[Dio]

Heres an old story. I heard about this on NPR this week. So i looked it up.


The US Government’s Secret Colorado Oil Discovery
Rense

Hidden 1,000 feet beneath the surface of the Rocky Mountains lies the largest untapped oil reserve in the world - more than 2 TRILLION barrels. On August 8, 2005 President Bush mandated its extraction. Three companies have been chosen to lead the way. Test drilling has already begun

Dear Reader,

Five months ago, the U.S. Energy Department announced the results of a land survey

It was conducted to determine the official amount of oil a thousand feet deep in the Rocky Mountains

They reported this stunning news:

We have more oil inside our borders, than all the other proven reserves on earth.

Here are the official estimates:

* 8-times as much oil as Saudi Arabia
* 18-times as much oil as Iraq
* 21-times as much oil as Kuwait
* 22-times as much oil as Iran
* 500-times as much oil as Yemen

And it’s all right here in the Western United States.

James Bartis, lead researcher with the study says, “We’ve got more oil in this very compact area than the entire Middle East.”

More than 2 TRILLION barrels. Untapped.

“That’s more than all the proven oil reserves of crude oil in the world today,” reports The Denver Post.

When asked about America’s least-publicized oil supply, Utah Senator Orrin Hatch said:

“The amounts of oil are staggering. Who would have guessed that in just Colorado and Utah, there is more recoverable oil than in the Middle East?”

Here’s the kicker

The U.S. government already owns the land. It’s been right there under our noses the whole time.

In fact, the government’s appointed a small group of companies to begin the drilling.

Test drilling has already begun.

And the profit forecasts are ridiculous. According to the RAND Corporation (a public-policy think tank for the government), this small region can produce:

Three million barrels of oil per day That translates into more than $20 BILLION a year.

These are the conservative estimates. The U.S. Energy Dept. estimates an eventual output of 10 million barrels of oil per day. At that rate, the money flow would be even greater.

I’ve written this letter to tell you everything I’ve learned about this rarely publicized oil reserve who’s drilling it and how to get a piece of the world’s biggest, untapped oil supply - before it’s too late.

Here’s the full story

The Next American Oil Boom

There’s a new source of oil in the American West.

Today, it sits idle - untapped - inside more than 16,000 square miles of rock and sand.

Geologists call what lies in this region, oil shale.

What is oil shale?

At first glance, oil shale looks like an ordinary black rock.

It feels grainy to the touch and greasy. You see, what’s inside oil shale has huge governments, Big Oil, venture capitalists, and even everyday investors scrambling to stake a claim.

Oil shale - when heated - oozes bubbling crude.

This precious resource is rare - found only in a few select countries. Places like China, Brazil, Estonia, Morocco, and Australia.

But the real story is how much untapped oil shale lies beneath U.S. soil. As the chart to the right indicates, there’s 4-times more oil shale in the U.S. than in all other countries combined.

Over the past 125 years, oil shale has been the secret oil source for a handful of nations. Specifically, those fortunate enough to have it

* China’s been using oil shale since 1929. Today, China is the largest producer of oil from oil shale. It plans to double the daily rate of production soon.

* Estonia is an oil shale dependent economy. Over 90% of the country’s electricity is fueled by shale oil. In fact, electricity run on oil shale is a chief export.

* In 1991, Brazil built the world’s largest oil shale facility. They’ve already produced more than 1.5 MILLION tons of oil to make high quality transportation fuels.

* Jordan, Morocco, and Australia have recently announced plans to utilize their oil shale resources. All 3 governments are currently working to build oil shale facilities.

But all these countries’ oil shale resources pale in comparison to the U.S. supply. As you can see from the table to the right, the United States dominates the oil shale market - with over 72% of the world’s oil shale resources.

Our gargantuan supply of oil lies beneath an area called the Green River Formation - a barren stretch of land covering portions of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming.

World-renowned geologist Walter Youngquist calls the oil beneath the Green River Formation, “a national treasure.”

Congress calls this area simply, “the next Saudi Arabia.”

It’s easy to see why

This region holds the largest known oil reserve on the planet

Colorado’s Oil Lands - Restricted for 76 Years, Now Open for Drilling

There are over 16,000 square miles of oil shale in the Green River formation…

Each acre holds 2 million barrels of oil - it’s the most concentrated energy source on earth, according to the Energy Department.

The federal government owns 80% of this oil-rich land.

In fact, the government placed protective legislation on this land in 1930, forbidding anyone to touch it.

You see, the government always knew this land was saturated with oil - but getting it out has always been expensive.

Buying oil from foreign countries was always the cheaper bet. It has been for the past 80 years.

