----- Fw --------------------------------------------- ------------- Fw ------------------------------------- -------------------- Fw ------------------------------ To yahoo group members -------------------- with concern on world energy supplies, greenhouse gases and climate change
People in the Chicago area and elsewhere are in battle over planning for the long term future capacity of O'Hare Airport, perhaps the busiest airport in the world. O'Hare is a hub for major airline travel in the U.S. and world. Long term plans for O'Hare call for spending 15 billion dollars. The FAA has indicated a need to determine the best plan for the long term at O'hare. "The best plan for the long-term future of O'Hare [Airport] is to shut it down. There will be no need for O'Hares without fuel to burn in a heating up world. No one will be going anywhere in the long-term. The 'pacific-green-party-discussion' (pgpd) group was included in the original post on this subject. Recent posts are included below, FYI. --------- Forwarded message ---------- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 05:34 Mayor assails O'Hare price tag Matt Baron Chicago Tribune Published February 20, 2004 ELMHURST -- Elmhurst Mayor Tom Marcucci this week expressed emotions from vindication to outrage over developments in Chicago's effort to expand O'Hare International Airport. He feels vindicated because for three years, along with other leaders of the Suburban O'Hare Commission, an O'Hare expansion foe, he has been insisting that $15 billion would be the actual cost for new runways, terminals and other facilities. Two weeks ago the city more than doubled its $6.6 billion estimate to $14.8 billion. Marcucci is disheartened by a reaction to the increased estimate from someone he described as a "high-ranking Republican official." At the City Council meeting Monday, the mayor said the official told him, "It just means more jobs for Illinois." "That, to me, is quite stunning and disheartening," Marcucci said. "It is a political deal." And Marcucci is outraged at what he says is the Chicago media's failure to hold Chicago and United Airlines accountable for the plan's shortcomings. Marcucci urged council members and residents to attend a meeting convened by U.S. Sen. Peter Fitzgerald at Fenton High School in Bensenville on Sunday. At that session, Fitzgerald, an O'Hare expansion opponent, will discussion issues related to the plan. O'Hare expansion proponents say they expect approval from the Federal Aviation Administration this year, after the FAA conducts a study of alternative proposals and the plan's environmental impact. Copyright …?2004, Chicago Tribune ========= ** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. ** AviationWatch is a service provided by the ALLIANCE OF RESIDENTS CONCERNING O'HARE. AReCO is an organization dedicated to protecting the health, safety and welfare of individuals and communities that are affected by the air transport industry. For more information see: http://www.areco.org ---------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! Groups Links http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AviationWatch/ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pacific-green-party-discussion/ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/energyresources/ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/powertothepeople/ Hello, I have just joined this list because of the apparent lack of knowledge re the looming energy crisis about to hit YOU GUYS in the US of A first....... My name's Mike Stasse, and I am a very active member of the Australian Greens in Queensland. I just contested a seat in our state elections and got more than 16% of the vote...... at least we're on the political map. I am an energy consultant with my own business designing solar powered state of the art energy efficient houses. see http://www.greenhousedesign.green.net.au That's my credentials out of the way......... I've been studying peaking oil for nearly 12 months. My first reaction was 'can't be true, load of crap, etc'. However, I am now ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN we are about to enter the most tumultuous era in the entire history of the human race. We have used about half the oil we were originally endowed with. So far so good you think, half is still left. This is true, however, it's not HOW MUCH is left that matters, it's HOW FAST we can get it. Already the rate of extraction has begun stagnating, supply cannot meet demand, particularly with China's economy going ballistic. The consequences of this event are double edged..... For the last 100/150 yrs, economic growth has occured on the back of constantly growing energy supplies........ without energy, it's impossible to do ANY work. Without oil, it's impossible to opencut mine coal...... it'll be back to the pick and shovel days! Without fossil fuels, the world population would NEVER have risen to 6+ billions. We can only produce as much food as we do (which still doesn't feed everybody anyway) without fertilisers and pesticides, all produced with FFs. So what happens when extraction rates go into decline? The economy stops growing (HURRAH!), but as it's not 'designed' to cope with this new phenomenon, it will crash. With less food, so will the population........ not nice. We need to prepare. This is where GREENS really come into their own, because WE understand GREEN ECONOMICS, and ZERO GROWTH. At least I hope you do! We also know about GREEN AGRICULTURE. The important thing though is that WE MUST BE READY. We must prioritise the use of the remaining FFs to transition to those alternatives that are viable (and THAT's a long story in itself) BEFORE we actually 'run out' (we'll actually NEVER run out, fully 1/3 of the oil in the ground cannot be recovered, another long story...) Whilst we must present our case with regard to climate change (here in Brisbane where I live, we've had temperatures 2 to 10 degrees C ABOVE AVERAGE for 2 weeks, last night was the hottest February night EVER on record, and this weekend they're predicting daytime maximums which will eclipse ALL FEBRUARY RECORDS - 41+ degrees C !) we cannot any longer pretend we're not in serious doodoos over energy. I know there will be skeptics among you on this list. It took ME months to come to grips with the knowledge that solar/wind/hydrogen power was NOT going to save the day nor appease climate change. I will upload a powerpoint presentation to the files section of this list for you to look at...... I know there are Jay Hanson skeptics among you..... nobody's perfect, but do yourself a favour and visit http://www.dieoff.org Further to my last