NO SHALE SHORTAGE

Well, "everybody" is wrong. The world's largest known storehouse of hydrocarbon energy is in the oil shale beneath the surface of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. But on the surface, environmental opposition and government bureaucracy have kept its exploration, let alone utilization, in a near permanent

boondoggle. After many years of untangling red tape, a group of ten companies will at last be able to begin testing two processes of extracting the oil from the shale near Rifle, Colorado, this month. The full program is expected to require about 2t/2 years and will use conventional drilling and mining methods.

Dr. Edward Teller, the world known nuclear scientist, has suggested testing an in situ process for extracting the oil. An underground nuclear explosion would fracture the oil shale lying more than 2,000 feet below the surface, resulting in a "nuclear chimney" of broken shale. Heated air and gas would then be pumped through the drill hole, "cooking out" the oil, which would collect in a pool below the chimney, from where it could be pumped to the surface.

Would the oil be radioactive? Probably about as much as the natural gas freed by underground nuclear explosions — a tiny addition to the background radiation already produced by natural sources. Unforeseen difficulties may, of course, arise; but these remain unknown until a test is made. On the other hand, if successful, the process would have many advantages, such as evading the problem of what to do with the spent shale, a difficulty arising in open pit or block and pillar mining.

Environmentalists should therefore by rights welcome such an approach. But the word nuclear is enough to explode their old wives' superstitions, and coupled with Dr. Teller's well known political conservatism, the proposal has enraged technophobes to the verge of the ridiculous. Thus, one of the regents of the University of Colorado justified his vote against an academic institution bearing Teller's name by referring to the proposal.