Foolstroupe, correct you are- should be millions. But with everyone talking billions on takeovers, and Congress voting to support U. S. forces in Iraq for another year, perhaps you will forgive me for inflating the costs on the oil shale.

A google adv. at the base of this thread says that the Bakken shale oil reserve is ten times larger than Alaska's North Slope. Unless something new and dramatic in processing is found, much of hype for the deposits is pie in the sky. Water is critical in much of the western states and prairie provinces. The blurb talks of horizontal drilling (directional drilling is an old technique) but they don't say how the organic matter will be converted to liquid hydrocarbons. They talk of cheap extraction, but I don't see that in my crystal ball.
Moreover their guesstimate of 40 billion bbls on the North Slope is pie in the sky as well. Prudhoe Bay production is on the down slope, much before the time guesstimated by the politicians.