Friday, December 20, 2013  Money & Business  The Oil Rush   By
Marianne Lavelle Posted 4/16/06 Page 3 of 6  The Shale Solution
Industry and policymakers are looking anew at an even more
challenging source of unconventional oil hundreds of miles to
the south. Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming harbor a store equivalent
to 2 trillion barrels of oil--more than all the crude that has
been produced worldwide since the petroleum age began. Even if
only 800 billion barrels is recoverable, as a Rand study
estimated recently, that would be more than triple the proven
reserves of Saudi Arabia and could fuel 25 percent of current
U.S. demand for oil for another 400 years. So why aren't
companies pumping that oil? Simple: It is locked deep in layers
of sedimentary rock called oil shale.  Trucks haul mined oil
sands in Alberta, Canada.  No end of adventurers have tried to
tap oil shale over the past century. The oil crises of the 1970s
spurred Exxon to embark on a $5 billion effort in which 2,200
workers descended on the rural