The blogosphere is buzzing about a recent Wall Street Journal editorial titled, "Oil Industry Booms--in North Dakota." The article discusses the state's recent economic prosperity as companies utilize advanced technologies to turn the Bakken Shale deposit into one of the fastest-growing oil-producing areas in the United States.

In just three years, the Bakken Shale has helped North Dakota double its oil production--surging to 80 million barrels in 2009--making the state the nation's fourth-largest oil producer, after Texas, Alaska and California.

The National Association of Manufacturers' (NAM) Shopfloor blog writes:

"Thanks largely to the oil boom, North Dakota's economy has fought off the recession. The state's unemployment rate in December was 4.3 percent... It's trouble other states would love to have. The first step to get there: Regard domestic energy development as a boon, not a bane."

Prairie Pundit praises the Bakken's development and criticizes the nation's current energy policies saying:

"...In the meantime they are preventing the energy industry from producing jobs and royalties to help pay down the massive debt they are running up."

University of Michigan (Flint) Professor Mark J. Perry of Carpe Diem comments:

"Just like how advanced drilling techniques have led to a revolution in the domestic natural gas industry, new technologies for drilling oil have revolutionized the domestic oil industry. That's one reason that peak oil is peak idiocy: it always underestimates the ultimate resource - human capital (i.e. human ingenuity and the resulting innovation, advances, new technology) - which is endless and boundless, and will never peak."