If anybody figures out how to do this they need to hire the best bodyguards money can buy because there is way to much money to be made in the oil business for somebody to come along and make it obsolete.
Even if it works - the oil companies or govt will make them go away.
I can think of an area where this could be set up. Lots and lots of vacant land that no one wants as more and more dwellings get knocked down and bulldozed for more raw land.
Detroit.
Please. The evil oil companies?
What will happen is that if it's a success someone like ExxonMobil will buy up the company. If it's that big of a breakthrough they'll take it and run with it. If I were a board member of XOM, I'd be looking at what's happening and preparing for the day when the nutjobs in the Mid-east shut off oil production, combined with the idiots in the Regime shutting down domestic production , and finding something that isn't affected by either of those things.
Unlike what the left would have us believe, companies don't just want to sit on a hoard of money, they want to put it out and get a return on it.