Oil, Secondary Recovery, Shell

Try the link, I could not find the article but this summary raises a real hope.
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/news_columnists/article/ 0,1299,DRMN_86_4051709,00.html

"Shell's method, which it calls "in situ conversion," is simplicity itself in concept but exquisitely ingenious in execution. Terry O'Connor, a vice president for external and regulatory affairs at Shell Exploration and Production, explained how it's done (and they have done it, in several test projects): Drill shafts into the oil-bearing rock. Drop heaters down the shaft. Cook the rock until the hydrocarbons boil off, the lightest and most desirable first. Collect them. Please note, you don't have to go looking for oil fields when you're brewing your own. Upwards of a million barrels an acre, a billion barrels a square mile. And the oil shale formation in the Green River Basin, most of which is in Colorado, covers more than a thousand square miles - the largest fossil fuel deposits in the world. Wow. They don't need subsidies; the process should be commercially feasible with world oil prices at $30 a barrel. The energy balance is favorable; under a conservative life-cycle analysis, it should yield 3.5 units of energy for every 1 unit used in production. The process recovers about 10 times as much oil as mining the rock and crushing and cooking it at the surface, and it's a more desirable > grade. Reclamation is easier because the only thing that comes to the surface is the oil you want.--"

Robert C. AtkinsonDirector of Policy ResearchColumbia Institute for Tele-Information (CITI)