Wisely, the government kept the land around for a “rainy day”, protecting it with 1930s legislation.

I’m sure you’re aware of today’s situation at the gas pump. Buying oil from foreign countries has gotten out of hand. The price of oil is sky-high. It’s way too expensive to keep buying foreign oil. In other words, the “rainy day” has finally arrived.

The timing couldn’t be more perfect. Oil shale technologies have begun to advance Â* drastically.

Companies are coming up with ways to extract oil from the Green River Formation very cheaply.

For example, one Utah-based company says it can extract the oil for as little as $10 a barrel. In fact dozens of companies have stepped forward with similar claims. With oil prices approaching $70 a barrel Â* these are pretty significant breakthroughs.

That’s all the government needed to hear.

On August 8, 2005, President Bush signed into law, a mandate lifting the protective legislation on the Green River Formation.

This mandate is called The Energy Policy Act of 2005. It calls for the opening phases of oil extraction in the Green River Formation Â* the world’s most concentrated energy source.

We’re finally ready to tap the largest oil reserve on the planet

[Dio]

Archives

How Much Oil Is There?

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush calls it the most promising source of untapped oil in America and the key to greater energy independence. But how much oil is there in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge?
Nobody really knows for certain.

As the fight rages in Congress over whether to allow drilling along the narrow coastal strip of tundra 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle, both sides are trying to use the refuge's oil estimates - as vague as they may be - to their advantage. Some of the rhetoric has little bearing on reality.

A drilling go-ahead was approved by the House, after it was included in a must-pass defense bill. But the issue remains uncertain in the Senate, where the defense measure is subject to a potential filibuster. Drilling supporters still are believed to fall short the 60 votes needed to overcome such a tactic.

"There is considerable uncertainty regarding both the size and quality of the oil resources that exist" in the refuge, according to an analysis by the Energy Information Administration, the government agency that tracks energy statistics.

Even more uncertain is how much of the oil will be worth going after. That will depend largely on the price of oil and the cost of development - including compliance with a slew of environmental restrictions likely to be imposed to protect the area's abundant wildlife.

A 1998 U.S. Geological Survey assessment concluded it's almost certain there are at least 5.6 billion barrels of recoverable oil and possibly as much as 16 billion barrels (a 5 percent likelihood) beneath the refuge's 1.5 million-acre coastal plain.

The number most frequently cited is 10.4 billion barrels, the amount the report says is the "mean" - a statistical tool that simply says there's as good a chance to find less than that as there is to find more.

"There's no question there's a range of uncertainty involved that is quite large," says David Houseknecht, a government geologist involved in the 1998 study. Still, he calls it an "educated assessment" based on seismic studies conducted in the mid-1980s and an examination of adjacent geology where oil has been discovered.

The massive Prudhoe Bay oil field, which has produced 13 billion barrels since 1977 and has 3 billion left, sits 65 miles to the west and there are oil fields in Canada to the east.

"In many cases the oil is dripping out of those rocks," says Houseknecht.

But there has never been a well dug in the federal part of the refuge's coastal plain and only one well drilled in a smaller area within the refuge controlled by Alaska natives.

If that well, dug 22 years ago, indicates an oil bonanza, few know it. The results have been kept a closely held secret by the Alaska native corporation and a handful of people at two oil companies that did the drilling.

The oil numbers are "a ballpark, seat-of-the-pants estimate," concedes Roger Herrera of Arctic Power, the lobbying group that for years has tried to persuade Congress to approve oil development in the refuge. But given the adjacent geology, Herrera says, "you can logically expect" a lot of oil to be there.

While the Geological Survey's numbers reflect "technically recoverable" oil, how much of it would be worthwhile for companies to go after would depend on the price of oil, energy experts say. The study estimated that at $30 for each 42-gallon barrel, about three-fourths of the oil may be economically recoverable. At $55 a barrel, the amount would increase to more than 90 percent.

Whenever the debate heats up in Congress over whether to allow development of the Alaska refuge, both supporters and opponents sometimes come up with questionable comparisons.

There is enough oil in the refuge, Interior Secretary Gale Norton said recently, to supply every drop of oil needed by New Hampshire for 315 years, or Maine for 299 years. Her department also notes that it's enough oil for Washington, D.C., for 1,710 years.

Of course, whatever oil comes from Alaska will never make it to New England or the nation's capital, since by all accounts it would probably be bound for West Coast refineries - or possibly be shipped to Asia, as some lawmakers fear.

