Up to one half or more of it is presently recoverable using horizontal drilling and fracking technology. But one problem, almost all of it lies under federal land. IMO, we can kiss it off, for no way will the *^%$#&@! asshats in congress and this administration allow it to be developed.
Horizontal drilling and fracking will not work for the Green River formation.
From the report:
“• Uncertainty about viable technologies. A significant challenge to the development of oil shale lies in the uncertainty surrounding the viability of current technologies to economically extract oil from oil shale. To extract the oil, the rock needs to be heated to very high temperatures—ranging from about 650 to 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit— in a process known as retorting. Retorting can be accomplished primarily by two methods. One method involves mining the oil shale, bringing it to the surface, and heating it in a vessel known as a retort. Mining oil shale and retorting it has been demonstrated in the United States and is currently done to a limited extent in Estonia, China, and Brazil. However, a commercial mining operation with surface retorts has never been developed in the United States because the oil it produces competes directly with conventional crude oil, which historically has been less expensive to produce. The other method, known as an in-situ process, involves drilling holes into the oil shale, inserting heaters to heat the rock, and then collecting the oil as it is freed from the rock. Some in-situ technologies have been demonstrated on very small scales, but other technologies have yet to be proven, and none has been shown to be economically or environmentally viable at a commercial scale. According to some energy experts, the key to developing our country’s oil shale is the development of an in-situ process because most of the richest oil shale is buried beneath hundreds to thousands of feet of rock, making mining difficult or impossible. In addition to these uncertainties, transporting the oil produced from oil shale to refineries may pose challenges because pipelines and major highways are not prolific in the remote areas where the oil shale is located, and the large-scale infrastructure that would be needed to supply power to heat the oil shale is lacking.”
Yep, they are invested in solar panels and wind turbines.