There is a tremendous amount of shale oil, but according to this report from the Colorado School of Mines, extracting oil from shale is environmentally messy and takes a lot of water. Most of the shale oil exists in dry climates like Colorado where water is scarce.

Even as we look to other oil deposits, we keep getting stopped by environmental lawsuits to stop domestic exploration. Drill in ANWR? Hell no! How about off the coast of California? Not in my backyard! Gulf coast? Nope. Anywhere else? Nope.

It isn't limited to oil exploration, either. Recent proposals to build windmill farms near Cape Cod have ran into still opposition because the windmills are considered ugly. Many oppose windmill farms in California because they could kill a lot of birds, including the endangered Condor.

Some environmental groups have also come out against ethanol, too. They say it takes too much energy to produce. Not all groups feel this way, as this GreenPeace page shows. However, it seems that for just about any possible alternative source of energy or any effort to become more energy self-sufficient, the opponents are quick to swarm to the courts to stop it.