The Bakken and Three Forks-Sanish oil fields, along with enormous oil shale deposits in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming, are shredding assertions that the United States and the globe as a whole are facing a "peak oil" crisis.Peak oil warnings have come and gone for well over a century, in fact. A 2003 National Center for Policy Analysis report by geologist David Deming noted the first prediction of peak oil and impending exhaustion occurred in 1855, before the first oil well was ever drilled.
Deming also notes seven oil shortage scares occurred prior to 1950. But proven reserves have increased faster than depletion because of new oil field discoveries and technological innovations that allow extraction of previously unrecoverable oil.
Sterling grudgingly acknowledges one of the main reasons why full-scale production from oil-shale fields remains (pun alert) a pipe dream -- economic feasibility -- while ignoring environmental concerns. Still, he clearly sees shale as part of America's energy future, rather than a tantalizing resource that may never fulfill its potential.
