¶ … fired up-Tapping the Rockies' by John G. Mitchell appeared in July 2005 issue of National Geographic. It is an interesting commentary on energy development initiatives that are being planned for Rocky mountain region in Wyoming. The article identifies five important locations in Rocky Mountains that have been selected by the government for energy exploration. The Bureau of Land Management controls these regions and can lease them out for energy development when the right time comes. Already, Pinedale mesa has seen aggressive gas and energy development activities which have dented the beautiful landscape to a large extent. The area is laced with pipelines and there are already 500 wells that BLM plans to use for natural gas extraction purposes. The number of wells is likely to rise to more than 3,000 soon. It must...

But opponents put the figures at 12%.
It is interesting that while BLM is proposing more aggressive exploration, it has not yet fully exploited the existing leased natural gas resources. Out of close to 46,000 leases nationwide, only half were producing anything while the rest were lying idle. Why lease more land when the existing leases are not being utilized properly.

Throughout this region, two types of natural gas are being targeted: tight sands gas and coal bed…