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Revived interest in oil shale makes sense

Published June 5, 2006 at midnight

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If producing oil from the West's vast deposits of oil shale is feasible economically, environmentally and politically, it must and should be done. The world will be a safer place if the United States becomes the global "swing" producer that stabilizes the price of oil - the U.S., not Saudi Arabia, not the Middle East, not unpredictable third-world providers such as Nigeria or Hugo Chavez's Venezuela.

And stable prices - even more than low prices - help the economy grow steadily. It was low prices, not high ones, that turned the last oil-shale boom into a bust whose effects lingered on the Western Slope for years.

At the same time, it is prudent to make haste slowly. Avoiding boom-and-bust is important, but avoiding environmental disasters is essential. Many of the disasters whose effects still trouble us could have been avoided - had anybody cared enough at the time to try.

All that being said, the increased interest in oil shale - - as demonstrated by last week's hearing in Grand Junction organized by Sen. Ken Salazar and two colleagues- is welcome, even if commercial production is years away. Doubling the world's supply of oil will ease the eventual transition to other forms of energy.