Posted on 11/16/2005 1:46:45 PM PST by dangerdoc
I am disgusted as I read the news. We buy oil from petty tyrants. South American thugs bad-talk us and threaten to shut off the tap. Middle-East royalty, two generations from living in mud huts fund jihadists who want to cut off our heads. We compete with communist slave-workers for oil driving up the prices. We may or may not be running out of the stuff creating the real possibility that we are going have to find a replacement anyway.
Honestly, our oil economy is going to hurt us at some point. I don’t know if it will be now in the form of sending our wealth out to people who want to harm us or from having to go off the stuff cold turkey at some point in the future. I personally believe it will be the former. I am concerned about oil funded nuclear technology going to oil funded terrorists brought into our country because of our lack of foresight.
Last century a petrochemical economy made sense. This century things are changing and we need to stay ahead of the curve.
If we need to replace oil what should we replace it with?
Hydrogen? Don’t believe what you hear. The best source of hydrogen is petrochemicals. It is not economical to produce, transport or store. Hydrogen fuel cells are not very efficient when you figure in the inefficiency in getting to the vehicle and trying to store enough in the car to get anywhere.
Ethanol? Corn farmers love it but it is too inefficient to produce and we would need to actually give up food production to provide enough.
Biomass? I have spent a few weeks google searching biomass, synthesis gas and associated chemistry. It seems like a reasonable approach. Synthetic gasoline and diesel should be fairly easy to produce on a commercial scale. It would be no more obtrusive than an oil refinery and would use fairly similar technology. It has not been commercially pursued because of the cost. Although synthetic fuels could probably be produced for less than $2 a gallon, the concern is that OPEC would respond by flooding the market with oil and bankrupt any company that invested in this type of technology. I’ve seen some conspiracy theories that the oil companies are trying to suppress biomass but I don’t think that makes sense. The oil companies’ expertise would lead them to dominate the field. Almost every step in conversion exists in modern petrochemical cracking plants. As an added bonus, it would divert money from overseas and back to the farm economy.
I’ve read that Saudi Arabia can deliver oil at less than $10 a barrel and would deplete their reserves as quickly as possible if a reasonable oil replacement were ever seen on the horizon. This is not a conspiracy, just simple economics. They have a limited supply and will work to get as much for it as possible. If a their product will be made useless, they will try to sell all they can while they can. All of this prevents companies from investing in alternative fuel technology even though the prices keep going up.
I really don’t like the government getting involved in economics and I know that the free market will solve the problem eventually but I am very concerned about where our oil dollars are going. I see this as a security issue. Can we begin development of a replacement strategy in a step-wisemannor. Do we need some sort of a price support structure to encourage the development. Do we need to summon the resolve and stop or ban the import of oil. I see real problems with almost any strategy that involves the government.
I am curious about people’s thoughts. I have numbers showing biomass is reasonable from an economic standpoint based on current oil prices.
Specifically I am curious if there are any petrochemical engineers, economists or even politicians out there with an opinion. I can share specifics but there are literally hundreds of pages and everything I have is available on the internet.
This will give you enough information to make your head explode... from an accomplished engineer (and top-notch writer):
http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2004/06/AnewManhattanProject.shtml
Can we extract energy from vanity threads?
Its not just our economy that is run on oil, the entire planets economy is driven by oil. People hear oil and think of gas, diesel, oil for their engine, and other forms of fuel. But there are literally MILLIONS of products on the shelves right now that are made from oil. MILLIONS!
The governor of Montana, a Democrat, was on the Glenn Beck show recently, where he said that interests in his state can make and sell oil from coal for under $30 a barrel. 'Course, he can't get investors until everyone is sure that the usual sources will not suddenly undercut that price.
Then either generate H2 thru electrolysis, or drive electric vehicles.
If the situations were reversed, and we had the oil and the jihadists had the weapons and military might, I know what they would do....
They would take our oil fields first and solve the energy problem and the "funding our enemy" problem with one whack.
Anybody care to comment? My energy policy would be for government to get the h*** out of the way and let America produce and trade energy, but there are those national security situations (Saudis, Chavez, and so on).
I'm normally against government interference in the free market.
However, with oil, it is not a free market. OPEC controls the cost of crude.
If OPEC weren't artificially inflating the cost of crude, oil would be much less expensive until it started actually running out, then the price would rise as it became scarce and it would become cost-effective to invest in new sources.
What we have now is OPEC raising the prices to scarcity levels, but preventing any alternatives from coming on line by its ability to quickly drop prices in retaliation for any company investing in alternative sources.
Because of this environment, I would support some sort of very limited government intervention, such as an import tax to encourage domestic and alternative production, or (my preference) perhaps some level of incentives and regulatory streamlining to encourage domestic drilling - especially on public lands.
Additionally, it is pointless to do anything about crude without doing something about our limited refinery capacity.
As far as alternatives, I don't think any of them will be cost effective with the pricing situation as it is today. The turkey oaffal thing sounds interesting, but unil more specifics are released on the process, it still is an unknown. I like shale oil harvesting, but there has to be some reasonable guarantee on a return on the significant investment or it isn't worth the risk. With OPEC the way it is, you can't guarantee that a shale oil production facility will be able to produce at or below the crude price OPEC decides to set once the facility is online.
Just MHO.
All it takes to keep these sources producing is for the price of oil to remain above about $35 or so until it is in full production. Then the price will likely go lower due to the extent of the production and the initial costs will be past and it will cost more to shut down than to continue to produce at the lower prices. If prices stay in the current neighborhood then we have some centuries' worth of oil waiting to be converted from coal.
Bio diesel will never be more than peripheral. Tar sands, shale oil, and oil-from-coal will provide plenty of oil for many years.
>>>>"Can we extract energy from vanity threads?"<<<<
If it doesn't get strained through MSM or a professional media hack it just isn't worth reading much less responding to, eh?
TT
I say that we buy up as much of the Arab oil as we possibly can, as fast as we can. That will expedite their economic demise, and conserve our resources for future use.
Something that market forces dictate, not something dreamed up by self-satisfied, starry-eyed, know-nothing dilettantes.
>>>Bio diesel will never be more than peripheral. Tar sands, shale oil, and oil-from-coal will provide plenty of oil for many years.<<<
Thank you!!!!
My diesel truck will run just as well on Diesel from coal, tar sands, shale oil or sunflower seeds hemp or whatever... diesel is diesel.
The US needs to start building more vehicles that have high effiency Diesel Engines and everything else (with the help of the free market) will fall into place. The rest of the world has seen the light.
TT
Wow, you are right it will make one's head explode. so I am going to bump this for later reading also
I've seen several break-even numbers put out for oil shale and coal gassification, with $40.00 per barrel being the highest, so put a "floor" on the price, at $40.00 per barrel, with all revenue generated by this directed to funding research in private industry on promising technological advances in alternative energy sources.
Prices will stay higher than they should, but this is still lower than we are now, and domestic resources can come online and lessen the cycle of dependency.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.