Bakken Formation

[snopes]

Comment: Is this true?

Important - read all this message if you are fed up with gas prices and willing to do something about it!

Friends:
Check this out. Just imagine if this was to develop. We could see fuel in the $1.00/gallon range. Political nightmare? Why have our politicians not pushed hard for this development?? Who is reaping the profits while the middle class pays and pays more daily? Could it be that our politicians have allowed the oil companies to ignore this vast supply in exchange for "contributions"?? Take five or ten minutes to copy and send this email to ten of your friends and to all your federal representatives and senators. Let's start a "grassroots" movement, to stop this huge rip-off and to maintain our way of life before it is too late!!!!

Subject: Williston Basin

1. Ever heard of the Bakken Formation? GOOGLE it. I did, and again, it BLEW my mind. The U.S. Geological Service issued a report in April ('08) that only scientists and oilmen/women knew was coming, but was it big. It was a revised report (hadn't been updated since '95) on how much oil was in this area of the western 2/3 of North Dakota; western South Dakota; and extreme eastern Montana ... check THIS out:

The Bakken is the largest domestic oil discovery since Alaska's Prudhoe Bay, and has the potential to eliminate all American dependence on foreign oil. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates it at 503 billion barrels. Even if just 10% of the oil is recoverable... at $107 a barrel, we're looking at a resource base worth more than $5.3 trillion.

"When I first briefed legislators on this, you could practically see their jaws hit the floor. They had no idea." says Terry Johnson, the Montana Legislature's financial analyst.
"This sizeable find is now the highest-producing onshore oil field found in the past 56 years," reports The Pittsburgh Post Gazette.

It's a formation known as the Williston Basin, but is more commonly referred to as the "Bakken." And it stretches from Northern Montana, through North Dakota and into Canada.

For years, U.S. oil exploration has been considered a dead end. Even the "Big Oil" companies gave up searching for major oil wells decades ago. However, a recent technological breakthrough has opened up the Bakken's massive reserves... and we now have access of up to 500 billion barrels. And because this is light, sweet oil, those billions of barrels will cost Americans just $16 PER BARREL!

That's enough crude to fully fuel the American economy for 41 years straight.

2. And if THAT didn't throw you on the floor, then this next one should - because it's from TWO YEARS AGO, people!]

U.S. Oil Discovery- Largest Reserve in the World!
Stansberry Report Online - 4/20/2006
Hidden 1,000 feet beneath the surface of the Rocky Mountains
lies the largest untapped oil reserve in the world is more
than 2 TRILLION barrels.
On August 8, 2005 President Bush
mandated its extraction.

Unbelievable - read on

They reported this stunning news: We have more oil inside our borders, than all the other proven reserves on earth. Here are the official estimates:

-8-times as much oil as Saudi Arabia
-18-times as much oil as Iraq
-21-times as much oil as Kuwait
-22-times as much oil as Iran
-500-times as much oil as Yemen - and it's all right here in the Western United States.
HOW can this BE!? HOW can we NOT BE extracting this!? Because we've not +D E M A N D E D +Legislation to come out of Washington allowing its extraction, that's why!
James Bartis, lead researcher with the study says we've got more oil in this very compact area than the entire Middle East -more than 2 TRILLION barrels. Untapped. That's more than all the proven oil reserves of crude oil
in the world today, reports The Denver Post.

----
Don't think "Big Oil" will drop its price - even with this find? Think again! It's all about the competitive marketplace, and if they can extract it (here) for less, they can afford to sell it for less - and if they DON'T, others will. It will come down - it has to.
----

Got your attention/ire up yet? Hope so! Now, while you're thinking about it ... and hopefully upset enough to take some action--------------

3. Take 5-10 minutes and compose an e-mail; fax or good old-fashioned letter to our elected officials in Washington ... and their respected leaders. We'll start with them, and here's how you can send them your e-mail/fax, DEMANDING the immediate Legislation/an Energy PLAN that calls for tapping into these (OUR OWN!) Reserves. Technology ain't what it used to be people (ever had arthroscopic surgery?). They can surgically extract OUR oil, and get us on the way to at least some measure of Energy independence.

If you don't take a little time to do this, then you should stifle yourself the next time you want to complain about gas prices ... because by doing NOTHING, you've forfeited your right to complain.