Drilling supporters in Congress also are fond of saying the refuge will produce 1 million barrels or moe a day, equal to the oil received from Saudi Arabia. In fact, U.S. imports of Saudi oil have averaged 1.6 million barrels a day over the last five years, according to the Energy Information Administration.

At peak production, about 1 million barrels per day - roughly 5 percent of current U.S. daily consumption - would flow down the Alaska pipeline from the refuge, but that would not be a sustained amount. Assessments by both the Energy Department and the Geological Survey suggest peak flow probably would be limited to three to five years, depending on the amount of oil found, with lesser amounts being pumped longer.

"What is reasonable to say is that (the Alaska refuge) could represent between 5 and 10 percent of our national production for a period of 20 to 30 years," says Houseknecht, the government geologist. Domestic oil production averaged 8.6 million barrels a day in 2004.

Drilling opponents also have stretched the statistics.

Environmentalists cite a government study that suggests only 6.7 billion barrels of refuge oil might be economically recoverable if oil prices are $40 a barrel, and note that's "less than 7.3 billion barrels we consume every year."
By that reasoning, the 13 billion barrels of crude that have been pumped over 28 years from Prudhoe Bay, North America's largest oil field, makes up less than two years worth

[BadassHo]

i hope both are true.

[Potashes]

i dunno, sounds too good to be true.

[AmericaOverAll]

Shale is basically worthless from what I've heard. It is very expensive to turn that shit into petro.

[Mojorisin99]

I think it's a fake. Go to this website and it looks like they are just trying to make money off it. Reaks of sleaziness.

Stansberry & Associates - Matt Badiali's Oil Report

[MMAFan123]

If the price of oil rises to 200$/barrell then all kinds of stuff could become viable. But that's not a pretty picture.

[Darwinist]

People have been waiting for oil shale to wipe out traditional oil wells since the 1950s

It still hasn't happened, and for a very good reason.

In order for the extraction of oil shale to become competitive, energy prices have to rise.

You need energy to extract oil from oil shale

As energy and commodity prices rise, the cost of extracting oil from shale rises.

Shale has been just a couple of dollars away from being competitive with traditional wells for more than half a century.

And that's not even taking into account the enviromental aspect. Youd be basically taking a large swathe of Colorado and turning it into an open, festering sore, filled with carciogenic rocks.

Here's one blogger who worked in the oil shale industry's take on this:

First misconception “ Oil Shale Will Save Us”

I worked with a major oil company for 2 years trying to develop a way to commercialize oil shale. Trust me on this, it ain’t going to happen. Most oil companies know this. The few (one??) that don’t are totally deluded.
Oil shale is not oil. Oil shale is rock that has a relatively high concentration of organic carbon compounds in it. Geologists call this a source rock. If you heat this shale to 700 degrees F you will turn this organic carbon (kerogen) into the nastiest, stinkiest, gooiest, pile of oil-like crap that you can imagine. Then if you send it through the gnarliest oil refinery on the planet you can make this shit into transportation fuel. In the mean time you have created all kinds of nasty by products, have polluted the air and groundwater of where ever you have extracted it. You have also created an enormous pile of superheated rock that will take hundreds to thousands of years to cool off.

The biggest deposits of oil shale in the world are in northwestern Colorado. No other deposit anywhere else in the world (China, Jordan, Australia, etc.) even comes close in terms of size and richness. There are approximately 1.3 trillion barrels of POTENTIAL oil in this deposit of oil shale. However, even those in their wildest hallucinations have never proposed that more than about 300 billion of these barrels were POSSIBLY extractable.

Of course 300 billion barrels is a very large number. Assuming $50/bbl, these $300 billion would be worth $15 trillion. Quite an enticement to go after. HOWEVER, - I still haven't seen a good analysis that shows you end up with more energy at the end of the cycle than what you put in. Moreover, it takes about 3-5 barrels of water for about every barrel of oil you get. Last time anyone seriously looked at where all this water would come from was Exxon back in the late 70’s and early ‘80’s. Their solution was to RE-ROUTE THE MISSOURI RIVER to bring water to this very arid area. I am not shitting you.
Lastly, you will be leaving the biggest superfund site you could ever imagine.

Will we eventually extract oil from oil shale – maybe, but it has always been a last resort, and for good reason. In the meantime, DON’T EVEN THINK about investing in this, even if the offer seems really good. You can’t imagine how much money has been poured into trying to commercialize this resource without any success.

Belly of the Beast: The Common Misconceptions About Peak Oil

[IronCage]

Sounds like a pipe dream but I hope its true.

Rense is your source so there is a little credibility to your article as it gets.

[Sauron]

It would be funny that if by the time it is harnessed (if ever) it is simply made obsolete by new alternative energy sources.