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Bush eyes Utah oil shale

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Kenny | 12:44 a.m. June 19, 2008
I don�t know how Democrats can claim that they are the champions of the poor and middle class when they prevent new drilling and exploration of oil which would increase supply and thus bring down the outrageously high gas prices that are suffocating those who can least afford it.

Memo to Congress: DO SOMETHING!
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Ridgerunner | 3:25 a.m. June 19, 2008
GWB has been a great president in my opinion. He is right about energy (including this issue). He is right about terrorism. He is right about tax cuts. He is right about same sex marriage. He is right about the second amendment. He right about activist judges in our judicial system. He is a good and decent man who did an impossible job. I hope someday I can thank him personally, shake his hand and look him in the eye. His critics have not been honest in their criticisms.
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Anonymous | 4:11 a.m. June 19, 2008
If oil shell is not viable for at least five years, it should be worked on. As long as producing it does not require to take water out of the Colorado river. The west is dry enough as it is.

Forget ANWAR there is not enough oil there to make it worth ruining it.

Lets start drilling the coastal waters tomorrow. Only to lessen our dependancy on foreign oil. Keep gas prices high to force development of alternate energy, it is the only way that it will happen.
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(Snake) Oil Shale | 4:47 a.m. June 19, 2008
What's it take to get oil from shale?

Enormous coal-fired power plants and huge amounts of water.

Meaningful quantities of oil from shale (a highly doubtful scenario) would come at a staggering cost, both financially and environmentally.

How typical of the Bush administration to trot out this tired old snake oil routine as a distraction during an election year.
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IM | 5:01 a.m. June 19, 2008
Thank you Chris Cannon! This is great. DRILL HERE, DRILL NOW!

I'm voting for Cannon on June 24th!
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Baza Bamboozling | 5:04 a.m. June 19, 2008
Baza's claim that beginning to develop oil shale inito crude won't relieve current gas prices because production is still a few years down the road is bunk. The oil markey is a futures market, driven wild by speculation over where production will come from in the future and whether supplies will be ample or limited. Aggressively developing the ability to produce crude from shale sends a strong signal to speculators in oil futures that OPEC won't be the king of the hill much longer. OPEC in turn will see its dominance fading fast, since the U.S. is still the largest single market, and will be forced to drop its prices to develop goodwill among U.S. consumers in advance of shale/crude production cutting into their profits.

