Steve's barking at ways to end the oil crises?

We can talk all we want about ending the dependency on foreign oil but I have some loopy ideas.
I've read many times we can take oil out of shale, right now we must smash the rocks which I've also been told takes almost as much energy to take the oil out of the the rock. There is another other way I've read that takes the oil out of the rock. You make a giant pit under the rock and start a gigantic fire to heat up the rock, melting it so that the the oil flows freely. You then must freeze the ground around the pit so that the oil doesn't seep into the ground. This whole thing would take three years to do and make sense at 80 dollars a barrel of oil. We (meaning the US government) owns miles and miles shale rock formations and we could actually make money from leasing it out to a company who can either melt the rock or crushing them. We would also make money selling the right away to pipelines to carry the oil.
I know those who read this might be worried about ecological damage. The chances of ecological damage are good but then again nothing ventured nothing gained.

I know that many people want to have us  use natural gas, it seems like a good idea to me, except I'm partial to methane gas myself. With methane gas you don't have to frack the rock as with getting some natural gas.
Methane is all around us and is constantly being being produced.