The Salt Lake Tribune from Salt Lake City, Utah • 103

1 fBfa Halt fake tribune Tl ikuiiWsir S'iion 1 Iaapihu Thursday Morning. February 4, 1982 ttHHiii ypnyy iy KW i A i i 1 i .1 i nwimumiam spin a platter during his soul program. The station provides programming not found elsewhere. Lab technician performs a I product which is produced compositional analysis of I from eastern Utah tar sand. i Tar Sands Refining Disc Jockey Sam Enoch prepares to New Disc Jockey Sam Enoch prepares to Begins at Test Plant in North S.L.

AtKRCL As Station Expands crude oil c-ach day. The pilot plant in Salt Lake will be producing about 50 barrels a day when the process is finely tuned. 3ut, Mr. Hill says, when the process is perfected, plans are to construct several large plants in eastern Utah, with the capacity of producing about 100,000 barrels each day. This, however, is still several years in the future.

Utah tar sand is unique in several respects. First, the Canadian sand contains more water, and the water separates the sand particle from the tar. Thus, it is easier to separate the two. Not so in Utah. The tar is attached directly to the sand particle and so chemical help is needed to separate them.

Secondly, the tar in Utah has a higher viscosity, which makes it harder to separate the sand particles. And thirdly, the sand in the Utah specimens is finer, making it more difficult to extract. Utah Tar Sand There are advantages to Utah tar sand as opposed to that which is being processed in Canada. Mr. Hill says that the Utah deposits are low in sulfur, which will eventually be a great advantage when large plants are built, because the pollution caused by sulfur content will not be as great.

Also, there are no clay deposits in the Utah tar sands, which makes the process easier. Beause of these differences in the quality of the sand, the process could not be identically copied from the process used by the Canadians. The two professors had to begin with the same process and then develop their own variations on the theme. Mr. Hill says that if a plant is producing approximately 50,000 barrels of synthetic crude oil each day, the cost of producing each barrel is approximately $18 to $22 dollars, he sand is scrubbed against sand and the bitumen is removed from the particles, says Mr.

Hill. which is better than paying $40 a barrel for OPEC oil. His firm, Ford, Bacon and Davis, as they were designing the plant, determined that the process the professors had developed would eventually lead to a profitable business. Began in November The Utah plant was in construction by June 1981 and completed by September 1981. The plant began operation about Nov.

1. Tar sand looks little different than good top soil, as it is soft, dark and moist in texture. Mr. Hill said that for a proposed 100,000 barrel-a-day plant, within ten years, the mining operation will look similar to the Bingham copper mine. He said that in a proposed deposit area near Vernal, the top 1000 to 2000 vertical feet will be tom off to provide the raw material for the plant.

The raw tar sands are brought to the pilot plant and dumped in a large pile. Then, every four hours of operation, the sand is brought by front-end loader to a large bin, where it is crushed into a fine See Page T-6 By John Gutman Tribune Staff Writer The University of Utah and a Salt Lake City synthetic fuels development company have combined ef-; forts to develop a process and construct a plant to extract oil-' producing bitumen from eastern Utah tar sand. The pilot plant borders Salt Lake and Davis counties on one acre near the Chevron Oil refinery, North Salt Lake. The plant cost about $1 Utah has an estimated 90 to 95 percent of the tar sand deposits in the United States million to construct and will take about $500,000 to operate the next eight to 10 months in testing the unique process. The process for extracting the bitumen which, when completed, will be sent to an oil refinery for processing into diesel fuel and gasoline, was developed by two University of Utah Fuels Engineering professors.

Drs. Jan Miller and Alex Oblad developed a hot water process which involves mixing the water with the tar sand and a caustic agent. Tiny bubbles of air are then injected into the mixture, so tint the bitumen floats to the surface, where it is skimmed off and further refined. Sold the Patent The University of Utah sold the patent to Enercor, a new corporation which was started several years ago to develop tar sand resources in Utah. The university and Enercor contracted with Ford, Bacon and Davis to construct the pilot plant to process Utah tar sands.

