I'm really getting tired of the anti-prosperity crowd fighting to stop any increases in our energy supplies while at the same time using these same fossil fuels themselves. These are hypocrites of the worst kind. If you are driving a car, heating your home, using electricity, then shut up and let those companies who want to bring more supply to the market do it.

I'll believe it when I see it. Oil shale supposedly has the same energy density as a baked potato, so squeezing the oil out is no gimme. It also requires lots of water, which is scarce in this part of the world.

I'm not saying it might not work, but to scale it up to 2 million, 5 million, 10 million barrels a day anytime in the next 30 years may simply be scientifically and environmentally impossible.

By all means look into the stuff, but let's be realistic at the same time.

develpment of oil shale, whether extracting it from the ground or mining and converting, takes large amounts of water and this is in a place where water is at a premium. it would get to point where we would have to decide to grow food or create oil? and i doubt whether the production would ever change the PRICE OF OIL and that's what it's all about isn't it, the PRICE OF OIL and who benefits from the PRICE OF OIL.

Why even ask what environmentalists are going to say about oil shale, drilling, or anything else that actually generates energy? We know they will oppose it. We know that they do not compromise on anything. We know that they will do whatever they can to stop, stall, or derail construction of anything that will build our economy.

"We can't drill our way out" of our energy problems, they say. A nice ciche that has caught on--and that has some truth. Drilling isn't the only answer, but it is part of the answer. Oil shale isn't the only answer, but it is part of the answer.

I propose a new cliche: "We can't conserve our way out" of our energy problems. That is not the answer, but only a part of the answer.

"and this is in a place where water is at a premium. it would get to point where we would have to decide to grow food or create oil?"

Utah doesn't produce a heck of a lot of food as it is, compared with the amount of highly productive farmland we would have to set aside to produce ethanol on a massive scale.

Also, I think that if oil prices stay high, a domestic source of oil shale will bring a much greater economic benefit to the country than ranching those federal lands would. How many people do you think are going to still be eating steak when gas is $15 a gallon anyway?

As for the price of oil, well if you insist on not believing in supply and demand, I can't change your mind. Unfortunately a lot of elected officials don't seem to understand the concept either, hence the opposition to new drilling.

add another dam on the green river or colorado, use the resevoir for water for shale. what isnt used use it for electricity. talk about renewable water is the most renewable. some places have too much water some have too little but it is always there.

We need energy, unless we are to return to using horses and the ox.

China and India are building freeways and buying lots of cars, with our money. They are buying lots of oil too.

Water is only one way to extract oil from shale.
Look at 'Petrosix' and see how 8,600 tons of oil shale are being processed every day in Brazil.

In the pioneer days they read by candle light. We could save a lot of electricity that way as we compute and watch TV. And, teensgers back then didn't ask to borrow the van or SUV!

We already have the technology so that in the near future every car in this country could be battery powered. Forget wasting water, land and the environment and put the money and time into developing clean energy.

I am all for wind farms. Near Palm Springs there is a wind farm with hundreds of wind mills. Imagine how much oil and fuel we could save by using wind power. This would allow us to save the fuel for our vehicles, which would buy us some time to develop new fuels for vehicles, such as hydrogen. It's been very foolish to rely on biofuels. I could never understand using our food as fuel for our cars.

How many of us can right now afford to go out and buy a hybrid, even if there were enough of them to go around?

It's not realistic to expect everyone to have the means to change their cars in the next year. If we can use the wind to provide our electricity, it will allow us to use that fuel elsewhere until we can make the necessary changes.

Bob you have to deal with the Colorado Compact to build a dam. Then, you need tax dollars to build it. That would be socialism.

If you could build a dam, any water behind the dam and used for oil shale would not make it to Lake Powell or Mead. There would be less power from Glen Canyon and so on.

Today, we lose 900,000 acre feet in evaporation from Powell and Mead. We would loose as water vapor enough water for over 1,00,000 people.

Because of the government being afraid of competing with private coal burning/nuclear/other polluting power plants, the Glen Canyon Dam does not produce a lot of power. Until the average voter has a lobby, there won't be a change for the better.

Electric cars are fine, but where does the electricity come from? The electricity right now is not any more environmentally friendly or cheap, unless you use nuclear which is trading one environmental problem for another. The only other way to produce electicity for about as cheap is more dams, and who wants that? We need some real solutions and we need the government out of the habit of throwing money to the rich and start focusing on the average citizen.

Electric cars run on batteries that do not have to be pluged into the wall. The gas moter recharges the batteries, the Prius right now gets almost 50 miles to the gallon and it's just a first generation car. Like it or not gas powered cars will be a thing of the past.

Everyone likes to repeat the mantra that oil shale development requires a lot of water. Most of the water needed is to support the workers extracting the oil, not because the process itself requires large amounts of water.

I would rather be sending water to eastern Utah than dollars to the middle east, thanks just the same.

Has there been drilling in Emery County and if so, has there been oil found?

Tell the environmentalists to go cry in their beer, get out of the way, and let us do what needed to be done years ago. Complete and full responsibility for our energy crisis lies squarely in the lap of, not Pres. Bush, not the oil companies, not the Arabs--but the environmentalists of the world. They deserve our scorn.