http://communicationsinstitute.org/Monterey_Shale_Report_Final_130328.pdf
Executive Summary
The Monterey Shale Formation in California, like other shale oil and gas reserves around the nation,
has been widely cited as a potential “gold mine” of oil resources in California. Recent headlines attest to
its increasing role in the California energy debate:
- “Monterey’s black gold could jumpstart California’s
- “Could Monterey Shale Save California?” (Investors.com)
- “The battle is heating up over California’s vast Monterey shale field” (Examiner.com)
There is good reason for this interest: the Monterey Shale contains an estimated 15-plus billion
barrels of oil, representing more than two-thirds of all known U.S. shale reserves. But the story is not
quite so simple. Oil cannot be extracted from deep shale formations like Monterey through the use of
conventional oil wells, like those that dot many California landscapes. Rather, advanced oil-extraction
technologies, like hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, are required.
Hydraulic fracturing, a well-established, advanced means of extracting oil and natural gas from subsurface shale formations, has emerged in particular during the past several years as a technique with
high potential for increasing the volume of oil and natural gas producible within the United States. The
technique has been employed over the past decade in the Northeast and Upper Midwest, primarily in
the production of natural gas, and was cited last year by the International Energy Agency as a key factor
in the possibility that the United States soon could achieve the long-sought goal of net energy selfsufficiency.
However, advanced extraction technologies like hydraulic fracturing are not without their critics.
The technique has been blamed for such adverse environmental consequences as ground water
contamination, excessive wastewater production, increased seismic activity, and transportation and
land-use challenges. Such problems, were they to materialize in any major way in California, could
overwhelm the proposed benefits of developing the Monterey Shale, with the unfortunate result that
the more widely spread usage of the associated extraction technologies could wind up doing more harm
than good. While some analysts and proponents of hydraulic fracturing assert that these concerns either
are overstated or could be adequately addressed through effective regulation or remediation, the
balance of benefits and costs has not yet been definitively established.
Every day is April Fools Day to the leftist hacks in Sacto and their complicit idiot voters who put them there. Then again maybe its a good thing since those leftists would only spend more with increased oil revenues—a zero sum game at best for Kookifornicata.