Technology has, unquestionably, improved since Colorado's oil-shale bust in the early 1980s. Yet, the very companies that have invested in oil-shale leases and research activities are cautiously optimistic about the prospects. The Associated Press reports that Anadarko Petroleum, the only major oil and gas company with significant oil-shale holdings in Wyoming, says it's not preparing to start developing oil shale in the state. "We're not actually looking at any of that," Anadarko spokeswoman Paula Beasley said.

Chevron has some 200,000 acres of private shale lands in Utah and Colorado. It has a lease on some 30,000 acres of public land, too, according to Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo. Isn't that sufficient land for demonstration projects?

Salazar, who is intensely familiar with the boom-bust nature of mining and energy development in the West, also urges caution. "How is a federal agency to establish regulations, lease land and then manage oil-shale development without knowing whether the technology is commercially viable, how much water the technology would need (no small question in the arid West), how much carbon would be emitted, the source of the electricity to power the projects or what the effects would be on Western landscapes?" Salazar wrote in an op-ed article published by the Washington Post.

The truth is, I lack the insider knowledge available to the men and women who serve in our Congress. My gut tells me that opening large tracts of public land to exploration and research activities would rev up energy speculation. Perhaps that would drive down oil prices for a while.

If all we care about is finding alternative sources of energy, by all means, sacrifice the public lands. I'd like to think we're a bit more evolved than that. It's not enough to find energy. We need to develop energy sources that don't pollute our air, damage our lands, demand huge amounts of our precious water and require significant electrical production to extract the resource.

Folks, oil shale doesn't fit that bill.

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Marjorie Cortez, who believe the notion of "energy independence" is a pipe dream, is a Deseret News editorial writer. E-mail her at marjorie@desnews.com.