Thank you Relik, I would be grateful. I am especially interested in your hydrology and geology reports. Can you send what you have to tafline at greenprophet dot com?

The estimates of Israeli resources are brand new, and neither NOSA nor I have had time to fully evaluate them. However, we have had early indications that Israeli resources were larger than earlier values, such as the USGS assessment, which nevertheless recognized the importance of the multinational resource in this area. Homogeneity may be every bit as important as richness when it comes to determining the economic viability of the development. Calling IEI’s numbers hyperbole is, itself, hyperbole, based on very limited research.

Unless there is strong evidence that the oil shale horizon being produced is extensively connected to the deeper aquifer, there is no reason to assume that horizon will require extensive reclamation (steam cleaning) after retorting. So this substantial use of water may be avoided or reduced as well.

The assertion that a surface disturbance akin to the likely impact of development of oil shale envisioned by IEI in the vicinity of a town would be unthinkable in the U. S. is likewise exaggerated. Industrial development occurs in and around urban, suburban and rural communities around the U. S., including oil field development. Regulations are in place to hold companies responsible for their impact. Apparently many feel that these regulations are failing in Israel, but I have not seen strong evidence to support this assertion.

It is frustrating for companies to prepare extensive documentation of their potential impacts and mitigating measures for multitudes of regulatory and permitting agencies, and then be accused of obfuscation. I have no idea whether it is difficult to obtain relevant documents in Israel, but my experience is that the real hazard is being buried by the shear mass of what has been prepared.

My conversations indicate that principals in the parent company of IEI have been interested in producing oil from oil shale in Israel since the 1970s, so to suggest that Israel is being used as a guinea pig site for U. S. development does not accord with the facts. The Chief Scientist is an Israeli, and his interest in U. S. oil shale grew out of his work on the geology of Israel, not the other way around.

Careful evaluation of these efforts does not produce eye-grabbing headlines, or tabulations of more famous people on either side of the discussion. Harold Vinegar has, to my mind, far more to do with this development than Dick Cheney, and I believe that he is a thoughtful and credible scientist.

But careful evaluation is the only way to get at some balanced view of the effects. I do not know whether economics of the IEI process will justify development, or whether the environmental impacts will be acceptable to the Israeli people, but I do note that the ad hominem attack on the proponents (Dick Cheney is involved, so it must be wrong) has been recognized as a logical fallacy since Biblical times.