"Peak Oil" now peakier

The US Geological Survey has just doubled its estimate of the amount of oil in North Dakota:

There are 7.4 billion barrels of recoverable oil in the western part of the state and extending into Montana, according to the latest estimate by the U.S. Geological Survey.

That’s more than twice the oil the USGS estimated could be recovered five years ago. What’s more, the USGS has nearly tripled its estimate of the natural gas available in the area.

The revised totals could make the North Dakota field the greatest oil and gas find ever in the continental United States, topping the fabled East Texas field that made Texas synonymous with oil wealth. And it would put North Dakota second to Prudhoe Bay as the largest oil producer in U.S. history.

Experts within the energy sector believe the latest government estimate might have to be revised upward too.

“We think it’s even a little bit conservative,’’ said Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council.

What does this mean to the economy of the area and to the opportunity for prosperity for the citizens?

Gordon Weyrauch, manager of Williston Home & Lumber, said it’s hard to keep good employees even at $16 an hour: “Seems like when you get somebody that’s really good, there’s always another company stealing them away.”

Seems that Walmart pays even more.  Of course, environmentalists and all Right Thinking People® are horrified by all this grubby prosperity going to working class people (rather than medieval poetry PhDs).  Says all you need to know about them.