For a definition of insanity just look to the US Congress and it’s energy policies of “just saying no” to oil drilling. You can include all the Democrats in this insanity and add enough Republicans to the mix to complete the disconnect.

But now, Senator Byron Dorgan seems to be saying it’s okay for North Dakota but not for ANWAR or US coasts. There’s a major new find of oil shale in North Dakota.

The Democrats’ Shale Game

A North Dakota field holds at least 4 billion barrels of oil and possibly much more. But its Democratic senator demonstrates his party’s schizophrenia on energy, preaching independence while doing nothing to achieve it.

snip…..The USGS estimates that the shale formation straddling western North Dakota and Montana contains 3.65 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil.

The oil is trapped in a thin layer of dense rock nearly two miles beneath the surface. The USGS estimate may be conservative and is based on current technology.

snip….Leigh Price, a USGS scientist, authored a study before his death in 2000 estimating that the entire formation, which extends into Saskatchewan and Manitoba, may hold up to 500 billion barrels of recoverable oil, an amount that dwarf’s the 16 billion barrels in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).

The technology to retrieve it is sophisticated. Rather than sitting in large underground reservoirs, the oil is trapped in microscopic pores of rock, and companies must force pressurized fluid and sand into the earth to break the pores in the rock. The extraction technology and production process also is not cheap.

In a press release announcing the study results, North Dakota Democratic Sen. Byron Dorgan said:

“The substantial amount of oil that it estimates is in the Bakken Shale should attract significant new investment to this region. This is an exciting time for North Dakota’s oil industry. We’re going to see new growth that will boost our economy and help our country shed its dependence on foreign oil.”

Apparently there aren’t many pristine areas or caribou in North Dakota.

This is a senator who has opposed drilling in a tiny portion of ANWR’s frozen tundra.

IBD continues with another editorial telling us about all the oil exploration and planning taking place around the world, everyplace but in the US. There is no planning by our Congress for US energy independence. They are so short sighted to believe that some how or another our economy will drive on without petroleum yet scream about the GWOT saying it’s all about oil. They continue to ignore the writing on the wall and the Chinese government drilling for oil less than 50 miles from US waters in Cuba.

Drilling The Future

America’s energy crunch is sadly self-inflicted. While others around the world engage in a mad dash to find more oil reserves, the U.S. seems to think $111-a-barrel oil won’t be affected by more supply.

snip…..Conventional wisdom is that the U.S. has just 30 billion barrels of oil left, enough for just 10 years of pumping at current rates. Sounds pretty bleak, but that figure is ludicrously low. Just last week, a new report concluded that the Bakken oil basin, stretching from North Dakota and Montana into Canada, contains an estimated 4 billion-plus barrels of oil.

Colorado and Utah are estimated to contain as much as 1.2 trillion barrels of oil trapped in shale below ground. They’re not counted as “recoverable” reserves because until recently they weren’t economical. Today they are.

snip…..Offshore U.S. sources hold as much as 10 billion barrels of untapped oil, while the 2,000 acres of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge have as much as 16 billion — enough to replace 30 years of Middle East imports.

Many estimate that just under 1 trillion barrels of oil remain to be pumped. But a U.S. Geological Survey four years ago put the amount worldwide at 3 trillion.

We need oil. It’s the lifeblood of our economy. And fortunately we have lots of it. But because of Congress’ unwillingness to go after it, we’re leaving billions of barrels untapped, driving up prices and causing untold economic hardship. This madness must end.

Yet Congress continues to force feed ethanol down our throats by giving away welfare to farmers and tax subsidies to the ethanol producers all the while causing unintended consequences of soaring food prices world wide. And why are these maroons running ruining our country and thus our lives?

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