Despite spiking gas prices, Colorado oil shale years from production … if ever

Observers of the century-long quest to extract oil from the shale rocks of Colorado’s Western Slope are fond of saying “oil shale is the fuel of the future … and always will be.” Never commercially viable because of the costs and resources needed to heat and extract the kerogen trapped in the rocks, an estimated 2 trillion barrels of shale oil remains locked up – perhaps forever.

Mines prof says Obama, Salazar stalling on oil shale the way Bush did on climate change

Dr. Jeremy Boak, a leading expert on oil shale technology at the Colorado School of Mines, says the Obama administration is dragging its feet on oil shale production in the United States much the way the Bush administration stalled on climate change policy. “It’s curious to hear the same sort of arguments being made by this administration that were made by the Bush administration for not doing anything on climate change,” Boak told the Colorado Independent. “We’ve got to have all the answers before we can move.”

Growing up illegal in Colorado: Not just a Mexican thing

Immigration. If you’ve wondered lately if it is possible to read about immigration without encountering the name “Tom Tancredo” or the phrase “sanctuary city”, you’re in for a treat.

High Country News, the non-profit biweekly published in Paonia, which covers…

Oil shale backers blast Salazar, but Ritter supports lease limitations

Even as Interior Secretary Ken Salazar was announcing new environmental reforms for the next round of oil shale research and development leases on public lands in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming on Tuesday, proponents of the unproven fuel source were…

School of Mines claims former prof merely warned about public comments

A Colorado School of Mines spokeswoman late Thursday afternoon responded by e-mail to a story posted on the Colorado Independent earlier in the day in which Dr. Geoffrey Thyne said the school threatened to fire him over comments he…

Colo. School of Mines professor says he was threatened with firing over hydraulic fracturing comments

Dr. Geoffrey Thyne is no Ward Churchill. He’s a geologist and an academic with three decades of field work and experience as a research scientist in the oil and gas industry, including the last 13 years at Colorado School of Mines in Golden.