The U.S. Govt’s Secret Colorado Oil Discovery

[JesterCS]

Not sure of the authenticity, but came across this just a bit ago.

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 ­ 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 ­ 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 ­ the world's most concentrated energy source.

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

http://www.stansberryonline.com/OIL/20060405-OIL-COL.asp?pcode=EOILG422&alias=200604OIL

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

1. Porter Stansberry sounds like a con artist.

http://briandeer.com/vaxgen/porter-stansberry.htm

[izzie]

3. I guess I will believe it later

Hard to think the story is true just at this time. Odd that the world has not found a really large field since the one in Saudi and I think that was in the 20's. By now one must think that the world had been fully mapped in this field.

[Extend a Hand]

2. too bad oil shale has such a low EROEI

Shell's experiment in that area had an EROEI of 3.5:1
http://ww2.scripps.com/cgi-bin/archives/denver.pl?DBLIST=rm05&DOCNUM=20000

Conventional methods of extracting oil from shale have an EROEI of 1.5:1.

An EROEI of 1 means that for every unit of energy you put in, you take 1 unit of usable energy out.

An EROEI of greater than 1 means you take more energy out than you put in.

Here follow some approximate EROEIs <5> for different energy sources:
Middle East oil 30+ remember fossil fuel quality varies
Tar sands 1.5
Hydro power 45
Coal 25 according to accessibility suspect figure
Nuclear 5 – 20 according to assumptions suspect figure
Wind 4 – 10
Solar 5
Corn methanol negative therefore, subsidised by the crazy US government!
http://www.abelard.org/briefings/energy-economics.asp#eroei

[madokie]

4. it will be nice to see how this plays out.

anyone

[charlie]

5. "Test drilling has already begun"

Lol. You don't drill oil shale, you mine it. And that's the problem, it has all the attendent costs of mining, plus extra for spent shale disposal and the crapload of water needed for processing.

Our shale deposits aren't a secret. They're just, so far, an unfeasable source of petroleum.

[DemoTex]

6. Exxon's oil shale exploration at Parachute, Colorado in early 1980s.

Exxon's oil shale exploration project at Parachute was abandoned in the early 1980s because it was determined that its break-even point was $40/barrel crude. The Great Plains Coal Gasification project at Beulah, North Dakota, was quit about the same time for about the same reason.

[JesterCS]

9. heh $40 is still cheaper than $70 tho n/t

[JesterCS]

10. but of course....

you have to consider inflation, etc.

Prolly break even, unless some of the new technologies pan out. Like heating the shale from above ground then siphoning off the crude.

[DoYouEverWonder]

7. There's plenty of oil shale in the world

the problem is extracting it. So far it still costs more then its worth.

Maybe we should just start conserving instead? That would go a long way to solving this supposed 'crisis'.

[bullimiami]

12. and there is plenty of heavy crude. were not running out of petroleum

were just running low on the cheap easy stuff.

[Minnesota Libra]

8. Oh but there are some of those neocon/fundies in CO, you all think.....

.....they want their beautiful land being dug up for the sake of all us pion's??:banghead:

On the flip side of that, we could extract our own oil and leave the Middle East to manage their own affairs??:wtf: Them neocon/fundies won't go for that either.:shrug:

Hey, we're screwed no matter which way this goes.:cry:

[rman]

11. Comparing apples and oranges

It's not really oil - it's not liquid. It can't exactly be "tapped"; just drilling a hole in the ground won't be enough. Extracting it will be exceedingly expensive; it will require heating the ground 1000ft down.

Even if it is 2 Tr barrels (which i'll believe when i see it) - why compare the quantity of oil shale in one location to the amount of oil in the rest of the world? If you include oil shale in the rest of the world, the numbers of this new site aren't nearly as impressive as they are presented in that article.

As to the numbers on the production capacity, 3 million barrels of oil shale per day - that to i'll believe when i see it.

Either way, this won't bring down the price of gas.

[WoodrowFan]

13. fake

I saw this debunked somewhere not too long ago. It's a biggie on some RW web sites now. If I remember right, the technology does not yet exist to get the oil out of the shale economically, plus the story had a ton of errors such as confusing the Department of the Interior with the Department of Energy, etc.


