A few thousand gallons of crude down the Yellowstone is merely a drop in the bucket compared to what that area may be facing. It’s called a lot of things, but “oil shale” is about the best way to describe the discovery of oil deposits that may dwarf those of Saudi Arabia … within the confines of our territorial borders …

… at last count enough to power the US for years, and might go much more, we’ll know once the latest seismic estimates are completed some two years from now.

A McDonald’s worker earns $15 an hour, given the manpower shortage, and North Dakota has no housing troubles, nor unemployment woes, as they’re in the midst of the biggest oil discovery this century, with the eastern half the state and northwestern Montana having both the Bakken and Three Forks shale formations, likened to one big gusher sitting on top of a second. Exhaust one and drill a bit deeper to tap the second …

The downside being how vile and nasty all that “fracking” of native rock will be – given that petroleum recovery uses enormous quantities of water to be pumped down the well along with sand to force the oil out of all that prairie.

Continental has developed a new drilling concept it calls Eco-Pad to exploit both reservoirs. One rig will develop a 2-square-mile area by drilling eight wells—four into the Bakken layer and four into the Three Forks. Each well goes down two miles, then horizontally two miles through the reservoir. Using explosive charges, the drillers will make hundreds of holes (called “perforations”) in the pipe of each well. Then comes the hydraulic fracturing— where the well is injected with 1.8 million gallons of water and sand that props open tiny fractures in the dolomite rock to let out the oil. The “Eco” in this Eco-Pad concept? All this work on eight giant wells gets done from one spot, causing less surface impact.

– via Forbes.com

Given the West is already water-starved where’s all them new gallons coming from? More importantly, where are they going afterwards, given the post-frack oil-water mixture will be intermingling with the native groundwater and will play hell with farmers and anyone else with the courage to drink all that oil tainted brew.

Which leads to an unwelcome conclusion, just how many of them Yellowstone area rivers will be surviving un-dammed in the face of hordes of thirsty SUV’s and a couple of states renowned for voting for a lot of partisan, asinine, stuff?

The current estimates of the reserves are at 12 Billion, and while guiding and the wilderness experience offers considerable revenue, it’s most likely ends in an “m” than a “b” .

Now that North Dakota has the fastest growing economy in the Nation, like Texas and Alaska it’s probable they’ll take a shine to Stetson’s and big cigars, given they’ve got one of the smallest populations of voters – most of which are almighty thankful someone tossed a bone in their direction.

Which brings us to the issues of a couple thousand gallons of crude during high water. All that oil located in out-of-the-way locales require an enormous amount of plumbing and pipelines to move all that Black Gold to them as wants to refine and burn it.

Which’ll lead to pipelines headed in all directions, under and over rivers, and will bring most of that petroleum to the population dense markets.

It’s already the largest construction project in the US today, imagine what it’ll be shortly.

… these being the Good Old Days …