The oil shale reserves (not including reserves in the gulf, ANWAR, etc) in the US dwarf the oil reserves in any other country. I have seen estimates that range as high as 3 TRILLION barrels.
Here is a snippet from a study done regarding the reserves available in the basin area of Colorado, Wyoming and Utah.
The largest known oil shale deposits in the world are in the Green River Formation,
which covers portions of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. Estimates of the oil
resource in place within the Green River Formation range from 1.5 to 1.8 trillion
barrels. Not all resources in place are recoverable. For potentially recoverable oil shale
resources, we roughly derive an upper bound of 1.1 trillion barrels of oil and a lower
bound of about 500 billion barrels. For policy planning purposes, it is enough to
know that any amount in this range is very high. For example, the midpoint in our
estimate range, 800 billion barrels, is more than triple the proven oil reserves of Saudi
Arabia. Present U.S. demand for petroleum products is about 20 million barrels per
day. If oil shale could be used to meet a quarter of that demand, 800 billion barrels
of recoverable resources would last for more than 400 years.
I agree that we need to conserve, reduce emmissions, etc, etc. But, we also need to go after the oil reserves we have in our own back yard. We could become TOTALLY energy independent if we chose to. Use our own reserves and our own refineries for America first, then worry about the rest of the world. The politicians and environmentalists need to get off their arses and go after the reserves sitting right under our noses, refine it in our refineries and stop buying from the likes of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela, etc.
It can be done if our representatives in Washington have the intestinal fortitude to think strategically and globally versus politically covering their own worthless arses.
