r - . - - ""V -, .. ' .. ; .7 .7 '' " "I i f . i NAPLES CITY Fire Department responded respond-ed to a large brush fire which was one of two reported fires in the area during the July 4 holiday. The Naples fire was along the east-west runway at the Vernal Municipal Airport. The other was a brush fire on Doc's Beach Hill. Survey shows energy demand drops, jobless rave soars Utah's energy-rich counties are not recession-proof, says R. Thayne Rob-son, Rob-son, director of the University of Utah's Bureau of Economic and Business Research. The demand for Utah's oil and gas, coal and uranium has dropped sharply during the recession, reces-sion, resulting in high unemployment. "Until two years ago Uie jobless were moving to the Uintah Basin and the Price area to find work," says Robson. "Now they are moving out in even greater numbers." Comparisons are startling. First quarter unemployment figures show that the statewide jobless rate increased increas-ed from 6.8 percent in 1982 to 8.5 percent per-cent this year. In 1982 unemployment figures for oil-rich Uintah County, 3.8 percent, and Duchesne County, 5.0 percent, were well below the state average. In 1983 the Uintah County jobless rate is 12.7 percent and 11.2 percent in Duchesne County. Coal-rich Carbon and Emery counties coun-ties recorded first quarter 1982 unemployment at 4.6 percent and 3.1 percent, respectively. In 1983 the rate has ballooned to 16.9 percent in Carbon Car-bon County and 9.3 percent in Emery County. The worldwide demand for uranium has been falling for nearly a decade but in the last year unemployment in Grand County has increased from 11.8 percent to 17.5 percent. Robson says the recession coupled with energy conservation have delivered a staggering blow to Utah's energy industries. Even the Inter-mountain Inter-mountain Power Project, once considered con-sidered vital to Western energy needs and a boon to Millard and Juab counties, coun-ties, has been reduced to half its original size. Robson says a worldwide oil glut continues despite OPEC's attempts to impose quotas. United States production produc-tion increased from 1973 until recently recent-ly with the opening of Alaskan oil fields, increased exploration and better bet-ter extraction methods. Within the last year oil prices have actually decreased. Utah's petroleum industry, based on difficult-to-extract and expensive-to-refine oil and gas, is suffering. "In 1981 through early 1982 there were about 75 oil and gas drilling rigs operating in Utah," says Robson. "That's been cut in half to only 35 rigs." He says some 750 oil field and service-related jobs have been lost in the Uintah Basin alone. As oil prices have stabilized and decreased, so have profits. Without high profit margins, funding for research into alternative energy sources has decreased. "The entire synthetic fuels industry has been predicated on 10-15 percent yearly increases in-creases in the price of oil," says Robson. Rob-son. "Current projections indicate syn-fuels syn-fuels won't be viable until at least the late 1980s and probably not until the 1990s." Projects that should now be producing produc-ing synthetic oil and gas have been scaled down or postponed, with even modest pilot projects delayed about 10 years. "The people out in the Uintah Basin have been told synfuels is 10 years away for 30 years," says Robson. Rob-son. The $3.4 billion White River Project Pro-ject and two smaller oil shale companies com-panies appear to be the only three continuing con-tinuing out of more than a dozen synfuels syn-fuels projects. The rest can't move ahead without substantially more private or government support. Synthetic fuels research and development will move slowly as long as petroleum prices remain low. "The price of oil needs to be $70 per barrel ; not $35," says Robson. To meet the projected huge electrical elec-trical power needs in the Uintah Basin, Deseret Generation and Transmission began construction in 1981 on the first 400-megawatt unit of the Bonanza Power Plant, 45 miles southeast of Vernal. It will provide much of the electricity used by the five-state power cooperative. But with synfuels lagging the future of the projected second 400-megawatt unit is hazy. While the Bonanza plant will meet a current need, the IPP is scaling down. Utah Power and Light is purchasing pur-chasing cheaper Northwest hydroelectric hydroelec-tric power available as the lumber and paper industries have cut back. What had originally been a 25 percent share of the 3,000-megawatt plant is now only 4 percent of a 1,500-megawatt plant. Even the major California power companies com-panies see less need for IPP. The result will be less growth for central Utah. A scaled down IPP will cut demand for Utah coal. Along with the recession and conservation, foreign competition and geographic isolation heightened by the Thistle mudslide have left Carbon Car-bon and Emery counties reeling from coal mine layoffs. Robson says uranium prices have slumped as the nuclear industry has "gone to pot." Uranium that was once $40 per pound now sells for $15-17 per pound. Some of the nation's richest uranium deposits are found in southeastern Utah, where officials face a double-digit unemployment rate with no relief in sight. "The promise of Utah playing a major ma-jor role in U. S. energy development is on hold," says Robson. Major cuts and curtailments have already occurred occur-red and more are expected. The anticipated an-ticipated slow economic recovery is only part of the good newsbad news scenario. The good news, says Robson, is that energy conservation efforts are working. work-ing. The bad news comes from many companies that are concerned ttie Utah energy industry will never experience ex-perience the growth that had been expected. ex-pected. "We can't test this scenario in the classroom," says Robson. "Experience "Ex-perience will be our guide."