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Developing oil shale is best choice

That's right. We should keep feeding our addiction. We should also ignore the fact that the technology for electric cars is already here.
I realize that certain people in Utah could make big money processing shale. I realize that's why Hatch wants it to happen. But if we want to decrease pollution, decrease health insurance costs, and increase quality of living and over-all health, we need to forget shale, convert to electric cars, and use cleaner energy (solar, wind, nuclear).

Go Orrin!!!!

The Wall Street Journal had an article about a week ago on tapping oil shale. The perimeter of a field will be frozen to prevent water contamination leakage, but the interior will be heated up for months/years to help melt the oil for pumping. Now, the energy necessary to freeze and cook the land will be substantial. Utah's utilities are at their limit in terms of serving existing customers without the ability to build coal-fired power plants due to limited coal stock in Utah (and imports from Wyoming will cost dearly due to high diesel fuel prices by railroad) and California's refusal to buy any more coal-fired power from Utah (nixing IPP3). Consequently, Rocky Mountain Power is concentrating on natural gas and renewables to develop more electricity for Utah. Gas-fired electricity is very water intensive (and expensive) so analyses need to examine how much more water is needed for the actual extraction of oil shale AND the power generation to freeze/melt the landscape. While water is a renewable resource, there's a fixed amount available each season. Utah must first solve its electricity/water situation to help support oil shale extraction. Wind power uses no water and is cheap!

He says cars don't use wind, solar, and geothermal electricity, but that will change in 2010 when most of the automakers say they'll release their plug-in hybrid and electric cars. GM is putting its future into the Volt that has a small gas engine to recharge its batteries for long trips. Perhaps all that oil shale won't be necessary given the expected demand for plug-ins. USA Today had an article recently that said one charge for a plug-in to go 40 miles will take about 8 kilowatt hours of electricity. In Utah, one kilowatt hour of power is 8 cents. Imagine driving 40 miles for only 64 cents! And here, Hatch hopes oil prices stay high to allow the economic feasibility of oil shale development! We really should be focusing on expanding electricity resources and power grid issues for our future, not more oil! Geothermal, which Hatch does support, can act like baseload power to eventually replace coal, and it is PRICE STABLE! Can't rely on fossil fuel prices being price stable ever!

Orrin Hatch says that an acre of oil shale yields hundreds of thousands of barrels. Alright. Given that premise, oil companies already have millions of acres of shale land, so why haven't they produced anything?

A moratorium is good policy - let's see the oil companies prove themselves on the land they already have before we sell out our future.

As vast as Oil Shale is, it is still a finite resource.

We need to institute CAFE standards. We need laws if necessary to "encourage" us to be more efficient in the use of resources.

It's ironic you refer to foreign governments who sell us oil as 'traffickers', Orrin. We're going to continue our addiction but instead use homegrown? Anyway, I'm all for developing the Kerogen shale deposits. But don't kid yourself. It will be expensive, long term and have significant impact.

It doesn't matter what is best, and what has the smallest actual carbon footprint because the militant environmentalists will do everything they can to stop it.

The environmentalists have caused the brownouts in California by closing down gas and coal fired plants. They oppose neuclear, gas, coal, hydroelectric, and geothermal. Also, depending on the group they also oppose solar and wind because of either the whiring blades of death that kill birds or the location of the solar cells.

They don't want any new power sources, but have yet to come to a consensus for what to do.

This is a wholly superficial opinion based on wholly superficial "scientific" analysis by a wholly superficial politician who immediately loses credibility by trying to blame the current oil crisis solely on the Democrats. Where were the Republicans when THEY controlled not only the Congress but also the White House?? I didn't see a lick of progress toward tapping Oil Shale, ANWR or off-shore drilling.

Hatch should look hard in the mirror as there is pretty of blame for both Democrats and Republicans for the mess we are in now. The answer is painfully obvious to anyone who is not tied at the hip to special interests: Reduce/Eliminate our need for petroleum based motor vehicles. The technology also exists to accomplish this solution, Orrin, and it is a much longer term answer than oil shale.

