Posted on 06/30/2008 5:00:50 AM PDT by Moseley
America has an Estimated 1 to 2 Trillion Barrels of oil locked in shale in the Midwest. That could be as much as 8 times the total proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. America could be energy independent within 5 years. (Note that this is primarily in the Green River Formation. There is some debate about the Bakken Formation.)
Any alternatives to our oil economy are at least 30 years away (possibly never). While there are many ways of extending our oil supplies, and I vigorously support and promote all of them, we can not HOPE our way out of our energy challenges. You can't run your car on a tank of HOPE. Suggested alternatives simply do not rise to meet the enormous quantity of energy we need. Alternatives are a drop in the bucket of what we need.
So what will it take to access this tremendous oil resource?
PLEASE SEE LINKS TO ORIGINAL SOURCES AND ARTICLES BELOW.... FIRST AN OVERVIEW OF WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING AT.
To start with... what is shale oil? The oil reserves we are familiar with are conveniently packaged for us in nice, easy pockets in the Earth. Oil is collected in underground caverns, so that if we poke a hole in the cavern, we can simply slurp out the oil. This is incredibly convenient, but perhaps the exception, the rare case.
Shale oil is essentially the same crude oil we know (after the extraction process). But shale oil is mixed in with rock (shale). The oil is trapped in pores and layers and tiny pockets within the porous rock. It may be that shale oil is the early version of the crude oil deposits we are familiar with. [S]hale oil may be far more abundant than traditional oil wells...
(Excerpt) Read more at shaleoilnow.com ...
I know he’d never do it, but could the President issue an Executive Order to start extracting oil in the Midwest, or anywhere?
I know there would be firestorm reaction, but, in theory, he could do it like Clinton did (remember the “stroke-of-the-pen-law-of-the-land” memes that his cronies spewed?).
Just curious. Thanks :)
You hit the nail on the head.
It would be the spectacle of just such an effort by the Dems that would swing this election, not just for McCain, but also for the actual conservatives that are running for Congress in each state.
Something like this could shift the balance of power in Congress.
I got a mailing from a drilling company that is going to be going after the shale oil. Good luck to them on their own, no thanks to the Democrats.
Interesting. Why did they send you a mailing? Was it political? Or for investments?
It was one of those investment solicitations. Those almost always hit the trash can, but the word “shale” stuck out like a sore thumb. I doubt seriously if anyone small can survive on that, since it takes some expensive technology. I don’t know much about oil drilling, but there is a “break even point” and shale has one of the higher ones.
“Efforts to extract shale oil have also broken a lot of hearts along the way. That is because oil prices dropped to $19 per barrel in the early 1990’s. The entire oil industry went through a catastrophic financial period with oil so cheap. So, many shale oil projects had to be abandoned with the price of oil so low. But with oil now stepping above the $140 per barrel mark from time to time, the profitability of shale oil is completely different today.”
Few things illustrate the failures and shortsightedness of our government, both parties, since the oil embargoes of the 1970s. Any half-wit has known since then that we were increasingly reliant on imports for our energy needs, and that the political instability of the Middle East and other OPEC nations could affect those supplies at any time.
But all that was ignored and a stupid reliance on the “free” market has led us to $4.00 and rising gasoline and $140 crude. Our gov’t should have been subsidizing shale extraction methods since the ‘70s, no matter how cheap crude was at times. We should have developed the best extraction methods and put in place the capacity to produce a significant amount of crude from shale so it would have been available in times such as these.
Will it be any different this time? Will we finally really treat our need for greater energy independence as a matter of national security, as we should have since the ‘70s?
The only way to achieve greater energy independence within the next few decades is to mandate that we put in place the capacity to produce a certain percentage of our crude oil needs. Rely on the fictional free market in crude and we’ll never improve our position because oil companies will act in the interest of their bottom line, not in the interest of national security.
Putting in place the capacity to produce a certain amount of crude from shale would be an important part of any plan to become more energy independent.
`
So, here we are again
In the Midwest? I thought the biggest field was the Bakken, up in the Dakotas.
Yeah the geographic description should be better, its in the pretty barren area just west of the Rockies in the tri-state area up in Colo., Wyoming and Utah, not really close to the midwest. The Bakken formation is in the upper plains.
i believe that when it happens.
i was in colorado during the last oil shale start up.
the enviro’s and media will raise holy hell if you so much as think about moving mountains near parachute.
TommyDale WROTE: “It was one of those investment solicitations. Those almost always hit the trash can, but the word “shale” stuck out like a sore thumb.”
ME: Even for something I believe in as strongly as shale oil, I DON’T think I would invest in anything that came to me in the mail unsolicited.
There are going to be scams out there. And, sadly, there are MORE scams about things that are CREDIBLE and solid. It is easier to scam people about something GENUINE than something completely improbable. If I ask people to invest in oil wells on the moon, I’m probably not going to get any takers.
ken21 WROTE: “i believe that when it happens. i was in colorado during the last oil shale start up. the enviro’s and media will raise holy hell if you so much as think about moving mountains near parachute.”
ME: First, yes, the enviros will raise holy hell about absolutely anything, adn the media will help them. The enviros think we can run our cars on granola. They really want to shut down the entire modern society and have us all live in communes, eating trail mix and yogurt. So, for sure, they are going to scream about ANYTHING.
Second, though, please don’t make the mistake about focusing on “the last oil shale startup” and such thinking. The reason why shale oil has not gone forward is that traditional oil has always been CHEAP in comparison. The last shale oil start up crashed because OIL PRICES CRASHED down to $19 per barrel.
So don’t ignore the central role that the price of oil plays in all of this. If oil is cheap, shale oil will NOT be accessed. Bottom line. If oil is more than $40 per barrel (extraction cost) plus a healthy profit margin for the effort, then shale oil WILL be extracted.
The price of oil is the central issue (along with environmental hysteria, of course).
That’s exactly why those mailings go directly to the trash can.
Actually the Green River Formation is the biggest. Bakken may also be big, although there is dispute about it.
Sorry if you don’t like my terminology with regard to “Midwest.” In my mind, the Pacific Ocean is the “West” the Atlantic Ocean is “East” and what is in between is in the middle.
The relevant area of possible interest is actually huge, stretching all the way from Utah in teh South up to Canada in the North, where it becomes oil ands.
I realize that I may be stepping on some regional toes by not recognizing common terminology better than that. My apologies, and I would be happy to be educated on how you would prefer to refer to these areas.
DEAR WILL88, if you go to www.ShaleOilNow, and scroll down to the “ROAD MAP” link, you will see a blueprint of U.S. government plans and actions to prepare for use of shale oil.
You will see that (1) they are working on it, and (2) they are working on it VERY, VERY SLOWLY at a leisurely bureaucratic pace. About half of that document screams out to me “LACK OF POLITICAL WILL” to move forward. Although they are identifying what they want to focus on, the plans overwhelmingly
The government must act to remove obstacles, because 80% of the shaale oil is on public lands. While some free-market conservatives might not want government involvement, there are a lot of Research & Development, planning, and permitting things that the government could do — as a bare minimum.
The use of shale and renewed drilling will be impossible until the Left is pushed aside.
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