In order to increase supplies, the key is to refine more crude, and this requires refineries.  However, critics say "environmentalists" are holding back the expansion of refineries.  While this may be true in some cases, you'll often find that the ones holding up the process are local business owners or good old fashioned Americans, while the more logical environmentalists are advocating a plan of responsible expansion.

A perfect example has been showcased in the news lately in Elk Point, South Dakota.  Government officials from Union County approved a plan behind closed doors to rezone land to build a $10 billion refinery capable of converting 400,000 barrels of Canadian oil into usable fuels each day.  The refinery would be the first new U.S. oil refinery in 30 years.

The country wants the refinery.  In a June 3 poll, 53 percent of people favored the plan.  But the majority of the rural voters in the area affected ardently oppose it.

This might surprise some -- leading the charge against the oil refinery are not some raving environmentalists or Greenpeace members, but rather good old-fashioned American farmers.  Farmer Dale Harkness, whose yard would someday face the refinery, states, "I'll keep fighting it.  They will never build here. 150 years from now someone will be enjoying that land and this land."

Harkness claims that the refinery will ruin his and other farmers' farmland, leaving it a chemical ridden wasteland.  He has vowed to fight it in the courts with the help of his wife Carol and fellow farmers.

However, this surprising source of resistance is also rather ignorant of the nature of the technology and project.  Hyperion Energy, which will build the refinery, plans to spend extra money to make the refinery the first "clean" refinery, the cleanest refinery in the country, in fact.

Because of financial struggles and legal issues such as the battle with farmers, Hyperion currently does not have enough money to build the refinery.  Further, some skeptics point out that it never has built a refinery.  This seems fair criticism, and certainly Hyperion's progress should be monitored from a quality standpoint to ensure they're living up to their claims.

Still, project executive Preston Phillips is confident the refinery will be built.  He states, "We wouldn't be spending the resources and the time if we didn't think we could.  We continue to push the ball down the road. There's $4-a-gallon gas at the pump. Crude oil is $120 to $140 a barrel. This project is at the right time today and the United States needs it."

The mayor of Elk Point, Isabel Trobaugh supports the plan which is controversial with her residents.  She points out that it will bring hundreds of permanent jobs and thousands of temporary construction jobs during the 6 years it will take to install the refinery.  County officials kept Ms. Trobaugh in the dark about the plan, but she still supports it.

She says, "They say that's the way big business does it.  When they do their thing they don't want anyone to know they are coming in, so they keep it a secret."

The project was curiously initially dubbed "the gorilla project" when nothing else was known about it as concrete statues of gorillas were placed in the vacant land where the refinery will be built.  When the plan was unveiled, Mr. Harkness says it pitted "neighbor against neighbor".  Some were willing to sell their land to the project, others vowed to fight it.  Former friends could not even sit together at church anymore.

Mitch Pugh, editor of the nearby Sioux City Journal, says Hyperion's secrecy unfortunately gave fuel to the critical fire.  He states, "I think there are a lot of unknowns.  Those Hyperion people -- not a lot is known about them. They are not big players in the oil market. ... Where are they going to get the money?"

Perhaps there's some truth to that question.  Hyperion tried to get the federal government to loan it $10B USD for construction, but that loan went nowhere.  The company has nowhere near enough capital for even a traditional refinery, let alone the state of the art model it was proposing.  The company's past business has been chiefly in real estate dealings with oil and gas leases. 

Hyperion does have deep roots in the oil business.  Its chief executive, Albert Huddleston is married to a woman named Mary who is granddaughter of famed oil tycoon H. L. Hunt.  Some of the money used by Hyperion came from his Mr. Huddleston's wife's trust funds, which is the topic of a current federal lawsuit.  Another trustee accused Mr. Huddleston of fraud, and Mr. Huddleston countersued back saying they were guilty of fraud.

In a video tape, speaking about the refinery Mr. Huddleston states, "I made a decision that if you came to me and had no permit for 30 to 35 years then I'm not going to take you seriously because I'm not going to believe that you can get it.  So I'm not going to these strategic and financial partners and other people until we have a permit. And if we don't get the permit perhaps people are right: I just don't believe that's the case."

Ms. Trobaugh claims that she is privy to knowledge that Mr. Huddleston has the funds needed to complete the project.  However, she refuses to reveal what he told her, stating, "No I wouldn't do that.  What he told me was private about his own personal funding and that's not public."

Certainly Hyperion does seem a bit on the shady side, with its lack of public disclosure and transparency.  Its finances and experience certainly seems questionable.  Perhaps Hyperion is indeed not the company to build such a state of the art clean refinery, but with the current state of oil, it's clear that someone, perhaps with more experience, needs to step up to the challenge.

If the farmers were challenging Hyperion merely on its record or secrecy, that would be one matter, but what seems more troubling is that they're attacking it from an emotional viewpoint based on their feelings of ownership of the land.  While from a human standpoint this is understandable, it delegitimizes the logical debate over whether the refinery should come and how best to build it in an environmentally safe manner.

The conflict illustrates an ongoing trend of landowners and small farmers seeking to block industrial expansion.  Meanwhile the general public carries a rather unfair belief that it is mainly "environmentalists" or perhaps "liberals" blocking the expansion in a grand conspiracy.  This is obviously not the case at Elk Point, and is not the case in many other cases of industrial conflict.

Environmentalists certainly have their fights and causes, but in most cases professional activists and organizations (i.e. not disorganized teenager-manned movements) pick their fights carefully.  Landowners on the other hand, are the chief enemy of expansion as they tend to fight expansion with little reason or logic.