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Utah trio push for oil shale

Thank you leaders of our community for standing for this, unfortunately this is nothing more than pandering. People have been pushing for ANWAR for years now and nothing has happened. I am sure they will find some Gecko or a random rock formation as to their reason why they continue our dependence on foreign oil. Call me crazy. but it is almost as if they are meaning to thwart our efforts to be nation reliant.

Looks as if Hatch and the others have dreamed of great oil based economic boom, and over looked the fact that it is time to end the OIL based economy.

He is correct, if we start today it will be 10 to 30 years, so it is time for him to get off his kester and do something right.

Its not all about production of oil. Oil is a finite resource. If we drill at ANWAR it will in time be depleted, then what will we do?

When I go to work in my vanpool, I see people in huge cars and pickup trucks carrying only a single worker.

Since importing oil is such a huge burden on the country, to include having to send our young men and women off to war, we need as a society to consider not allowing such waste.

If we continue on our current course in regards to oil production, we will be owned by OPEC nations, including Iran, Venezuela, and also Russia.

Preserve the environment? For whom? The populace reduced to collecting acorns to mash into food between two rocks like the Paiutes did? There will be no oil for gas for tractors, planters and harvesters and fertilizer.

Future generations (if there are any) will look back on our generation as the most stupid one in history. We all live in Fantasy Land!

ST. George

There is no compromise in the language of environmental groups. They would rather see the country become a second class country dependent on foreign oil from countries that support the terrist movement rather than inconvenience one deer.

Where are the great environmental disasters that they are worrying about from utilizing our natural resources. Have there been disasters from drilling from oil or transporting it to market other than the wells themselves. Yet, we wouldn't drill in the Arctic even though we successfully tapped resources in the Bering Sea and transported it across the length of Alaska without despoiling the land except on ship.

We need to wake up as a country. There is no way to replace our needs except to utilize the resources available. Wind power and the other exotic technologies are not going to replace oil.

Great...another excuse to keep on using oil to fuel our vehicles.
How long have we been using that stuff? There's got to be a better way, right? And yet we keep on chugging it down.
Let's move away from oil in our cars and trucks. After all, it is the 21st century.

At the rate we are exporting our money to buy oil it will soon be all gone, but lets all hold hands and sing kumbya.

These same politicians regularly proclaim their opposition to nuclear power. I thought politicians were supposed to lead instead of stupidly following the other sheep over the cliff. That's what I've seen from our local leaders in recent years. I don't see how oil shale can be developed without massive environmental impact. We need to start build nuclear power plants now, or acres of windmills.

Since the feds have allocated Colorado River water for shale development, we should at least respect the state of Colorado's wish to slow this down for study of impact on water supply so they don't end up having to strip cities of their water. If they have to cut residential use to a trickle, they will surely insist that Utah share the pain.

"60 Minutes had" a piece on the Canadian oil shale projects, and it looks to me like an environmental disaster. It uses lots of water and basically strip mines the earth. Hopefully, after the coming election, and democratic victories, the congress will be less inclined to back such short sighted projects.

I'm shocked Huntsman is giving even lip service to this. It must be an election year for the nations most liberal governor to go along with this. Now lets just hope he's not just pandering to voters. We demand energy produced from either nuclear or drilling our own oil. NOW!! Beware any politician who trys to stop this from happening. We will vote you out so fast....

It's a travesty that Congress is in the middle of this. Utahns should be free to determine for themselves how to use their lands. We don't need Federal involvement

Yes, diligentdave, oil shale is the miracle that will save us all, who cares about the water supply, and if we sacrifice Denver and Las Vegas to the altar of pursuing a phantom source no one has been able to figure out how to tap, who cares, they're a bunch of heathens anyway!

If we started an oil shale project today, May 16th 2008, oil products wouldn't start reaching consumers until 2018. By 2018 nobody will be able to afford gasoline and will either be walking, biking, using public transportation, or driving a car that runs on alternate fuels. The price of oil will plummet and there will be no demand because nobody will have a use for oil any more. And the shale project will rot.

If they had started this 10 years ago it might have done some good. Not now.

Yes, let's sing kumbayah, while we continue down a course that will produce little but profits for energy companies. The energy used to process oil shale will not be available to burn for electricity generation. Money will change hands as we trade one (proven) energy source for another (unproven) one. And in the process, a vast sweep of Utah will be trashed.

if getting one barrel of oil out of Utah's shale didn't require the energy in one and a half barrels of oil, plus three barrels of water, this might be a good idea.

Maybe someday the technology will exist to extract oil from shale efficiently. But it doesn't now.

If Huntsman, Hatch and Hansen support oil shale, does that mean the oppose the Lake Powell Pipeline? Oil shale would use up the part of Utah's water allocation that the pipeline is depending on getting.

The fact is, the oil shale in eastern utah is very low-grade (as opposed to oil shale being processed in Canada) and requires an enormous amount of water to produce.
Question: Where do we get the water to process it?
If it was cost effective/higher grade, it would have been produced by now.
You guys bashing the environmentalists have no clue. Take a look at the current energy boom around Vernal, there is an enormous amount of gas and oil wells out there, with no restrictions. If the shale was cost effective, the companies would already be exploiting it.
Name one instance, just one, where an environmental group has legally attempted to stop the production of oil shale.
It hasn't happenend.

The Lord gave us this wonderful state to do with as we wish. If inspired leaders like Huntsman and Hatch want this done then it must be a good thing. I don't need some democrat in Washington telling me how to use the land that God gave me.