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Reviews
| High Altitude Energy: A History of Fossil Fuels in Colorado. By Lee Scamehorn. Univ. Press of Colorado, 2002. xiv+244 pp., diags., maps, illus., tables, bibl. essay, index. $27.50 hb (ISBN 0-87081-661-6).
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High Altitude Energy conveys a wealth of information on discovery, extraction, and use of fossil fuels in Colorado. Identified as a nontechnical history, the book is organized by topic chronologically from 1860 to the 1990s. The Colorado Endowment for the Humanities supported publication, and the book was co-winner of the endowment's 2001 publication prize. Due in great part to the editing, however, this book is not an easy read.
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1
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Finances, development of appropriate technologies, associated industries, and shifting public interest all influence the development of natural resources beyond physical and logistical challenges. By shifting from one fuel to another within the same time interval, the organization of the book conveys the historical variations in energy development. Overall, Lee Scamehorn well describes the conflicting and synergistic pressures that acted on the five energy materials, i.e., coal, coke, petroleum, gas, and synthetic fuels. The facts of energy consumption in the United States are woven through the story of production in Colorado.
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The first four chapters concern the interval from 1860 to 1930 (the Great Depression). Chapter one broadly addresses the beginning and expansion of coal mining. Topics covered include types of coal, the principal locations of deposits, the work force, and associated railroad expansion. The second chapter on smelter fuels is a smooth shift to coke production and its support of the metallurgical industry, 1877–1930. The third chapter provides an account on the development of oil resources, chiefly by means of business histories. Chapter four discusses, with less detail than for the other resources, the manufacture of gas. It provides an introduction to natural gas, which is treated more fully in chapter seven. Gas played a smaller role in the history of fuels in Colorado compared with the other energy resources.
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Chapters five through eight cover Colorado energy industries during the interval from 1930 to the energy crisis of 1973. Of necessity, the effects of World War II are described for each resource. Chapter five reviews variations in coal production, including the impact of legislation, industrial shifts, and new mining technology. Chapter six describes the evolution of the petroleum industry with a focus on exploration and refining. Chapter seven covers the inconsistent history of natural gas production and distribution, including out-of-state products. Chapter eight treats research and production of synthetic fuels, with heavy emphasis on the use of Colorado's abundant oil shale. It also provides a concise description of coal-based synthetic fuels.
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The final two chapters (1973 and following), emphasize the energy crisis and recent trends in energy. Chapter nine thoroughly addresses the American energy crisis of the 1970s. It treats the crisis's ripple effect on domestic energy sources with regard to governmental and private sector responses and their influences on Colorado production. The economic and societal ramifications of the national condition on Colorado are linked to energy sources and products.
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5
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Chapter 10 covers the years following the energy crisis into the late 1990s. This last chapter identifies the fundamental conditions of use that rule energy production in the United States. It discusses the long-term objectives of government and industrial shifts while briefly mentioning the influences from environmental awareness and regulations.
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6
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High Altitude Energy presents much that is good. The general overviews provided for each type of fuel are valuable. The good, integrated discussion on the energy crisis substantiates the irregular nature of the recovery by reference to economic, political, and behavioral pressures. Though presented as a nontechnical history, the volume's descriptions of extraction and production processes provide good background for the historical discussions that follow. Colorado coal mining and coke production, in particular, are treated with clear text and figures. The background on oil shale provides a good basis for appreciation of the development of that industry and continued national interest in this resource.
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7
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Scamehorn provides a prodigious level of supporting detail. However, the editing and high reliance on narrative text reduce the effectiveness of his presentation. For example, the frequent identification of various locations, by the counties involved, such as coal regions, coalfields, and mines, left this reader in a stupor, regardless of the referenced map. Similar difficulty occurred with the other extracted resources.
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8
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Business developments are intertwined with accounts of discovery, extraction, and use of fossil fuels. Much of the business information does not advance the book, such as that concerning the relocation of Conoco's headquarters building and the fate of its Denver office following a merger (p. 69). In other instances, highly detailed accounts slow the reader. An example is the following taken from chapter two, which covers coke:
Properties north of Thompson Creek were assigned to the Grand River Company, and those to the south, including the area called Coal Basin, to the Colorado Coal and Iron Company. Two years later, John C. Osgood's Colorado Fuel Company purchased the Grand River Company, which then became part of the merger of the Colorado Fuel Company and the Colorado Coal and Iron Company, from which emerged in 1892 the CF&I [Colorado Fuel and Iron Company] (p. 30).
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9
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Because energy sources are treated in separate chapters in parallel within a time interval, interruptions occur throughout the book. As the narrative shifts from one energy source to another, the reader is typically referred back to a previous chapter on multiple occasions in order to pick up the story on, say, processing or use of a given material.
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10
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A major difficulty is maps, which are too small. They all contain much information but require a deterring scrutiny to find a referenced location, if included, or to take in the overall information presented, as with coal mines and coal-fired power plants (map 5). Apparently, the reader is expected to be familiar with the distribution of Colorado's counties and the location of its municipalities. One who is not will spend considerable time examining the maps provided and may still need to refer to an atlas. Moreover, the text sometimes refers to apparently significant locations or boundaries that do not appear on the associated map, such as Pueblo, an urban industrial center (p. 75). While map 1 shows the Cañon City coalfield, the Cañon City oil region is nowhere on map 2 (oil and gas regions), although apparently it was Colorado's early anchor in oil extraction and refining. Chapter seven describes the Piceane Creek Basin as a rich, long-term source of Colorado oil shale, but to locate it, the reader must go back to map 2 in chapter three.
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A variety of editing flaws appear throughout the book. Some are amusing. The description (p. 114) of a one-million-acre oil exploration area in eastern Colorado concludes with "This track, leased from the Union Pacific ..." Other misses can give pause. A revival in coal production (p. 100) is "triggered by demand for fuel from steam generating electric plants." Apparent inconsistencies in the text raise questions. For example, the N-T-U retort used to extract oil from shale is identified as a remarkable advance in 1926 because of its unique features, including its vertical and "continuous–run" design (p. 153). After processing of oil shale stalled due to the depression and technical problems, somehow "N-T-U batch retorts" showed up at the resurrection of shale-oil extraction in 1947 (p. 155).
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Strong points in High Altitude Energy are the descriptions of Colorado coking processes (chap. 2), coal mining technology (chap. 5 and 10), the processing of oil shale (chap. 8), and the account of the energy crisis (chap. 9). An impressive amount of quantitative data is provided for each material. For information on energy sources from Colorado, this is the source. However, as with most valuable resources, it takes work.
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