December 29, 2008

LAT: Energy dispute over Rockies riches

A titanic battle between the West's two traditional power brokers -- Big Oil and Big Water -- has begun.

At stake is one of the largest oil reserves in the world, a vast cache trapped beneath the Rocky Mountains containing an estimated 800 billion barrels -- about three times the reserves of Saudi Arabia.

Extracting oil from rocky seams of underground shale is not only expensive, but also requires massive amounts of water, a precious resource crucial to continued development in the nation's fastest-growing region.