Are Americas vast oil shale resources a potential source of energy?
20-06-09 Oil shale is a fine-grained sedimentary rock that contains significant amounts of kerogen, a solid mixture of organic chemical compounds that can be converted into synthetic liquid fuel similar to oil, or into shale gas similar to petroleum-derived natural gas. Geologists believe there is more oil shale out there in the rocks of the world — 3 tn barrels worth of fuel-than there is oil in existing reserves globally. Oil shale has been mined extensively in Brazil, China, Estonia, Germany, Israel and Russia, but up to two-thirds of the world’s supply lies in the Green River basin of the western United States, including parts of Wyoming, Utah and Colorado. To date, these American oil shale resources remain virtually untapped, but an 11th hour executive order by the Bush administration in 2008 put two mm acres of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land across Wyoming, Utah and Colorado up for lease to oil shale extractors. Other nations with oil shale reserves have been mining them f
