GAO: Recoverable Oil in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming 'About Equal to Entire World’s Proven Oil Reserves'

[Geee]

CNSnews:

(CNSNews.com) - The Green River Formation, a largely vacant area of mostly federal land that covers the territory where Colorado, Utah and Wyoming come together, contains about as much recoverable oil as all the rest the world’s proven reserves combined, an auditor from the Government Accountability Office told Congress on Thursday.

The GAO testimony said that the federal government was in “a unique position to influence the development of oil shale” because the Green River deposits were mostly beneath federal land.

It also noted that developing the oil would have an environmental impact and pose “socioeconomic challenges,” that included bringing “a sizable influx of workers who along with their families put additional stress on local infrastructure” and “making planning for growth difficult for local governments.”

“The Green River Formation--an assemblage of over 1,000 feet of sedimentary rocks that lie beneath parts of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming--contains the world's largest deposits of oil shale,”Anu K. Mittal, the GAO’s director of natural resources and environment said in written testimony submitted to the House Science Subcommittee on Energy and Environment.

“USGS estimates that the Green River Formation contains about 3 trillion barrels of oil, and about half of this may be recoverable, depending on available technology and economic conditions,” Mittal testified.

[RandyM]

To get more oil than all the rest of the world's proven reserves combined, I would think that the environmental and socioeconomic challenges could be mitigated by the greatest nation on earth.

 

DRILL, BABY, DRILL.

[Valin]

To get more oil than all the rest of the world's proven reserves combined, I would think that the environmental and socioeconomic challenges could be mitigated by the greatest nation on earth.

 

DRILL, BABY, DRILL.

 

Only if we want to. The problem is getting the message out, that we are not talking raping and plundering our mother the earth, and leaving a barren wasteland when we're done. Because you know that will be the message from the environmental movement and their willing allies in the press.

[Valin]

@Geee

 

Magic Ponies and Unicorns

RON BEASLEY .

May 13th, 2012

 

We have known for decades that there is lots of kerogen – pre oil – in the Green River formation in the western US. There have been attempts to convert the kerogen into a usable/affordable energy source and they all have failed. Over at the Agonist Steve Hynd reports that magic ponies and unicorns never die.

 

(Snip)

 

Keep in mind this is not the “tight” oil they are getting from the Balkan formation via fracking or the oil sands in Canada. It is 3 trillion barrels of oil that no one could afford. The first thing we have to look at is “energy return on investment” EROI – how much energy you have to spend compared to how much energy you get. This alone makes Green River formation kerogens uneconomical.

 

(Snip)

 

 

 

[logicnreason]

Yes, but to dig it all out....many species of microbial bugs and such will be made extinct!!

 

And we can't have that....now can we!?

 

Remember the "snail darter"? One wonders whatever happened to that little guy???