The tar sand processing business is potentially a gold mine in Utah. Utah has by far the largest deposits of the material in the country, mostly in the eastern portion of the i state, between Vernal and Green River. It is estimated that 90 to 95 percent of the tar sand deposits in the United States lie in Utah. People started getting interested in tar sands when the energy crunch began to hit in the early 1970s, said Farron Hill, project manager for the plant. In the past, tar sand has only been used to resurface roads.

Al-j most all of the roads in Vernal are surfaced with tar sand. i A First Attempt Mr. Hill said the project is the first attempt to refine the dirtlike sub- stance into a gasoline or diesel fuel I in the United States. Canada has two i large plants which process tar sand deposits but Mr. Hill says the i characteristics of the material are widely different in Utah.

In fact, of the several large tai sand deposits in eastern Utah, there is a large variance in each of them, so that minor and possibly major revisions in the equipment at the plant will be necessary when other samples are tested and processed. The Canadian plants are producing about 100,000 barrels of synthetic By Doug Clark Tribune Staff Writer The place reeks of new, or perhaps of youth. I tried the door of KRCL, Salt Lake Citys only community radio station, but it wouldnt budge. I knocked. The man inside waved for me to come in.

I pushed harder. The door wasnt locked, the new paint had just wedged it closed. As I walked down the hallway, I noticed sanding dust, more new paint, and pictures leaning against the wall, not hanging on them. All signs of moving and construction that hasnt quite been completed. Inside his office, Stephen Holbrook, station manager, sat at his desk, arguing with the phone company.

The phones had been installed for a week before they worked properly, he told me later, and he didnt think the station should pay for that week. After making the person on the other end see his way, he hung up. Were the phone company. We dont care. We dont have to, he laughed, imitating' comedian Lily Tomlins operator routine.

KRCL, 91 FM, is one of Salt Lake Citys newest radio stations. It first went on the air in December 1979 and has been broadcasting full-time since August 1980. Less than two years. New Building But even newer than the station is the studio. KRCL has moved from its old studio above the Blue Mouse to a new building on the comer of 200 West and 800 South.

A lot of our equipment is still in transit, so were not fully operational here yet, he said, guiding me through the studio. Our old place was 1,000 square feet, while this one is 2,400. You really cant see what we have, unless you saw what we had, he said. Community radio is just slightly different from what most people think of as public radio. Actually, you could even call us public radio too, because we are supported by our listeners.

But stations like KUER and DBYU are institutionally based, while we are independent, he said. And those stations are on a given format, while we must be as diverse as the community. And therein lies the meaning of community radio. An independent station supported by listeners that is as widely diverse as those who tune in. Wide Listening Area The KRCL listening community includes the Wasatch Front, and as far away as southern Idaho, Baker, Evanston, Logan, and Spring City, Sanpete County, thanks to antenna capabilities donated for three years by KSL.

KSL also donated equipment for the studio. In fact, all of the equipment in the station has been donated, or purchased with donated funds or grants. I cant think of anybody I havent asked for money, said Mr. Holbrook. My philosophy is to never write anybody off." Besides being station manager, Mr.

Holbrook is the creator of KRCL and the only reason it exists. "Bringing community radio to Salt Lake has been a special project of mine since 1968, he said. Funds Tough to Get Most of the early work was simply to get enough funds to move the idea into the realm of possibility. Once, in the early stages, he even had to sign a personal loan for a transmitter. It was especially difficult because I was working with an idea people werent used to.

I was asking money for something they would never see a return on, he said. Mr. Holbrooks plan now is to phase himself out of the operation, making it, he says, a living organism See Page T-2 Station Manager Stephen Holbrook works with volunteers Jeffree Hickman and Kathleen Fagan on the stations monthly program guide. Volunteers provide nearly all labor. i a- tf --yj -At' I hi i 1: Live broadcasts, like this edition of Fret Fiddle, featuring Mark Downey, left, and Pete Tinker, are rare for other stations, but more and more common for KRCL.

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