Just need to whip out phrases like "everyone knows Devonian reef structures are the sweet spot for exploratory wells".

Hit'em with the Devonian reefs and you'll already be over the head of 99.999% of limousine liberals.

...then if they get pesky and ask what Devonian is hit'em with the "its just about the time life moved onto land for the first time" "before there was modern dirt and earth looked reddish"

One word: frigging NUKES:

Low KT yield nukes will heat that crap up (literally) in a flash and do a better refracturing job than any conventional explosive.

I invented Devonian Reef Structures.

Do you think my beard is sexy?

Cheap sheets? Are those at Wal-Mart or someplace like that?

Cheap sheets?

Those are the ones in places you ummm...rent by the hour.

Anonymous:

Nukes don't do that good of a job. They tried it in the late 50s/early 60s with natural gas, and it didn't do a good enough job (plus the radioactivity).

Just remember....

Geologists are experts on orogenous zones!

Is that a salt dome in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

I initially misread the title as "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Snake Oil." And I thought that either the German guy who (allegedly) made diesel fuel from cats was aiming lower on the evolutionary chain... or someone was fisking Al Gore's latest Global Warming speech.

Before I get excited about this, I want someone to tell me how much water from other supplies gets lost (either lost into the air through evaporation or lost into the groundwater) per barrel of oil produced by this.

Reason is, the only source of external water in that area is the Colorado river, and all of the water rights for the Colorado River have been allocated since the 1920's. For this to go into scaled up production, they're going to have to buy water rights from someone downstream. How much water will they need from the Colorado River?

Heat exchangers can prevent significant water loss.

"you've all heard the stories about the crazy kind of tail geologists get..."

Which is why they have "specialty" words like "spathic" (possessing good cleavage). :)