While there have been sporadic efforts to demonstrate certain shale oil extraction technologies in recent years, none of the techniques have been thoroughly analyzed to determine the extent of potential occupational health impacts and even those technologies that have been demonstrated cannot be regarded as typical of a scaled-up, fully mature industry. Industrial hygiene studies have served to identify operations within certain technologies where mitigating methods can and should be applied to protect the industrial populations. Judging from data developed by on-site sampling it is probable that, with the possible exception of MIS techniques, oil shale mining presents no unique …
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While there have been sporadic efforts to demonstrate certain shale oil extraction technologies in recent years, none of the techniques have been thoroughly analyzed to determine the extent of potential occupational health impacts and even those technologies that have been demonstrated cannot be regarded as typical of a scaled-up, fully mature industry. Industrial hygiene studies have served to identify operations within certain technologies where mitigating methods can and should be applied to protect the industrial populations. Judging from data developed by on-site sampling it is probable that, with the possible exception of MIS techniques, oil shale mining presents no unique problems that cannot be handled with state-of-the-art control procedures. The conditions that may exist in a mine where in situ retorts are being simultaneously prepared, burned and abandoned have not as yet been defined. The probability of combined exposures to spent shale dusts and fugitive emissions in the form of vapors and gases added to the potential for skin exposure to product oils and other liquid effluents raises more complex questions. It has been shown by both epidemiological evidence and experimental data gathered both in the US and in foreign industries that crude shale oil and some of its products carry a higher carcinogenic potential than most of the natural petroleums. Preliminary data suggest that this particular hazard may be almost self-eliminating if hydrotreating, in preparation for refining, is universally practiced. The determination of specific hazards should be done on a technology-specific basis since it is highly probable that the biological activity of most of the products and by-products of shale oil production is process-specific.
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