OIL?? We got plenty.

[powderman]

GAO: Recoverable Oil in Western States 'About Equal to Entire World's Proven Reserves'


On Thursday, the Government Accountability Office informed Congress that the Green River Formation, under a basically empty tract of mostly federally-owned land that covers the area where Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming come together, contains about as much recoverable oil as the rest of the planet's proven reserves, combined:

“The Green River Formation--an assemblage of over 1,000 feet of sedimentary rocks that lie beneath parts of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming--contains the world's largest deposits of oil shale,”Anu K. Mittal, the GAO’s director of natural resources and environment said in written testimony submitted to the House Science Subcommittee on Energy and Environment.
“USGS estimates that the Green River Formation contains about 3 trillion barrels of oil, and about half of this may be recoverable, depending on available technology and economic conditions,” Mittal testified. …

“As you can imagine having the technology to develop this vast energy resource will lead to a number of important socioeconomic benefits including the creation of jobs, increases in wealth and increases in tax and royalty payments for federal and state governments,” she said.

In her written testimony, Mittal noted that three-fourths of the Green River shale oil is under federal land.

“The federal government is in a unique position to influence the development of oil shale because nearly three-quarters of the oil shale within the Green River Formation lies beneath federal lands managed by the Department of the Interior’s (Interior) Bureau of Land Management (BLM),” she testified.

Environmentalists have a peculiar penchant for predicting imminent catastrophe, which makes sense: nobody's going to help them get their way if we've got time and resources to spare! Besides humanity's forthcoming doom via global warming or population boom, one of their favorites is a looming energy crisis that will come to pass when we shortly suck Mother Earth dry of all of her oil supplies. For decades, they've been heralding a shortage only a few years away, but the calamity has never come to pass. After all, they reason, oil a finite resource, and there's only so much to be had, especially as other nations like China and India are hitting the road and increasing global demand.

But these greenies' doomsday predictions are often focused on scary statistics that only tell half of the story. Their conjectures usually assume current levels and methods of efficiency sans new innovation, as well as our known reserves that are currently recoverable given present technology. But the fact is, not only are we likely to continue the trend of increasing efficiency and getting more out of the resources we have (and perhaps even bringing non-traditional sources into the mix, if the government would just let 'investments' happen naturally), but improving technology is constantly helping us to advance our access to oil as well as discover new deposits. The outlook really isn't all that bleak, folks, and shame on the Obama administration for constantly withholding permits that would bring us a greater market share in the global oil market, providing jobs and economic growth.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/erikajo...roven_reserves 
 

[Conan The Librarian]

The revolutionary thing in places like north dakota is that they have only recently figured out howmto get the oil. It is more of a horizontal process than a vertical process.


I say we still need exploration of alternatives. There's a lot of good work being done with fuel and energy today, including oil and gas.

[ppine]

Powderman,
Good post.  I worked in the oil shale fields in eastern UT and western CO in the 1970s.  At that time pilot projects were being develped to demonstrate the technology.  It was a good example of partial Federal subsidizing of the technology.  Now we have it if we need it.  The most successful technique was so called "in-situ" recovery, where the oil shale is left in place and heated underground to extract the oil and pump it to the surface.  It disturbs little at the surface, which makes it economic and environmentally acceptable at the same time.  I have worked on lots of coal reclamation which in contrast really tears up the country side and costs a lot to reclaim.

I don't know where you are from, but be careful about describing western lands as "basically empty."  I am from Nevada, and we have an ongoing problem with people wanting to dump their nuclear waste here in our "wasteland".

[ironglow]

No excuse for the lefties destructive actions...except with their anti-capitalist buddies.

[ppine]

Ironglow,
)Please clarify your post.  I do not see what you are getting at.  You are wasting your time by trying to poliicize useful technology.

[Cuts Crooked]

GAO: Recoverable Oil in Western States 'About Equal to Entire World's Proven Reserves'


On Thursday, the Government Accountability Office informed Congress that the Green River Formation, under a basically empty tract of mostly federally-owned land that covers the area where Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming come together, contains about as much recoverable oil as the rest of the planet's proven reserves, combined: 

All of which makes absolutely no difference. The EPA, controlled by the leftists, will prevent ANY exploitation of these resources.

[ppine]

Cuts,
The Environmental Protection Agency has a minor role in  the management of public lands.  The lead agencies will be mostly the BLM and the US Forest Service.  I have lived in Wyo and worked in the Green River Formation a lot.  I worked on oil shale projects in the 1970s in UT and CO.  Oil shale is a relatively difficult material to extract that is hundreds to thousands of feet below the surface.  Pilot projects figured out an "in situ" (in place) method of oil shale extraction that uses drills fracture the material in place and set it on fire to liquify the oil which can be pumped to the surface.  There is little ground disturbance which is economically and environmentally advantageous.

Oil shale becomes economic sometime in the future when the price of a barrel of oil is much higher.  We used to talk about $180-200 a barrel prices as being the starting point.  Although there is a lot oil locked up in oil shale, some of it will never be economic to recover.  Tar sands in Alberta are a better example of a viable alt fuels source in North America.  The Government is not what is stopping the utilization of oil shale.  They are not stopping the Keystone Pipeline either, they are conducting an analysis of route alternatives which require public input by law.  The pipeline will get built and oil shale will be utilized.