Fracking Isn’t the Answer in the Green River
While the recent boom in oil production across other states has been driven by the advanced technique of hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) – a method that involves blasting a mixture of water, sand, and chemicals at a high pressure to release trapped oil and gas from shale formations – engineers in Colorado are discovering that the nearly 2 trillion barrels of Green River oil can’t be recovered this way.
The “simple” explanation for this is that these other plays, such as the Bakken in North Dakota and Eagle Ford in Texas, are not at all similar to the Green River formation and the oil shale rock in Colorado’s Western Slope.
