Text 4122, 114 rader
Skriven 2010-01-30 23:52:00 av WAYNE CHIRNSIDE (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av MICHIEL VAN DER VLIST
Ärende: Re: a world without oil
===============================
-=> MICHIEL VAN DER VLIST wrote to WAYNE CHIRNSIDE <=-

Hello Micheil

 MVV> Hello WAYNE,

 MVV> On Saturday January 30 2010 11:49, you wrote to me:

 MVV>> Where are you going to get oil?

 MVV>> The texas oil wells are as good as dry. You could never maintain
 MVV>> the present level of economic activity without importing oil.
 MVV>> You will be thrown back 100 years if you can not import oil.

 WC> I agree with you on a great many things however this is not one of
 WC> them.

 WC> When we are no longer able to import oil we'll be thrown _forward_ 100
 WC> years of necessity.

 MVV> Wishfull thinking. Without oil society will come to a screeching halt.

 WC> Far better alternatives exist but will not be commonplace until the
 WC> oil is taken out of the equation by whatever means.

 MVV> There are alternatives but they are a long way off yet. It needs time
 MVV> and a functioning society to devellop them and when the oil gets cut
 MVV> off within the next 20 years, you have neither.

 MVV> A jet fighter without oil? Sound like a challenge to me.

Well recently a group of scientists working in California developed
a process using nothing more than heat, iron oxide, CO2 and another available
product to produce carbon neutral fuel.

I saw it first on www.wired.com than looking further into it
it seems ideal.

The iron oxide works as a catalyst in a reaction chamber providing said carbon
neutral
fuel.

Details escape me just now though they get their heat for the process
by focusing the Sun's heat on the reaction chamber and out comes carbon neutral
fuel.

There are quite a few such tecnological solutions however with the oil
industry's
lobbying efforts in Washington D.C. they currently remain meagerly federally
funded.

I'm not quite as pessimistic of our chances as you seem to be on this point.

Personally I'd like to see the oil industries tax breaks and tax credits
swapped from
the existing pursuit of oil to developing on a commercial scale some of these
technologies.

Not because I favor that industry but simply because they've the existing
infrastructure
and capital to make it happen with profit being the motive.

They still get to get and  stay rich and the benefits are clear.

Perhaps we can even stop meddling in the middle east when oil has domestic
competition.

Alternative fuels are an interest of mine and several U.S. oil companies have
recently 
invested far more capital in funding alternative fuels then previously with the
expectation of windfall
profits from commercial scale production of several alternative fuel processes.
 

Oil is a dead end in 75 - 100 years anyway as that resource is finite.

There has been far too much blood and treasure spent in the pursuit of Persian
Gulf oil.

Now were the previous administration still running things I would share your
pessimism
however we've now an energy secretary who is an actual respected scientist
rather
than a polititcal appointee as was more often the case in the previous
administration.

We've met previous challenges, we can meet this one.
The leadership right now is the important matter and will
remain so for some decades to come to clean up the mess left to this
administration.

If the will is there we can do it. 

However we do need to get our politicians off the corporate dole where they
make many times
their ample salaries, retirement and outstanding health benefits due to
_donations_
from corporate lobbyists.

Technologically feasable in my opinion, politically is another matter entirely.

Actually the United States Air Force has been a leading promoter of alternative
fuel
for just the forward looking thinking of providing synthetic fuel for their
aircraft
and they've been so for the greater part of a decade that I'm aware of.





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