[dakine]

What about shale in the U.S. Rockies, and the sand in Canada? A lot of oil, just not financially viable...

[Eric in the Ozarks]

The syncrude from Canada is a pretty big play right now. Shell, Suncor (Canadian Sun Oil) and others are digging, boiling and pumping this stuff to their refineries and other other companies are buying it and running it successfully. It has no "bottoms," and thus is attractive to gasoline makers.
Oil shale may be a tougher nut to crack. The first attempts (Exxon) at knocking the oil out of shale involved radiating golf ball sized chunks of this material. The oil was liberated but in the process, golf balls became soft balls, about 30-40 percent larger. Try telling the Sierra Club that 1, you're going to drill, blast and radiate most of the countryside around Rifle, Colorado, and, 2, when you put it back, it'll be a third larger than it was in its natural state...

[stboz]

What about shale in the U.S. Rockies, and the sand in Canada? A lot of oil, just not financially viable

There are 1.5 TRILLION barrels of oil in shale form in the U.S. That's 200 to 400 years of supply at today's use rate. It's a technological and logistical nightmare getting to it, but it can be done.