Starting to aggressively seek domestic oil sources is the right thing to do, whether it takes a year, 5 years, or 20 years. We cannot continue to rely on foreign oil.
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Eugene | 5:06 a.m. June 19, 2008
So when will the huddled masses realize that the Democrats and environmentalists have caused our lack of a cohesive energy plan? President Bush should rescind the executive order banning some oil drilling and enact one of his own that bars frivolous environmental lawsuits filed to only delay projects, streamline the application process for nuclear plants and refineries and lift all bans on domestic drilling. He can do this under the national security guidelines. Doing so now would drop oil prices in half immediately since the speculators are controlling the price, not supply and demand. Even knowing that significant domestic oil would be coming on line in 5-10 years would quash the speculators and cause OPEC to immediately increase production in order to make halt the American demand for developing more domestic oil. OPEC needs us to be dependent on their oil.
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Ardent | 5:38 a.m. June 19, 2008
to Kenny: It is because they are so used to not telling the truth, that's how. They are used to being able to tell us what they want us to believe and so many have fallen for their dishonesty that they think they are immune. Ha! More ane more are discovering the lies in them. They truth is hard to come by in the liberal dem party we have these days... Yesterday just proves my point in the response they gave to President Bush. No conscience I think to remind them what they SHOULD do.
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michaelh | 6:02 a.m. June 19, 2008
The Democrats are doing something; remember Obama�s change we can believe in. We will not be able to drive, eat or heat and cool our homes as we have done in the past. The Democrats are trying to enrage the voters thinking that they will win because they are the party of change. We can only hope that the nation will shake off the stupor and realize that the Democrats are with malice aforethought causing famines. Not just in energy but food as well.
We are the United States of America we can do anything we put our mind to if we can just get the miserable leftist Democrats out of our way.
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Why? | 6:13 a.m. June 19, 2008
I don't understand, and I want an answer as to "Why", the Chinese are allowed to drill oil off the coast of Florida (sideways under Florida) but we are not allowed to drill the same oil because the liberal Democrates won't allow it due to environmental protection? Why? What happens if the Chinese, Wait! let me re-phrase that, What happens WHEN the Chinese spill oil off the coast of Florida? do you think they will clean up our coasts? We need to regulate and control drilling off the coasts of the United State and NOT other counrties. Do you think China would allow us to drill off their coasts? Not a chance.
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The Market | 6:19 a.m. June 19, 2008
If you increase supply I lower my price. If you decrease demand I lower my price. If you do both then I accelerate the rate at which I lower my price. Additional Memo to Congress: Do less, that is, remove obstacles to allow me to bring prices down. I am a very powerful thing, I brought you things like low cost phone service with tons of added features. The greatest cure for high prices is high prices.
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Lynn | 6:31 a.m. June 19, 2008
It sounds like Mr. John Baza has joined the rest of the Democrats in opposing anything that represents an improvement to our lifestyle. I do not believe anyone is saying that processing oil from shale is a refined process today, but if we keep waiting forever, we will never capitalize on the opportunity to do something that really can help us. Same is true of nuclear, wind, hydro, solar and CNG in our vehicles. We need to be working on every one of these as well as ways to produce commercial hydrogen. If congress wants to show that they really care, then there should be some legislation and dollars focused on every possible approach we have to dig ourselves out of this problem.
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Needs heat energy and water | 6:52 a.m. June 19, 2008
The heat and water needed to produce oil out of shale will need to come from Utah's energy and agricultural sectors. We'll also need to drastically increase our energy power production to generate the heat necessary to squeeze the oil out of stone -- perhaps more wind power, solar energy, and geothermal (energy sources that don't require excessive amounts of water like coal and natural gas)? Heaven knows, we can't get a coal-plant going here in Utah, so oil shale could be the spark for getting Utah's renewables going! If oil shale won't impact oil markets for three to five years, I wonder how electric plug-in cars will impact the oil market in 2010? The growing waiting lists and consumer demand clammering to get them -- electricity is only 1/4 the cost of gas today -- is destined to impact oil prices in the next three to five years as well (just as regular hybrids are helping to curb oil prices today through reducded demand). Will oil shale still be economically viable? Bush says America's addicted to oil -- I guess the cure is simply more oil... whatever happened to the Republicanism "just say no!" motto for addiction?
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To Kenny: | 7:03 a.m. June 19, 2008
Anyone who blames a party for anything is missing the truth. Parties are the problem itself and when you take a side you are as bad as the politicians you accuse.

Democrats are anti poor now? You need a history lesson and you need to start looking at what Republicans have done with their president for the past 10 years. The Rep. congress didn't drill either DID THEY!?

I guess the truth only suits Utahns when they want.

I am LDS, I'm Paleo-Conservative, I'm buying a hydrogen car as a better alternative to feeding oil companies. Conservative does NOT mean republican. I'm not a democrat either. Conservative has a meaning which most Utahns are so hypocritical about now that they forget why they were conservative to begin with.

Gay rights and Abortion are not the only two things we should talk about. Price of Gas before Bush was 1.47 the month before his inauguration. This doesn't mean it is undoubtedly his fault or anything like that. But this certainly shows how long that he and his republican congress had to help the economy and did nothing. They crushed America. You can't see that then your blind. Corruption & Greed.
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liberal larry | 7:03 a.m. June 19, 2008
One thing that Bush, and many of the delusional posters here aren't saying, is that, oil from shale oil will be expensive. They may possibly develop in situ methods of mining shale oil, but I've heard estimates of shale oil coming in at $95.00 dollars per barrel. Plus current mining techniques use a lot of water and produce huge quantities of waste rock containing acids and other noxious compounds.

