If this story pans out, U.S. oil production may be Bakken business. And I think we can put aside the flex-fuel vehicle idea for a while, anyway.
The money quote:
In the next 30 days the USGS (U.S. Geological Survey) will release a new report giving an accurate resource assessment of the Bakken Oil Formation that covers North Dakota and portions of South Dakota and Montana. With new horizontal drilling technology it is believed that from 175 to 500 billion barrels of recoverable oil are held in this 200,000 square mile reserve that was initially discovered in 1951.
No, maybe this is the money quote:
The US imported about 14 million barrels of Oil per day in 2007, which means US consumers sent about $340 Billion Dollars over seas building palaces in Dubai and propping up unfriendly regimes around the World. [I]f 200 billion barrels of oil at $90 a barrel are recovered in the high plains the added wealth to the US economy would be $18 [trillion,] which would go a long way in stabilizing the US trade deficit and could cut the cost of oil in half in the long run.
UPDATE: Michael Ledeen beat me to this story on the Corner earlier today.