[Left2Right]

Why spend any public money on alternative energies at all when there are 5 trillion barrels of oil sitting in the ground on American soil in oil shale? With enhanced oil recovery, it may be possible to get another trillion barrels of oil from wells that used to be considered depleted. And as the Canadians have shown us, even getting oil out of tar sands can be done for less than $40.00 a barrel. Point of fact, Canada now has so much oil due to the successful extraction of oil from tar sands that the U.S. now gets 11% of its oil from Canada.

U.S. Oil Shale Fact Sheet

Just accessing one oil shale formation, the Green River oil shale formation in Utah, would bring on-line 800-1,200 billion barrels of oil, or more than enough oil to supply the U.S for more than 30 years without needing any oil imports! Although the initial cap-ex costs are high, it is far easier to extract oil from oil shale than from tar sands. And with the new in-situ technology, both CO2 and H2O can be captured and reused. Currently, the oil industry actually has to buy manufactured CO2 for use in enhanced oil recovery operations. So the CO2 would be another profit center from oil shale.

Unfortunately, although the technology is there to safely extract the oil, environmentalists, liberals, and democrats refuse to allow any drilling on known oil shale formations.

[bruinbirdman]

"the Green River oil shale formation in Utah"

Hmm. Utah also has Escalante clean coal? Out in deserts where no one complains about NIMBY? Better put it off limits. It would probably be one of Hussein Obama's first executive orders.

yitbos

[SlapHappyPappy]

Perhaps because, even if we in the US are energy independent, the fact remains that a worlds powered by oil gives disproportionate power to nations like Iran and Venezuela. It is ultimately in our best interest to do all we can to make oil a commodity that doesn’t result in undue power among many of the nations that have ample supplies.