Now before I get into the piece that follows I should explain that I don’t hold any particular animus towards the states of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming or Idaho, and so when I start talking about disposing of nuclear weapons in those states by making use of them it should be taken as merely a technical discussion (grin).

Hey, nothing personal guys. If peak oil hits sooner than expected, what’s a hungry, oil-starved world gonna do?   You’ll just have to grin and bear it.

UPDATE: The nuke the shale out hypothesis has largely generated disgust and disdain from Oil Drum readers. But this person cautions that nothing will be off the table if there’s a true energy shortage:

Well, most may think this is a non starter, but if Peak Oil decline is half as bad as some here think, then you should not be surprised by what actually happens to keep gas tanks full.

Oil shale is kind of like online journalism, there’s such potential there, but from the looks of it, we may never figure out how to make a profitable industry of it.

From there, Terray Sylvester of High Country News does a nice job deciphering the contradictory signals sent by Ken Salazar at a recent press conference, when the Interior Secretary announced the decision to  scrap what he termed the “flawed” oil shale research demonstration leases approved in the final days of the Bush Administration–and replace those with a new set of leases to be offered sometime in the future.