Quote Originally Posted by Psycho4Bud
HELL YEAH, and for the big prize they can further research on this:

There is an estimated 2 trillion barrels of oil buried beneath parts of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. Geologists, petroleum companies and the federal government have known about these massive deposits for nearly a century. The trouble has always been: how do you get at it?

It is believed that the shale deposits in the Green River region of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming are holding the equivalent of approximately 1.5 trillion to 1.8 trillion barrels of oil. Called ??oil shale? or ??shale oil,? according to scientists and petroleum companies, much of it cannot be recovered with current technology due to the costly processing involved and the depth of the deposits buried beneath the Rocky Mountains.

Still, if only half can be extracted, scientists believe the amount is nearly triple the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia.
U.S. HAS MASSIVE OIL

THIS would make us energy independent for years.

Have a good one!:s4:
Well, that one I personally would not be in favor of, because oil shale is not a renewable resource, and it is still very polluting.

But there are probably a lot of great applications for these kinds of contests. It's one way government can work with industry without getting too involved. NASA has sponosred a few of these things, and they should do more. There is one going on right now related to a "Space Elevator" and others related to moon landers. These contests are composed of a lot of "baby step" contests. It's not like they said, here's a billion dollar prize for making a space elevator. They have one prize for innovations in making the elevator tether material of a certain strength. And another for making a certain milestone for the "climber" that goes up the tether. That way they have achievable goals that lay the groundwork for the big goal.