Won't Global warming melt the oil in shale?

...planes, trains, and automobiles don't run on electricity..." Well, actually trains can and do run on electricity, very effectively and economically, and in a way sparing of the environment. Currently, most electric trains are of the light rail variety, but in past times electricity has powered even heavy freight trains, e.g. through Washington state and Montana - such stalled out for lack of capital. The rail options are very attractive and should in my view be favored over the environmental destruction of oil shale development.

"Won't Global warming melt the oil in shale?"
Perhaps, if we trigger some positive feedback loop that leaves us with a climate similar to Venus or Mercury. But we won't be too worried about oil or anything else by then.

What about a parachute? Parachute, Colorado that is. Exxon funneled over $1 Billion into the oil shale project 25 - 30 years ago and then mothballed the entire town when the price of oil dropped and Reagan killed the incentives as too expensive due to cheap crude being available. Open it up and and get it producing for 12 months and then we can stop guessing what all the impacts and cost would be. For once perhaps, reality and not ideology would decide.

Start mining on Hatch's yard FIRST.

Senator Hatch is spot on here. What many of the commentators don't seem to understand is that there is an inevitable transition period before we get to new technologies and new energy sources. It won't happen over night. This is a simple matter of physics and a lack of infrastructure that cannot be bypassed, no matter how hard "green energy" supporters wish it were different.

The responsible development of America's domestic energy sources such as oil shale, ANWR, and the resources off the Outer Continental Shelf, is a reasonable, balanced, and fiscally responsible approach to transitioning to the next generation of energy and transportation.

Sending 700 billion dollars overseas each year for energy that could be developed in our back is not good policy. And yes, it is the Democrat party that has stood in the way of developing these resources. Developing ANWR was vetoed by President Clinton ten years ago. We'd have another 1 million barrels of oil a day if he had not stood in the way. Similarly, it is Democrats in Congress today who are impeding the development of oil shale and other energy resources.

Senator Hatch should be applauded for his leadership on this issue.

Senator Hatch's letter is quite inane. If oil shale is his plan to lower gas prices, it's going to be a long time before anything happens. The price of gas is related to supply and demand. We can act on demand a lot faster than we can supply.

The fastest way to drop gas prices would be for half the nation to start carpooling. Prices would drop like a rock But Senator Hatch (and just about every other politician) is afraid to ask anything of the American people.

Oh, and Red Shirt - the brownouts in California were due to Enron manipulating the market.

Cant help but wonder what Hatch was doing for the 6 years that republicans controlled the house, senate and the white house. I guess he was busy coming up with things to blame on democrats. We could run the entire counrty on a resource that we seem to have an ample supply of, republican hot air.

All you folks talking about electric cars and wondering what Hatch has been doing the last six years should google "Hatch" and "CLEAR Act" and "Hatch" and "FREEDOM Act" You may be surprised

One out and out lie after another. His own party shut down shale incentives in the 80s to protect Big Oil. The "oil" in "shale" (neither is correct terminology) is unrecoverable anyway--not at all the same stuff as in Estonia or Brazil. It would take vast amounts of electricity and water to produce (Sandia Nat'l Lab estimates 100bbls of water to produce 1bbl of oil). When will we be rid of this Boring Senator Shill?

Anonymous - you obviously don't understand how the U.S. federal government actually works. Republicans may have had a majority in Congress and held the White House, but the didn't have 60 votes in the Senate. Do a little research and you'll realize that Democrats have filibustered or otherwise held-up virtually every pro-domestic energy bill Republicans tried to pass.

Steve Glaser - You are correct, the price of gas is related to supply and demand. If you increase supply, cost goes down - that's Economics 101. The price of a barrel of oil is also based partly on the future expectation of supply. If the U.S. were to radically adopt a plan to increase domestic supplies, even if that oil wasn't actually produced for a few years, the price of today's oil would still go down based on the markets recognition of future supply. That's Economics 201.

Oh Please - I'd love to see you point out how the oil shale in Estonia and Brazil is different than that found in the U.S.?