Utah is home to oil shale resources containing roughly 1.3 trillion barrels of oil equivalent and our nation’s richest oil sands resources. If economically feasible and environmentally responsible means of tapping these resources can be developed, these resources could provide a safe and stable domestic energy source for decades to come. In Utah, oil shale and oil sands resources underlay a patchwork of federal, state, private, and tribal lands that are subject to different regulatory schemes and conflicting management objectives. Evaluating the development potential of Utah’s oil shale and oil sands resources requires an understanding of jurisdictional issues and the challenges they present to deployment and efficient utilization of emerging technologies. The jurisdictional patchwork and divergent management requirements inhibit efficient, economic, and environmentally sustainable development. This report examines these barriers to resource development, methods of obtaining access to landlocked resources, and options for consolidating resource ownership. This report also examines recent legislative efforts to wrest control of western public lands from the federal government. If successful, these efforts could dramatically reshape resource control and access, though these efforts appear to fall far short of their stated goals. The unintended consequences of adversarial approaches to obtaining resource access may outweigh their …

The US consumption of crude oil resources has been a steadily growing indicator of the vitality and strength of the US economy. At the same time import diversity has also been a rapidly developing dimension of the import picture. In the early 1970`s, embargoes of crude oil from Organization of Producing and Exporting Countries (OPEC) created economic and political havoc due to a significant lack of diversity and a unique set of economic, political and domestic regulatory circumstances. The continued rise of imports has again led to concerns over the security of our crude oil resource but threats to this system must be considered in light of the diversity and current setting of imported oil. This report develops several important issues concerning vulnerability to the disruption of oil imports: (1) The Middle East is not the major supplier of oil to the United States, (2) The US is not vulnerable to having its entire import stream disrupted, (3) Even in stable countries, there exist vulnerabilities to disruption of the export stream of oil, (4) Vulnerability reduction requires a focus on international solutions, and (5) DOE program and policy development must reflect the requirements of the diverse supply. Does this increasing …

This report is a scholarly discussion of the escalation and possible resolution of community conflict in the nuclear power issue. The concern is at all times with the social factors in this conflict; technical problems in nuclear power are only considered to the extent that such problems are raised in conflict over nuclear power. Social science research on conflict is only reviewed to the extent that it bears on community conflict over nuclear power. Chapter 1 describes the nature of community conflict escalation in the nuclear power issue: stages of escalation, typical individuals and groups involved, typical issues raised, typical manners in which participants become involved, and the basic social parameters of conflict escalation. Chapter 2 outlines the community level determinants of conflict escalation in the nuclear power issue: How is a community in which conflict over a nuclear facility is most likely different from a community in which such conflict is least likely. Chapter 3 is a detailed consideration of alternative methods of containing and resolving conflict. Chapter 4 summarizes principles for dealing with community conflict in the nuclear power issue. Finally, Chapter 5 is an annotated bibliography of the literature reviewed in the report. 840 references.