The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel
October 26, 2011, John Hesse

The companies involved in the last oil shale boom still own 20 percent of the state’s oil shale land, still have the designs for the processes, still have Colorado River water rights and have plenty of money to make oil shale happen in the near future, if it were economic to do so.

According to industry insiders at a recent oil shale symposium in Grand Junction, technological advances and increased demand is the reason for interest in western Colorado’s oil shale. They claimed federal policies were getting in the way of their progress.

Recent experiments have succeeded by using huge amounts electricity to make tiny quantities of exceedingly expensive oil. Other experiments have failed to get off the ground or even break ground. These efforts have been ongoing for 100 years.

Oil and gas production has increased in the last several years, but oil shale is still stagnant. Oil production from shale has been “10 to 15 years away” for a very long time, and I think it always will be. If energy companies could produce oil, they have the resources to make it happen. The only thing standing in their way is the rock. They have failed to create jobs or generate income because they have failed to produce energy.