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Why are we still Fking with these low life scum? There was a time that a stable Iraq could have been a reality but the total ineptitude from day one of this invaision boggles the mind. What we have suceeded in doing here is spawning a civil war. Which in and of itself is not a bad thing. Muslims like to kill. It is a hobby of theirs'. Best they kill each other than us. However we are soooooooooo Fkn dependent on their oil we have to keep a stake in the region.
We have known for decades that this region is a bottle of nitro about to fall off the shelve but have done nothing to gain energy independence. We have the largest proven reserves of oil in the world yet the whiney ##### liberals that complain about Exxon profits will not allow us to tap into our own resources. The same WALs cry, b!tch and moan because we are at war to secure our economic freedom yet if they allowed us to mine our own recources the mideast would be as important as Darfur (another Muslim killing field) and we would not be at war.
The smart thing here would be a government/private sector partnership to extract our shale oil reserves and other proven wet reserves in a Manhatten style effort to make us energy independent within ten years.

But when was the last time this government did anything "smart"?

Yes. We have spawned a civil war.

But I'm not entirely sure that this wasn't inevitable when this war began. The Saudis never really wanted an America-friendly democracy in Iraq. A democracy in Iraq means two things to Saudis -- Shiites in control of Iraq (because Iraq is like 70% Shiite), and more competition for American oil markets.. (meaning Saudi oil would make less money) On top of that, Saudi Arabia has its own oppressed Shiite minority, the last thing they need is these noisy Shiites, inspired by Iraqi Shiites, causing problems inside of their own Kingdom. Worse yet, what if the Sunnis in Saudi Arabia weren't sufficiently angry at the Democratic Shiites in Iraq? What if the Sunnis in Saudi Arabia thought that Democracy was a good idea for Arabia too. The LAAAAAST thing the Saudi Kings ever want is Democracy in their Arabia.

And then there's the Iran factor. Iran doesn't want a successful Democracy in Iraq. It would only encourage the democratic institutions of Iran to begin asserting their power.

And border control is really a joke. We're not dealing with the Korean peninsula here where there's about 150 miles worth of border. Iraq's borders are wide open on all sides. 150,000 Americans would never be enough to keep out unwanted interests. 500,000 Americans would not be enough to keep out unwanted interests. The key to success in Iraq would have been to model the government more on the Iranian model.. which is quite democratic.. but still very insulated and protective of "leadership interests." I just keep worrying that it's gonna come out one day that the Iraqi constitution was written by some low-level journalist on the staff of a CIA agent who happened to be in Baghdad, a la Lansdale and his Filipino staffer in Saigon.


Amen. We sure could've used some more nuclear power or more research into fusion.. or more solar development.. We've lost quite a bit of time patting ourselves on the back with monster profits when we should have been preparing for the future. It was just never really in anyone's interest to change things.


Lets get real about this. We need energy independence, but the oil shales are not a good answer.

Forget the whole global warming story. Just don't even think about that for now. That's not even an issue.

Anywhere that you extract or refine this shale will become the nastiest, most unhealthy land you can possibly imagine. The people in Colorado, Utah and/or Wyoming (whereever we chose to start extraction) would have to deal with toxic water, toxic rainfall, toxic wildlife. The main physical byproduct of the process is a large volume of carcinogenic rock. Two tons of shale and three barrels of water are required to produce a single barrel of product-oil. That's two tons of carcinogenic byproduct and three barrels of waste water for every barrel of oil produced.

On top of that, the process of extracting and refining this material is so expensive, it negates the value of the final product -- a more or less somewhat effective fuel-oil. It's at least 10 years away from an economically viable extraction/production model. That doesn't even take into account the amount of time it would take to produce the infrastructure (new dig sites, construction of new and unique refineries, distribution) needed to commercialize this resource (which would be on the order of decades, even if you completely ignored the environmental concerns).

Nuclear power is the best way for us to deal with current energy grid demands, and nuclear power on the grid frees up oil consumption for transportation needs. In the short term I think ethanol is a good way to stretch our oil budget, but it's nowhere near a viable long-term replacement. I think the only real option for the future of transportation is hydrogen.

Don't think the US is the major oil importer from the Saudis (I could be wrong here but not by much). Lets look at the big picture here.... there are developing economies worldwide, Asia for example, that are forceing the price of oil to these levels. The US is now a part of the consumpton issue. The mideast will explode in our lifetime and if the economies that depend on their oil exports do not have alternate resources in place those economies will contract to the point of civil disorder. Guaranteed.


