North Dakota Bakken Formation Oil Potential

This report of an estimated 4.3 billion barrels in that rock of the Bakken Shield has Ed Schulz all a'twitter. (Ed Schulz, a 'progressive' talk show host from Fargo, North Dakota, has taken the noon to 3 p.m. slot here on Air America; his voice and mannerisms, such as knocking on his desk, so resemble limbaugh's that for quite a long time I thought the broadcast band had reversed itself and instead of this station I'd gotten WABC -- Oh, and Randi Rhodes is gone like the new AA people wanted. What a disaster these liberals have made out of what is supposed to be a progressive radio network).

From Business Week:

[ The Bakken shale formation encompasses some 25,000 square miles in North Dakota, Montana, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. About two-thirds of the acreage is in western North Dakota, where the oil is trapped in a thin layer of dense rock nearly two miles beneath the surface. ]

However, this oil in in shale rock, 2 miles below the surface. How recoverable it is, despite what Schulz is saying, is questionable -- cost, technology, etc.

Nevertheless in an oil gluttonous world it could be significant. But would this be good for anybody, really? Environmentally and even locally? Would North Dakota get any benefit from the extraction? Look at what's happened in places like Nigeria, for instance. The local people get worse conditions of living, not better. And in the end they're left with a destroyed environment.

In any case shouldn't we be pouring all our resources into alternative power, not in prolonging at terrible cost of pollution and economics this system that is a failed system? At this point it's a power monopoly of massive corruption and destruction. This isn't going to be reversed because the oil is under North Dakota, Montana, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Schultz is all yippydippy at the idea that the state can control this extraction and own its own oil refinery. Sooooo, who has the resources, blahblahblah to do this? You know those names, the ones that have taken over Iraq, and this isn't giving the Iraqis any income or benefit. Shoot, they have oil shortage.

Schultz comes across as uneducated and uninformed. He's not considering any of these issues.

Shoot, we were taught about that oil back when I was in middle-school in North Dakota We always knew it was there, so this isn't even really news. What is news is that Senator Dorgan (D) insisted on getting an up-to-date geologic assessment of these deposits.