The search for oil: The West

Submitted by Laharl on July 10, 2009 - 8:05am

I found a rather recent article on Scientific American website about oil, natural gas, and uranium drillers heading to the West/Mid West of the United States to tap into "forgotten resources" in an attempt to help America become less attatched to our oil selling enemies.
What's the real point? This drilling polluted water for every 1 in 12 Americans.
 
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-the-wests-energy-bo...

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Comments

One of the problems with computers is that in order to get a clear picture of a problem you must read so darn many articles. Take the comment in Scientific American about the water pollution due to shale oil recovery. It tells only a half truth. There is the potential for water pollution, true, but the Shell Oil Co., which has rights to that recovery operation, has spent millions developing a methodology to protect the aquifer while extracting the oil. As far as I know, there has been no extraction to date, but I could be behind the times on that one.
Concerning the Colorado River water supply. It is governed by a consortium of several states and the city of Phoenix. Under the agreement of the consortium each state gets a set percentage of the available water, Phoenix for some reason is not bound totally by the agreement. The water has become in short supply recently, but not because of oil explorations. The climate is achanging. After 20 years of unusually wet periods, the area is returning to its more desert like climate. The River is drying up. Lake Powell, one of the larger reservoirs, is some 40 feet below reservoir pool. Lake Meade is about the same. A large part of the pollution comes from crop irrigation, which leaches salt and other minerals from the earth. Those minerals find their way into the water supplies making it more difficult and costly to clarify the water for human consumption.
Every story has myriad branches. For a clear understanding of any problem you have to search out more than one source.

Submitted by civil on July 10, 2009 - 1:06pm.

Civil, I am amazed at your intelligent level and ability to speak on so many topics?  What is you IQ?  You need to led discussions of depth, It is so lacking in many area in America.

Submitted by Laharl on July 10, 2009 - 2:24pm.

i'm sure it's more than he weighs.....

Submitted by mminnoe on July 10, 2009 - 2:29pm.

160

Submitted by Laharl on July 10, 2009 - 2:49pm.

.......wow......if that were true for me?.........I could be a nuclear  scientist..........IQ of 250...............I'. gonna have to clean up ......I smell like  Sugar Creek........I know........TMI............. ha ha..........

eldoggg

Submitted by eldoggg on July 10, 2009 - 2:54pm.

 Remember the 'all options on the table' of offshore drilling , coal, solar, wind, natural gas and nuclear? BO studders every time coal or nuclear are discussed. It's just not on his teleprompter.And T Boone pulled the plug on the Texas panhandle wind farms, appears the electrical grid isn't there. The Dems in the coal states aren't going to 'go along to get along' and the envirnmentalists have nuclear mired down. How terrible does the economy need to get for meaningful consensus on energy? I guess we're not there yet.

Submitted by dshrout on July 10, 2009 - 9:21am.