If there is 1.5 trillion barrels of oil in The Green River Formation here in the US why aren't we drilling it?

Question

See for yourself:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_River_Formation#Oil_shale

Answer 1

First off you don't drill for oil shale you mine it, there are two main issues, the up front costs for the mining infrastructure are huge, you need very expensive processing facility to separate the kerogen from the shale, this is also very energy intensive. Secondly the environmental costs, strip mining on a large scale is never pretty but the clincher is water, the processing take enormous amounts of water, a bit of a problem in Wyoming and western Colorado.