Reader comments
Would oil shale require coal-fired plants?

Sounds great if it didn't need so much water and would tear our countryside apart, let alone what it would do to our air quality. I think it's sad enough that I'm advised to not eat trout I catch in a stream. At what point will we stop chasing oil?

So we are to believe there is plenty of water to grow and produce bio-fuels, but none to develope oil-shale?

Oil shale requires a large amount of energy to render it into a fuel. If you spend a barrel's worth of energy to get a barrel and a quarter back (just to pick some figures), some might say that's a good deal. But at what price? Turning the Book Cliffs into the equivalent of a giant kitty-litter box? Adding more CO2 and pollution into the air? Using the water that ranchers and cities need? I think oil shale has many hidden costs that will make it unacceptable to reasonable minds.

Corn and Sugar based bio-fuels are water guzzelers, therefore other energy sources such as geo-thermal, solar and wind need to be looked at. Cellulosic ethanol using switch grass and the likes would use less water and would have better options for desert areas than corn, soya and sugar beet based ethanol

Re: oil -- just a thought about oil. Don't we want to be the LAST country on earth to run out of oil, not the FIRST? Let's save what we have and focus on nuclear energy. The Idaho National Engineering Lab (INEL; now just INL) solved the nuclear waste problem about 12 years ago...oh, oops! I wasn't supposed to share that because it isn't politically correct (in the eyes of all the anti-nukes) for the general public to know a solution exists. Sorry.

If we are going to tap this resource we have to do it in a more energy/water efficient way than tar sands are currently being exploited in Canada. A recent Department of Energy report referenced several companies that have newer technologies that may be able to efficiently process oil shale at less than $30 a barrell.. This is a resource we cannot ignore and just as we continue to make solar and other alternative technologies more viable at market rates, we need to continue to explore ways of efficiently unlocking this important resource. Whether we like it or not, we will need liquid hydrocarbons for decades to come even as we become a more energy efficient society.