. Union's difficulties in getting their demonstration unit into continuous production has made the situation even more grim. The atmosphere is very much like that of the late 1960's when almost everyone put shale oil development on hold and invested their funds into what appeared to be more promising areas. Even so, there is a continuing strong interest in the commercialization of shale oil development as evidenced by the attendance of over 200 at the joint 18th Oil Shale Symposium and First Western Synfuels Symposium held for the first time in Grand Junction. Among those attending, there was a strong belief that it is essential to continue with the orderly development of shale processing programs in order to provide the technology necessary for commercial size operations. The problems besetting Union serve to emphasize that small-scale operations do not reveal many of the problems encountered in commercial -scale operations and the only way to insure success is to try processing at commercial -scale levels. Hopefully, industry and government sources will continue to support shale oil development so that when the technology is needed, we will be in a position to establish the industry with minimum impacts on the environment and the economy. If the saga of shale oil development continues as in the past, it will be only a short time before there is another increase in interest and funds available and more incentives to develop the industry. During each period of activity, further advances are made and a successful operation becomes that much closer. In the meantime, it is necessary that work continue so that shorter lead times will be needed to arrive at a successful conclusion. James H. Gary Director of Symposia and Professor of Chemical Engineering and Petroleum Refining.