Shale Oil in America: Economy Fix or Dangerous Fantasy ???

After sitting idle for two decades, there’s steam billowing from the top of the big old steel plant in Youngstown, Ohio.
This does not represent a renewal of the steel production that once created the Rust Belt. Instead, this is a product of a new industry proponents say can be a game changer, not just for the depressed Youngstown Warren area, but for the U.S. economy and the bigger energy game. It is the exploitation of oil shale.

The former steel plant now builds things like seamless piping for extracting the natural gas and oil deep underground.

There’s enough natural gas down there, some experts claim, to end U.S. dependence on foreign oil and completely turn around the current financial state.

It sounds fantastic, but opponents call it a fantasy. They claim big oil companies will ravage the land, contaminate groundwater, even create earthquakes, then pack up and leave once the profit has been exploited. 

It’s a battle that has been raging for years. But a “new and improved” process for pulling massive deposits of fossil fuels from the ground in financially devastated areas of Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, is bringing a lot of hope to communities where homelessness and poverty run rampant.

In northeastern Ohio, oil companies from across the U.S. are setting up shop, developing wells and putting people to work, trying to get the oil out of the sedimentary rock.  The controversial process used to get the oil out is called “fracking,” which involves a highly pressurized fluid injected into the shale as a way to extract the fossil fuels caught between the rock.

“Years ago we couldn’t figure out how to get it out of there in an economical way, but somebody came up with a better mousetrap,” said oil analyst Phil Flynn of PFGBest.  “Instead of only getting maybe 10 percent of that oil and gas out of the market, now we get 75 to 80 to 90 percent of that oil and gas out” he said.

The latest fracking process, which developers claim is less environmentally damaging, involves a seamless pipe drilled thousands of feet into the ground, which then curves horizontally. Water and chemicals are pumped through to break up the shale. The water is then withdrawn, pulling with it oil and natural gas.

Flynn, who is very enthusiastic when talking about the possibilities of natural gas, said this can change everything, including foreign policy. “We're the Saudi Arabia of natural gas. This single-handedly can change the US economy” he said.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/12/27/shale-oil-in-america-economy-fix-or-dangerous-fantasy/#ixzz1hmOxJ5gd