Shale oil - will it ever be a reality

The most abundant energy resources in the U.S. are hydrocarbon fossil fuels, consisting of oil, gas, oil shale, and coal. Currently the most important of these energy sources are crude oil and natural gas. Although our supply of oil and gas is adequate today, we must recognize that they are depletable substances. Within the next few years, the increasing demand for liquid fuels will make it necessary to supplement supplies of domestic energy from crude oil and natural gas with synthetic fuels such as those from oil shale. Until costs of such manufactured oil reserves are reasonably profitable, we should orient our thinking to find the natural petroleum reserves we know still exist and can be found in this vast country of ours. There is no doubt that there is several times as much oil and gas that remains to be found in this country as we have found and produced since 1859. Our task is simply to find and produce it.