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The U.S. Geological Service issued a report in April ('08) that only scientists and oilmen knew was coming, but man was it big. It was a revised report (hadn't been updated since '95) on how much oil was in this area of the western 2/3 of North Dakota; western South Dakota; and extreme eastern Montana ... Check THIS out: The Bakken is the largest domestic oil discovery since Alaska's Prudhoe Bay, and has the potential to eliminate all American dependence on foreign oil.

Colorado, Wyoming and Utah have more oil in oil shale than OPEC. Everyone seems to know that by now, but here are six things you probably did not know about oil shale. 1) Did you know oil shale has a smaller carbon footprint than ethanol? When calculating the carbon emissions of the entire oil shale process, without the use of carbon capture technology, its total carbon footprint is about 7 percent larger than gasoline. But a peer-reviewed article in the February issue of Science calculates the entire carbon footprint of ethanol to be 93 percent larger than gasoline. The article...

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...

In his radio address [Saturday] morning, President Bush went after the Democrats on energy: The fundamental problem behind high gas prices is that the supply of oil has not kept up with the rising demand across the world. One obvious solution is for America to increase our domestic oil production. So my Administration has repeatedly called on Congress to open access to new oil exploration here in the United States. Unfortunately, Democrats on Capitol Hill have rejected virtually every proposal. Now Americans are paying the price at the pump for this obstruction. So this week, I asked Democratic congressional leaders...

----snip---- Then there is the granddaddy of them all: the oil shale in Green River Formation, which goes through Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. According to a RAND Corp. study, there are 1.5 trillion to 1.8 trillion barrels worth of oil shale in the Green River Formation. That is more than triple the proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. At $95 a barrel, it was not economically viable to develop these resources, but at $130 it definitely is. Furthermore, Shell Oil scientists have already conducted small-scale field tests that if replicated on a large scale would make developing the oil shale...

The United States has as much as 8 times as much oil in the form of "shale oil" as all of Saudi Arabia's oil. America could end all imports of foreign oil if these shale oil resources were developed. The Wall Street Journal editorial page then picked up the theme of accessing America's shale oil resources, shortly after publication in the New Media Journal. America's vast supplies of shale oil has not been tapped because it was too expensive when oil was trading at $19 per barrel. And no one has taken action now that oil has exceeded $137 per...

A Real Energy Strategy for America: Shale Oil by Jonathon Moseley May 31, 2008 If shallow talk could solve America’s energy crisis, politicians in Washington would have all the answers. But Americans are still carrying a crushing burden while little changes. Fortunately, there are many real solutions available for the U.S. economy even if the politicians don’t seem to know it. America’s dependence on foreign oil is more than a threat to our economy. It has become a threat to America’s national security. American money is being funneled to America’s enemies around the world and is strengthening our enemies while...

In its quest to remove oil from western Colorado's shale, Royal Dutch Shell has been buying land and water rights in anticipation of what is likely to be a thirsty new industry. Some officials worry that the demands of the oil-shale industry could drain every drop of the region's remaining water. "On the upper end, we're looking at potentially several hundred thousand acre-feet of water — more than people think is commonly available to develop in the Colorado River," said Dan Birch, deputy general manager for the Colorado River Water Conservation District. Shell and other energy companies have amassed tens...

Map showing Williston Basin Province boundary (in red), Bakken-Lodgepole Total Petroleum System (TPS) (in blue), and major structural features in Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota North Dakota and Montana have an estimated 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil in an area known as the Bakken Formation of the Williston Basin, according to a just-released assessment by the US Geological Survey (USGS). This latest assessment shows a 25-fold increase in the amount of oil that can be recovered compared to the agency’s 1995 estimate of 151 million barrels of oil. The assessment also identified 1.85...

“Since the early 1980s, oil shale was not on the U.S. energy policy agenda, and very little attention was directed at technology or energy market developments that might change the commercial prospects for oil shale.” That is a near quote from the RAND corporation in a 2005 report entitled: “Infrastructure, Safety, and Environment.” An additional quote states: “The largest known oil shale deposits in the world are in the Green River Formation, which covers portions of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. Estimates of oil resources now in place within the Green River Formation range from 1.5 to 1.8 trillion barrels. Not...

