But, will the Democraps let it be tapped to save the state? The former Golden State is floating in debt, even as it sits on two-thirds of America's shale oil reserves locked in a formation four times the size of the one that sparked North Dakota's economic boom. North Dakota is now the largest oil producer in the country after Texas with a monthly oil output of about 20 million barrels. North Dakota's oil boom accounts for 11% of U.S. oil production, and it is the impetus behind the state's $3.8 billion surplus and an unemployment rate of just 3.2%, the lowest in the nation. California is not running a surplus, but it is sitting on a lot more oil than is contained in the Bakken shale formation North Dakota straddles. Covering 1,750 square miles from southern to central California, the Monterey shale formation has untapped deposits estimated at 15.4 billion barrels, according to the United States Energy Information Administration. Until recently, the complex geology of the formation has made exploration and extraction prohibitively expensive. But as with oil from the Bakken shale in North Dakota and natural gas extracted from the Marcellus formation in the Northeast, technological advances have unleashed a bounty of riches, pushing proven reserves upward and smashing the myth of peak oil. The key technology behind the boom is hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in which fluids are injected into the porous rock under high pressure to fracture the rock and release the oil or natural gas, which can then be pumped to the surface. Combined with horizontal drilling, great stores of energy can be released with a minimal footprint. Extracting oil from the Monterey shale will require companies to engage in more intensive fracking and deeper, horizontal drilling, which has caused groups in environmentally sensitive California to warn of poisoned groundwater and the latest fantasy, the spawning of earthquakes. Hollywood recently unleashed the anti-fracking propaganda film "Promised Land" financed by the United Arab Emirates, a member of OPEC, and which has a vested interest in the United States developing its vast domestic energy reserves to become energy independent. The film, based on a false promise, depends on junk science for its story line. The mixture used to fracture shale is in fact a benign blend of 90% water, 9.5% sand, and 0.5% chemicals such as the sodium chloride of table salt and the citric acid of the orange juice you had for breakfast. Shale formations in which fracking is employed are thousands of feet deep. Drinking water aquifers are generally only a hundred feet deep. There is a lot of solid rock between them. As for fracking causing earthquakes, a recent report by the National Research Council dispelled that notion. U.S. Geological Survey seismologist William Ellsworth says he agrees with the research council that "hydraulic fracturing does not seem to pose much risk for earthquake activity." The technically recoverable oil in the Monterey and nearby Santos shale formations amounts to 78 times California's 2011 oil output and is enough to supply the state for two decades at the current refining capacity. That amount could rise significantly once actual drilling begins and as technology continues to advance. Geologists have known about Monterey shale for a long time, says Richard Behl, professor of geology at California State University, Long Beach. "All the oil in California comes from the shale," Behl says. "The oil that is easy to bring up is oil that has been released from the shale and pooled near the surface." To borrow a football metaphor, it is time to go deep. Exploiting the Monterey shale would be an answer to California's financial problems and the country's domestic energy problem. Just follow North Dakota's lead. http://news.investors.com/ibd-edito...rey-shale-could-exceed-bakken-boom.htm?p=full
Shh...don't tell California. I can't wait until they completely explode from debt and collapse. It'll be spectacular.
The Democraps controlling California will never let them drill for that oil. They just made a movie about the dangers of fracking. They are afraid if they drill it will cause the great California earth quake and Califorina will fall into the ocean. But, they are going to tax marijuana and tennis shoes.
Those democrats have to hold to those principles of theirs.. [whatever they actually are].. at all costs. Drilling for oil is to them like taking away a gun is to a conservative. I'm having conversations with them sometimes.. I'll say that they have been told for decades that bigger socialism will destroy the middle class and now the middle class is destroyed. They can't continue such a conversation, they just cannot do it.. I don't know if they don't want to reveal that the destruction of the middle class is something they wanted all along, or that they didn't believe what they were told when it was so obvious or what.. I'm only trading because I saw the destruction of the middle class coming.. I wouldn't be doing this boring assed work were it not for meddling Democrats so chalk up another one. I want to see the people with the amazing retirement plans, the unionized people that gutted the finances of the business owners and the next generations, living in the streets. They should be living in the streets and the kids that got robbed before they were even born should be tormenting them...
It seems to be coming home to all of us regardless of the State we live in. Even Texas won't be immune.