Despite his hopes for renewable energy, Barack Obama faces tough choices early in his term on whether to extract more oil within the US. Americans are still years, maybe decades, from kicking the oil habit. One reserve – with at least a century of supply – lies below the Rockies. Will a "green" president ignore this black ooze?
This immense reserve is called oil shale, although the "oil" is not ready for refineries nor is the surface rock that traps it really shale. Rather, the sediments, which extend across Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming, contain a waxy hydrocarbon called kerogen that, either with heat or chemical processing underground, can be turned into synthetic oil.
