America has many different energy resources that have been overlooked and underutilized. To implement the Pickens Plan, Boone says we need to marshal every single one of them. You’ve been a big proponent of oil shale. Tell us more about this energy resource.
Oil shale is a resource that has been overlooked and underestimated by just about everybody, until recently. Let’s face it, the world is getting very close to coming up short in its oil supply. We are seeing a global economic slowdown at the moment. However, once the global economy heats up again, we will see higher and higher prices at the pump.

We were all concerned about the $700 billion economic package our government passed recently. But our citizens have been paying that amount to our foreign oil suppliers every year. At least the economic package funding will be spent in this country. As for the money going to foreign governments who are willing to develop their own oil resources, we will never see it again. By relying on foreign oil, we are literally draining our own economy permanently to fund the rise of our not-so-friendly international competitors.

Oil shale is one of the few resources that is available in such large quantities that it could actually address the gap between global supply and demand. By aggressively tapping into this resource, we could help to put our nation on a firmer footing to face our international competitors into the next two or three decades.

Has technology made oil shale a more feasible energy resource today?
In most cases doing something new and important doesn’t hinge on technology, it hinges on economics. If the economic fundamentals are in place, then technology tends to rise up to meet the challenge.

When President Jimmy Carter began the big oil shale push in the ’70s, he based his decision not on technology, but on the fact that oil prices were high and oil shale was economical. Technology was not a barrier. Then the Saudis flooded the oil market and dropped the price down below $10 a barrel. Well, even conventional oil wells weren’t economical at that price, so President Carter’s oil shale project failed, but it wasn’t due to a lack of technology.

Brazil has produced oil from oil shale for more than 30 years with a technology that is good on air quality and it is only getting better. Estonia has successfully produced oil shale on a large commercial scale for 80 years, and we were ready to do it in the ’70s until the economics went away. So, yes, we have a number of off-the-shelf technologies ready to go. The thing that makes it exciting is that all the companies focusing on oil shale in the U.S. that I know about are taking the technology to an entire new level. I’ve seen more than six different approaches being pursued and developed by various companies, and they are all very focused on air quality and the use of little or no water.

Some of the folks using the technology argument against oil shale are extreme environmental groups that don’t have the foggiest idea what is really going on with the technology. They’re not interested in the technology; they just want to stop oil shale development because they oppose fossil fuels.

How many barrels of foreign oil could oil shale possibly replace?
Oil shale is different from conventional oil because we basically know exactly where the oil shale is and how much is there. There is no real “exploration” involved with oil shale, so there’s one less step needed in its development. In Utah, Colorado and Wyoming there are about three trillion barrels of oil in place. How much is recoverable depends somewhat on economics, which drives technology.

The Department of Energy made a very conservative estimate of more than 800 billion barrels, and the price of oil was about $40 a barrel at the time. The estimators admitted to me that it was a conservative estimate. Most experts predict that there is somewhere between one and two trillion barrels of recoverable oil in the Intermountain West with most of it being in Colorado.

Considering that the total world proven reserves are at about 1.6 trillion barrels, oil shale has tremendous potential.

How long would it take to scale up oil shale exploration and production?
Normally economics would determine that. The fundamentals of supply and demand call for the quick development of oil shale. However, 73 percent of American oil shale is on federal lands, and policymakers continue to put up artificial barriers to its development. Lacking artificial barriers, it would still take a few years for the first companies to demonstrate their latest technologies and then scale them up to full scale commercial operations. After that, the market and environmental regulations would determine the speed that development could increase. Even though most oil shale is on federal lands, the current law, which I wrote, gives each governor and local officials a lot of control over the pace of development in their respective states.

What sort of job creation would oil shale mean to America?
Per barrel of oil, shale production would probably bring about the same amount of job creation that oil and gas development brings. After that,  it all depends on how fast the fundamentals of energy supply and demand will push oil shale development.

What would expanding the oil shale industry mean to American-based companies?
For one, it has already begun to stimulate a whole new industry focused strictly on oil shale development. There are a number of larger oil companies taking oil shale seriously, but the most aggressive players, by far, are the small-  to medium-sized companies going out and securing the investment and engineers necessary to be successful. Because 72 percent of the world’s oil shale resides in the United States, I have no doubt that our nation will lead the world in the most advanced technologies in this field.

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