We have plenty of energy, just not cheap, energy.
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Brother Chuck Schroeder | 7:10 a.m. June 19, 2008
If the the equivalent of about 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil sits in the oil shale of the Green River Basin that crosses Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, and it's more than three times larger than the proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia, plus they have the technology to make oil shale production more affordable and efficient, tell the environmentalist's "we are drilling" - now go hug a tree in the forest along with AlGore and the rest of the Obamaism thumb sucker's and liberal's, that sit back and "do nothing" plus block what is good for America and its people and play their blame game all the time and get paid for it. The american people is tired of it, and ani't gonna take it anymore. The moral majority says "start drilling now."

MEMO TO CONGRESS: GIT-R-DONE Today.
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ST. GEORGE | 7:18 a.m. June 19, 2008
Ridgerunner | 3:25 a.m. June 19, 2008

Are you kidding me? This President has destroyed our way of life over the past 8 years. All his programs are INFLATIONARY, spending on Military, Border Control, Immigration, Police, etc., spending that produces no goods and services for the public, but injects Billions of Dollars into the system.

His Energy policy has been tailored to bring about two things: 1) Immense profits for BIG OIL, 2) Break into ANWR (future immense PROFITS FOR BIG OIL).

AFFORDABLE SUSTAINABLE OIL is a thing of the past�time to move on, and start investing in the new AMERICAN ENERGY REVELUTION.

We need to give land grants of Federal Land to Municipalies for the construction of clean renewable electric power plants, solar, wind, geo-thermal. We need the Federal Government to spend $40 Billion per year on generating and delivery systems for the next 20 years. We need the Federal Government to build a MagLev train system for transportation of goods and people.

ONLY WITH THESE PROVISIONS SHOULD BIG OIL, BE ALLOWED TO DRILL ON THE COASTS.

VOTE ONLY ONLY FOR THOSE CANDIDATES THAT PLEDGE TO END THE OIL BASED ECONOMY.
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Baza isn't being helpful | 7:20 a.m. June 19, 2008
Baza is being down right antiproductive and is standing in the way of allowing Americans to stand up and make a way for families to have a way to feed their families.

We are finding that alternative energy sources; wind, solar, fuel cells, all will have their own problems with the environment. There are certain elements needed to convert these sources to be useable sources and they will have to be mined in greater portions. This will cause other taxing problems on our envirnonment.

We all hope for some way that won't tax the envirnonment in harmful ways. When you look at all the alternatives thouroughly oil still is a great source to be used.

Currenlty Canada produces millions of barrels every year without hurting the environment in harmful ways. Our (intermountain region) source of tar sands and oil shale is of higher quality in many places than Canada's also.

What is Baza's real agenda here, and others that stand up and say we shouldn't even try to develop America's vast resources?
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GWB | 7:22 a.m. June 19, 2008
It�s amazing how people can claim that Bush is such a wonderful president because of tax cuts. They don�t realize that the so called tax cuts are actually tax deferrals. Mr. Bush has borrowed more money than all the presidents before him combined in order to hide his �tax cuts.� Someone will eventually have to pay off those tax cuts and it�s your children and grand children. He is the worst example of a fiscal conservative in the history of the Republican Party. McBush will be worse. Borrow and spend seems to be the rally cry in Washington today.
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Miserable Leftist | 7:23 a.m. June 19, 2008
This miserable leftist democrat would love to see the kerogen shales developed. Worthless scrub with a few farms and ranches, the biggest tax scam of all. This will bring jobs. Now and again, you can see a piece of machinery on I15 going down the road, as long as a flatdeck and 1.5 lanes wide. It is half a truck box, or something similar, labelled for places like Albian Sands or Tar Island or Mildred Lake. I worked in the Oil Sands; the footprint of unconventional oil development is huge. It needs lots of power, and lots of water. You can have a minesite as big as Delaware. Good luck trying to get this going in a state where a power line or wind turbine is unacceptable because it spoils the view.
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