The American Energy Crisis and You (cont)

Shale and Coal to Oil Facilities

I personally believe that this is where we need to be focusing the bulk of our energy in regards to our future energy independence. Don't misunderstand what I am saying though. I think we need a scatter gun approach to our energy future. I believe that we must aggresively pursue other forms of energy production immediately if we are to break our addicitonto foreign oil. I believe that we must utilize nuclear, wind, solar, geo-thermal, mice in wheels, or the energizer bunny.... whatever it takes. Okay, maybe the last two should be last resorts but I think that you get my drift. These alternative forms of production will be covered in the final segment of this article.

Coal to oil synthetic fuel facilities were perfected by a group of people that didn't contribute much to the world that is positive other than these facilities. The Nazi war machine and Hitler's scientists. When the world decided they didn't like that he was trying to take over, they found a way to turn coal to oil so that they could power their war machines. The last time people looked at them as an energy source, oil cost around $15 - $20 a barrell, and it cost around $33 to make a barrell of oil in this way, which made it not fiscally feasable at the time as an alternative source for oil. Of course, now, with oil tickling $140 a barrell, $35 sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

Some opponents of this type say that it is harmful to use shale to oil or coal to oil processes for power because of the environmental impacts. However in a wonderful scientific breakthrough, they have in recent years found a way to capture nearly all of the CO2 output of the process and pump it into the ground and into unmineable geological formations with little to no chance of escape, ever. This eliminates this as a reason not to aggresively pursue this type of energy production.

US coal holdings are virtually limitless, the currently known formations would allow the United States to be Energy independant for 150 to 250 years if it were used for coal to oil production. Imagine what it would do to the Saudi's, Iranians, Iraqi's, and all of the other members of OPEC if we suddenly stopped buying. We would single handedly make oil an affordable commodity for the whole world. Heck, we could undercut OPEC and sell our coal to oil synthetic oil to the world and put them out of business. By the way, our synthetic oil would be a higher grade of light sweet crude than would be coming out of the ground over there, with significantly lower sulfer content; .2 percent versus nearly 8 percent from OPEC hoildings.

Ultimately these factors are why I view this to be the best opportunity for severe limiting of our overseas oil dependancy. Huge coal and shale reserves, cheap production, extremely quick to market (could be contributing significant oil to US market in less than 5 years as opposed to 15 with new drilling), little environmental impact, and would create lots of US jobs as well.

Now to discuss the most popular; and HORRIBLY flawed idea that people keep bringing up:

Ethanol - I don't even know where to start on this. Easily the worst option available. First, the sheer amount of corn that would be needed to be grown to keep up with the presidents request for 35 billion gallons of ethanol a year, which would replace just 15 percent of our yearly consumption of oil, is virtually impossible to imagine, much less accomplish. The following states would have to be COMPLETELY covered in corn fields, not accounting for roads processing facilities or anything else, just wall to wall corn fields, to produce that much ethanol: Washington DC, Rhode Island, Deleware, Conneticut, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Ohio, Vermont, Massachusetts, Hawaii, Maryland, and West Virginia, or ALL OF TEXAS!!! To fully replace US use of oil with Ethanol (Which would be impossible. By trying to eliminate the use of gasoline by switching to ethanol, you would increase our consumption of it, not reduce it. I will explain how I got there in just a minute.) you would have to cover 97% of US soil in corn fields, which would be impossible for so many different reasons I can't even begin to list them but the top one would be how are you going to get corn to grow in Alaska? Has nobody stopped to think of how this will affect food prices? Corn is used in animal feed for virtually all animals, which if animal feed gets more expensive, everything gets more expensive. Eggs, Milk, meats, and every other food that these are ingredients are in. Then the fact that farmers are growning corn instead of these other foods makes them more scarce and therefore more expensive. Even with all of these things considered, the worst fact about Ethanol is its cost; it takes 1.29 gallons of gasoline to produce 1 gallon of ethanol. Let me repeat that, it takes 1.29 gallons of gasoline to make 1 gallon of ethanol. That is like buying 1 dollar bills for $1.29 to try and get rich. Only in Washington could this be a viable alternative. My head hurts just thinking about it...........

Here are two links to stories on the coal and shale to oil facilities Such a cool technology when paired with CO2 capture:

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2005/09/chattanooga_cor.html
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2007/04/post_4.asp

Part three of this article will be posted tomorrow. Until then...........