Bakken and Torquay Formations - A Saudi Arabia of oil under Saskatchewan, North Dakota, South Datkota, Montana and Manitoba The Bakken oil formation is possibly the largest conventional oil discovery in Canada since 1957. If this oil formation plays out toward the higher end of size and recoverability then it will change the geopolitics of oil and the economies of the United States and Canada. If a lot of the oil proves difficult to recover now, new technologies could still drastically improve the percent recoverable. The motivation to pull out another 100 billion barrels would be $9 trillion at todays...

Technology to draw oil from rock in Rocky Mountain states and other unconventional sources is getting another look from companies and the government as the demand for energy increases and supply tightens, especially in the United States.

How large is this resource? In the Piceance Basin, an area of 1,100 square miles, the oil shale is over 1 million barrels per acre, or roughly 750 billion barrels of recoverable oil. If you extend outward to Wyoming and to Utah, it is 1.3 trillion. This is why you hear shale next to trillions, not billions or millions, of barrels. The Air Force in the 1970s looked at shale, tested it, and found that it was a superior liquid for jet fuel. Roughly 65 percent of the oil shale is liquid, which could go into jet fuel. The J-8...

Oil reserves, new finds, politics In May 2006 I wrote, "I know about the "Peak Oil" theory that says we either have or are about to reach the point of diminishing returns regarding the world's oil supply, but these recent discoveries suggest there is still plenty of oil to be found." In that commentary I documented nearly a dozen new fields of oil and natural gas discovered since 1995. So I wasn't surprised when, on September 5, Chevron Corporation announced it had discovered new, huge reserves of oil some five miles below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. The...

Deseret Morning News, Friday, June 02, 2006Shale oil — now?Company says $40 per barrel production is possible in UtahBy Stephen SpeckmanDeseret Morning News VERNAL — A company says it can produce oil from shale mined from Utah within two or three years, at a cost of about $40 per barrel, and that notion has leaders in Washington, D.C., interested in ways to make it happen. Oil Tech CEO Romit Bhattacharya, second from left, explains production of oil from shale to Sen. Pete Domenici, left, and Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert at processing site. Utah may contain more oil in shale than...

The high cost of crude oil has many people looking for new sources of energy -- and taking a second look at some old ideas. Oil shale is an idea that was tested a generation ago, then abandoned when the price of crude oil plunged. Now, a self-taught inventor is once again eyeing the vast shale deposits of the Rocky Mountains. Byron Merrell steers his Chevy pickup along Highway 40 in eastern Utah, past the fiberglass dinosaurs that welcome tourists from the nearby national monument. Just outside the city of Vernal, he turns onto the "Bonanza Highway." The highway is...

Yanzhou Coal Mining, the mainland's second-largest listed coal miner, said its parent company Yankuang Group has received approval from the government to develop a 5-million-ton coal-to-oil project. The first phase of the project in Northwest China's Shaanxi Province is estimated to cost 10 billion yuan (US$1.25 billion). Its capacity will reach 1 million tons of oil products a year, Chief Financial Officer Wu Yuxiang told reporters in Hong Kong yesterday. "Total production capacity of the project will amount to 5 million tons annually," he said, without giving a timetable. Yankung Group will mainly participate in the preliminary stage of the...

Digital Gas Advised by Oil Shale Partner That Department of Energy Laboratory Signed Agreements on Product Development and Intellectual Property NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 7, 2006--Digital Gas, Inc. (OTC Pink Sheets:DIGG) announced today that its oil shale technology development partner has concluded negotiations with an operator of a major U.S. Department of Energy laboratory for further development of the fuel cell system the two companies will seek to commercialize. Exclusive product development and intellectual property agreements were signed by the operator of the laboratory. After an extensive due diligence process, in which numerous fuel cell and other research laboratories were interviewed...

As a prominent advocate for encouraging unconventional energy sources, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) was asked to testify today in front of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on his efforts to develop fuel from a vast untapped domestic oil reserve in tar sandsand oil shale -- a large part of which sits in eastern Utah. "Who would have guessed that in just Colorado and Utah, there is more recoverable oil than in the Middle East?" Hatch said. "We just don't count it among our nation's oil reserves because it is not yet being developed commercially. I find it disturbing...