Also note, if you read down to the bottom, he's using this to sell you a "membership" to some newsletter or some such. That just screams SCAM to me...


Nothing on Snopes about it yet.

[JesterCS]

14. Yeah i noticed that too

Still tho. Something worth keeping an eye on, especially if it turns out to be true.

Im sure though you could look up this info on other websites, if it exists

[TX-RAT]

20. Nope, it's been known for years.

It just took high oil prices to even consider the mining and extraction process.

[Joe Fields]

15. Ummmmm...You don't "drill" for oil shale. You strip mine it.

I suppose if the government has their way, they would allow mining companies to blow the Rockies to smithereens, so they can get to the 60 foot thick seams of shale that lie beneath, with their behemoth diesel electric shovels.

[almyers76]

16. This has been known for decades (centuries)

They just re-released a report last year

the "new" report (note none of the souces are after 1994)
http://emd.aapg.org/technical_areas/oil_shale.cfm

United States Of America

It is estimated that nearly 62% of the world’s potentially recoverable oil shale resources are concentrated in the USA. The largest of the deposits is found in the 42 700 km2 Eocene Green River formation in north-western Colorado, north-eastern Utah and south-western Wyoming. The richest and most easily recoverable deposits are located in the Piceance Creek Basin in western Colorado and the Uinta Basin in eastern Utah. The shale oil can be extracted by surface and in-situ methods of retorting: depending upon the methods of mining and processing used, as much as one-third or more of this resource might be recoverable. There are also the Devonian-Mississippian black shales in the eastern United States.
http://www.worldenergy.org/wec-geis/publications/reports/ser/shale/shale.asp

"Mining methods"
In Situ Retorting

Shell Oil is currently developing an in-situ retorting process known as thermally conductive in-situ conversion. The process involves heating underground oil shale, using electric heaters placed in deep vertical holes drilled through a section of oil shale. The volume of oil shale is heated over a period of two to three years, until it reaches 650–700 °F, at which point oil is released from the shale. The released product is gathered in collection wells positioned within the heated zone.

Shell’s current plan involves use of ground-freezing technology to establish an underground barrier called a "freeze wall" around the perimeter of the extraction zone. The freeze wall is created by pumping refrigerated fluid through a series of wells drilled around the extraction zone. The freeze wall prevents groundwater from entering the extraction zone, and keeps hydrocarbons and other products generated by the in-situ retorting from leaving the project perimeter.

Shell's process is currently unproven at a commercial scale, but is regarded by the U.S. Department of Energy as a very promising technology. It is believed that it is likely to be both less expensive and more environmentally benign than mining and surface retorting. Confirmation of the technical feasibility of the concept, however, hinges on the resolution of two major technical issues: controlling groundwater during production and preventing subsurface environmental problems, including groundwater impacts.
http://ostseis.anl.gov/guide/oilshale/index.cfm

I can't find any sources but If i remember correctly I believe that magic number is somewhere between $50-$60
per barrel for this to feasible

[hatrack]

17. I heard Shell's head of R&D present on this "new energy source"

According to him, exploiting the kerogen deposits of western Colorado and eastern Utah would require duplicating the entire electrical generating capacity of the state of Colorado, at a likely cost of hundreds of billions of dollars.

How would these plants be powered? Natural gas? Highly unlikely. Coal? Very possibly, but at what cost in GHGs/air pollution/mercury contamination? Nuclear? Sure, maybe, but it would probably double the anticipated costs of providing the power. Hydropower? Not enough capacity left in the Rockies and Unitas. Besides, even if there were, very unlikely, unless you could persuade the entire populations of two states to sacrifice every free-flowing river on the western slope (that is, much of the tourism industry) to industrial development.

Oh, and "world's most concentrated energy source"? Come ON. This is ridiculous, hyperbolic nonsense.

[kysrsoze]

18. Evidently there is plenty of oil in Southern Illinois

I saw a local (Chicago station) news story this weekend about the application for hundreds of drilling licenses down there. Evidently there are many billions of barrels down there. It's good for immediate supply, but we're still going to choke the planet unless we start to move to more environmentally friendly power.

[MellowOne]

19. Actually, this is old news

I have relatives in Grand Junction and Denver who have known about the oil for years.