[musicgeek]

It's already being drilled. It's in oil shale. The "technically recoverable estimates," while they may be accurate, also recognize that extraction from oil shale is far more complex and costly than oil recovery from traditional "gusher" type wells. It's not light, sweet, oil; it's ultimately a synthetic oil produced by mechanical and chemical processes. The $16/barrel figure cited in the OP is BS.

[Natalie]

I think the disconnect between this:

Originally Posted by snopes

and has the potential to eliminate all American dependence on foreign oil.

and this:

That's enough crude to fully fuel the American economy for 41 years straight.

So we get to be totally independent from foreign oil... for 40 years. Woo hoo!

Can't we do something better about our energy system in 41 years? No? We're just going to keep using a non renewable resource, until it's all gone? Then what happens?

[snapdragonfly]

Originally Posted by Natalie

I think the disconnect between this:

and this:

So we get to be totally independent from foreign oil... for 40 years. Woo hoo!

Can't we do something better about our energy system in 41 years? No? We're just going to keep using a non renewable resource, until it's all gone? Then what happens?

Who cares? It'll *never* be 41 years from now!! Here we are with a magic cure that won't require ANY of us to make any changes at all and you crazy environazi lefto pinkocommiefags won't let us do it. Why do you hate America?

[Natalie]

Originally Posted by snapdragonfly

Who cares? It'll *never* be 41 years from now!!

Hey, does that mean I'll never grow older? Sweeeeeet.

[Sly Dog]

Originally Posted by snapdragonfly

Who cares? It'll *never* be 41 years from now!! Here we are with a magic cure that won't require ANY of us to make any changes at all and you crazy environazi lefto pinkocommiefags won't let us do it. Why do you hate America?

The trillions of dollars we are spending of foreign oil is money burned in a fire, or worse used by hostile States to construct the means to continue to bleed us.

Spend that money at home. Use it to develop an alternative to fossel fuels.

Disengage from Middle East politics. By not being dependent on the region for our energy we greatly reduce the friction points. There becomes no reason to meddle in their affairs.

Heal our own wounds. Stop the war and end the harshest division among our own people. Create jobs. Generate tax revenue and reduce the public debt.

But take a lesson from the 70's oil crisis. This time when we start working on developing alternatives, don't quit like we did then. We would have the technology today to be energy independent and much cleaner too but OPEC dropped the price and we took the easy way out.

[Silas Sparkhammer]

Originally Posted by Sly Dog

The trillions of dollars we are spending of foreign oil is money burned in a fire . . .

Almost literally; we buy oil...and then burn it. However, this fire does power our entire economy. It isn't "wasted" money. We're getting fairly good value for it.

But, yes, certainly, we should be investing in alternatives, and Middle East chaos is one reason among many.

(Does it give anyone else a twinge of discomfort when observing that there are significant Uranium fields in Russia and central Africa? Would we be getting out of one disunited, chaotic, hate-filled, feuding region...only to get into two others?)

Silas

[A Turtle Named Mack]

Originally Posted by Silas Sparkhammer

(Does it give anyone else a twinge of discomfort when observing that there are significant Uranium fields in Russia and central Africa? Would we be getting out of one disunited, chaotic, hate-filled, feuding region...only to get into two others?)

Silas

I was under the impression that the USA has plenty of uranium deposits to last for centuries - and even further with fast neutron reactors

[Wild Redhead]

Originally Posted by A Turtle Named Mack

I was under the impression that the USA has plenty of uranium deposits to last for centuries - and even further with fast neutron reactors

We have some of the biggest Uranium deposits in the world. The biggest problem is extracting it isn't an environmentally clean process. Fast neutron reactors use it much more efficiently but people are stuck on Chernobyl and Three Mile island and are still afraid of nuclear power. What most people don't realize is that the Chernobyl accident was caused by human error. They decided to experiment and turned off all the safety and warning equipment and then pulled the rods without allowing for cool down. Three Mile Island was actually a success story. It worked just as it was designed to and no significant amount of radiation was released during that time. By studying the incident at Three Mile island they managed to make improvements in the system and nuclear energy is even safer now. Of course, they have to store the spent product for 900 years before it is no longer a danger.