I refuse to accept that assessment. We could simply monitor the main crossing points and kill anythng that violates those points. We have the technology to do that.


Oh please drop the drama. Most of these deposits are west of Grand Junction and this is some of the most worthless land in the US. Besides what makes you think the only way to extract this oil is excavation and crushing? Time to think outside the box. We have 1.5 TRILLION barrels locked up in shale. we can put a man o the moon and split an atom yet we can't figure out how to extract this oil? Lets start here: Use conventional explosives to create collection points and then force the oil to these points by steam injection. Were there is a will there is a way...............

You're probably right about the first point. My point was simply that the stability of Iraq would mean lower profits and less investment for Saudi oil interests.


By "Crossing points" I assume you mean international roads or highways that could be understood as "convenient" border crossings.. Unfortunately.. Well, let's take the Mexican border for example. When people really want to get across a border.. there's very little that can be done to stop them unless you have men on the ground at picket stations, keeping eyes on the horizon at all times. And the Mexican border is actually somewhat geographically defined! In the formerly-colonized world.. borders don't really have any geographic significance. Trying to enforce this border.. it's basically like trying to maintain a secure perimeter around an arbitrarily drawn area of 200,000 square miles. The logistics alone make it a ridiculous endeavour.


Let's start with the main problem in this paragraph. The 'oil shale' contains neither 'oil' nor (generally) 'shale.' You can't create "collection points" and force "oil" out of the ground. It's a solid rock that happens to contain trace amounts of carbon compounds like kerogen -- not to be confused with kerosene.

ALL of the rock has to be removed to a location for its initial processing. They'd have to go to the site, carve off ton after ton of rock and haul it away. That means you'd have to dig up all of the useful 'oil shale' rock in the region and transport it to one of these primary processing facilities. At these facilities, the primary goal is to run all of this rock through a blast furnace. You heat up these rocks to about 700°F and you get a disgusting tar-like substance and a clump of carcinogenic rock. Also of note, after the heating process, the carcinogenic rock left over is not smaller due to the loss of hydrocarbon mass, it's actually much larger, it blows up .. like popcorn. Into a less dense (but much more toxic) material. Due to this expansion which takes place in the processed rock, it is impossible to return the resultant material to the area of extraction, even if contamination were not an issue. Basically you end up with a mountain of cancer-causing rock that you have to pile up somewhere out in the open air and rain (subject to runoff), because there's no room underground for it.

From this point, you take your disgusting hydrocarbon tar and run it through an extremely noxious refinery, which would (as I mentioned previously) have to be specially designed and built for the purpose of processing this unique tar. This is actually the worst, most environmentally disastrous part of the entire process.

And the ineffeciency of the whole concept is just staggering. Remember what I said before. Two metric tons of rock and three barrels of water are required to produce a single barrel of product fuel oil. The U.S. consumes about 7,300,000,000 barrels of oil per year. To replace even half of that annual consumption, we'd have to haul up 7 billion metric tons of rock. And that's just for half of American consumption for a single year. No nation in the world could even dig up 7 billion tons worth of rock per year. Current mining operations in America don't even dig up 1 billion tons worth of rock per year. I don't think America even digs up 100 million tons per year. And the refinery process would cost America 10 billion barrels of water per year. We really have enough water shortage problems without contributing billions of barrels annually to create cancer-causing rocks, toxic air and polluted water.

This hasn't even touched on the fact that it would take decades to set up commercial refining operations for this new resource. Oil shale is the LEAST practical solution of ALL unpractical solutions to the energy crisis.

If you mean a stable maximum oil producing Iraq you would be correct. However that will not be a reality for the forseeable future.


I'll say again we have the technology to monitor borders. The Mexican as well as the Iraqi borders. We have infrared and night vision equipment and well as drones that can deploy these assets. We have the way but not the will in both cases.



Ok Julian, here is where I take the greatest issue with you. You are locked in a box. You assume there can be only one extraction method. I prefer to look at ways things CAN be done. I don't accept that things CAN"T be done.
Check out this Link and Here
Will it work? We won't know until it is tried. My bet is yes. The oil companies have the best geologists available. And who better knows how to deal with rock?

Interesting stuff. But we do still need to consider that this fuel oil would need a new generation of commercial refineries before it arrives on the market in appreciable amounts.. I'll definitely keep my ears open for more news on the topic. And while it claims to be less damaging to our natural resources, they do still say that environmental concerns would limit use. At the very least it sounds more promising than it did.