Since about the '70s most serious thinkers have believed we will eventually
go to war for oil (and other resources). The rapid development of China and
India probably accelerate the program. I don't pretend to really know what's
going on, but it all feels a bit ominous. Of course there are always a lot
of doomsayers, and the market does seem to work things out, but our lives
will certainly change some. On the bright side, I note that methanol is now
a bit cheaper than gasoline, which is certainly interesting. I don't know
how that all works out as replacement fuel, though Brazil seems to be doing
pretty well with it--when you do the math it takes more energy to make it
than you get by burning it, but that's true of most transportable fuels.
It's interesting to note that most cars built in the US today are actually
dual fuel. You can burn at least 85% methanol with no adjustment. The ECU
and the injectors do all the work.
The interesting thing is that the output of a corn-fed ethanol plant is
still useful hog feed, it just doesn't have much sugar left. I can't help
but think that there might be a rational bio-diesel to ethanol to hog feed
scenario that works out on an economic basis. And then the pig excrement can
be digested to produce methane and fertilizer.
Nothing but the squeal wasted from corn to corn. Maybe.
Bill Babcock
Babcock & Jenkins
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-fot@autox.team.net [mailto:owner-fot@autox.team.net] On Behalf
Of Larry Young
Sent: Monday, April 04, 2005 5:25 PM
Cc: fot@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: buying gasoline
I spent almost 30 years in the oil industry, so this is something I know
something about. I started out working in enhanced oil recovery at Amoco
Research, two years after the '73 embargo. You have to realize that oil does
not exist in pools under the ground. It is in porous rocks, sort of like
the oil stain on the garage floor underneath your Triumph. If you've tried
to completely remove one of those stains, you can appreciate that most
fields achieve about 40% recovery by conventional methods. Enhanced
recovery was aimed at getting a portion of the remaining 60%. These
processes are expensive. It was a hot idea that never really happened
because of economics. Americans would rather buy cheap foreign oil and OPEC
could manipulate the market price to make sure it never happened. There is
a lot of oil in the world, but it's going to cost increasingly more to get
it out. For example, the Athabasca tar sands in Canada are huge, but very
expense to produce.
The writing has been on the wall for a long time, but Americans have had
their heads stuck in the sand.
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