post........ more info. Mike Stasse Australia The Oil Crunch and The End of Growth by Bill Butler 1/17/04 http://www.durangobill.com/OilCrunch.html Growth has to stop sometime Where we are going, what financial signs should we look for, and what will happen to our standard of living. Consider the following math problem. Start with the present population of the world (about 6 billion (6 * 10^9) people). Assume the world's population grows at 2% per year. (We were growing at this rate a few decades ago). We have records of human history back to Babylonian/Sumerian times. (Let's say 5,393 years ago.) Project this growth rate another 5,393 years into the future. Describe the result. Further assumptions. Assume there are no restrictions on this growth. Assume you can cram each person into a 1 ft. by 1 ft. by 3 ft. rectangular solid. Ignore gravitational/relativistic effects. Answer: 5393 years into the future there would be 144 million million million million million million million million million [(6 * 10^9) * 1.02^5393 = 1.44 * 10^56] human beings. The volume required would fill a sphere more than 1777 million million miles in diameter. (The earth's diameter is less than 8,000 miles.) As the population would still be increasing at 2% per year, this mass (mess?) would continue to grow in size. In the first half of the following year the expansion rate of the radius would reach the speed of light. We can reasonably conclude the process will stop in less than 5,393 years. (If we include gravitational effects, we would collapse into a black hole well before 5,393 years.) In order to get a better prospective on when, how, and why the growth will stop; we turn to mathematical models that reflect the real world. The Limits To Growth In 1968 a group of thirty scientists, educators, economists, etc. met in Rome to discuss the growth problem. An economic/resource model was constructed and fed into a computer. The output was the book "The Limits To Growth" which was authored by Meadows, Meadows, Randers, and Behrens in 1972. One of the components in the model was "Nonrenewable Resources". At the time, no one knew what the most vulnerable commodity (weakest link) was in this Nonrenewable component - thus the model used a conglomerate representing many Nonrenewables. The purpose of the model was to see what would happen as you ran time forward; and as best as possible, get a ballpark idea of when "The What" would happen. The result of the research model was published in the book "The Limits To Growth". The graph on page 129 showed the "Standard Run". Other runs of the model used different starting conditions or changed other variables. For example, a graph on page 133 showed the result if you doubled the original amount of nonrenewable resources. In both cases world population, industrial output per capita, and food per capita would run up to an "overshoot maximum", and then fall off a cliff. Doubling the nonrenewables just postponed things a couple of decades. At the time, the results were a very popular topic of conversation - as in "Everyone talks about the weather". Everyone waited a few years for the spectacle to unfurl. Nothing unusual happened. Everyone dismissed the book and the "Club of Rome" as a bunch of crackpots. Everyone forgot about the book. The book itself downplayed the time element due to various unknowns, but all you had to do was look at the time scale at the bottom of the graphs. Everyone failed to notice that the "overshoot maximums" and subsequent cliffs weren't scheduled for the 1970's. Everyone forgot that the "subsequent cliffs" were due in the early part of the present century. In the years since the 1970's we have done nothing to avert the consequences, but we have learned what the weakest link is in the "nonrenewables". We now have a better measurement of when and how "The Crunch" will hit. The weakest link in the "nonrenewables" turns out to be "fossil fuels", and particular, oil. Measuring the World's Oil Over the years, there have been multiple estimates ("guesstimates") of the earth's initial "endowment" as to reasonably recoverable petroleum resources. In recent decades most of these estimates for "regular oil" have clustered around 2 trillion (2 * 10^12) barrels. Colin Campbell and Jean Laherrčre have done the best work of organizing what is known plus estimating what remains to be found. In March 1998 they published their conclusions in an article in Scientific American. (Available online at either http://dieoff.org/page140.htm or http://dieoff.org/page140.pdf). The title of the article was "The End of Cheap Oil". In the years since 1998 "cornucopian economists" have tried to belittle the work done by Campbell and Laherrčre. However, one overriding fact has emerged. In March 1998 the average price for WTI oil was $15.02. Today it is more than double this amount. Jean Laherrčre and Colin Campbell have expanded their original work and have formed the Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas ("ASPO"). Details about ASPO and links to their monthly newsletters are available at the ASPO website (http://www.peakoil.net/), and I have additional information from these and other sources at http://www.durangobill.com/Rollover.html. Most of these models conclude that the world's production of crude oil will hit a maximum sometime about 2010 to 2015 and then go into decline. This decline in oil production will generate the "cliff" in the world's economy that was forecast by "The Limits to Growth" model. There are two advantages to using any predictive model. First, a model provides a reference system and can guide forecasts of what will happen in the future. Second, as new information becomes available, the model can be updated/modified to refine these forecasts. Should we believe the dire forecasts that result from these models? The Dire Forecasts May be too Optimistic In the last year there have been several hints that assumptions made in generating the above graph and model may be too optimistic. If this is true, the peak in oil production may actually occur before 2010. The "official" 2002 measurement of Saudi Arabia's oil reserves (according to the Oil & Gas Journal) is 259.3 billion barrels. The ASPO model assumes that Saudi Arabia's remaining oil reserves plus future discoveries will total about 206 billion barrels, and Saudi Arabia will be able to increase production from these resources in the future. At ASPO's 2003 seminar in Paris, Iran's Ali Bakhtiari indicated that Saudi Arabia might only have 130-160 billion barrels left. (http://www.peakoil.net/iwood2003/paper/BakhtiariPaper.doc) Matt Simmons (Simmons International http://www.simmonsco-intl.com) has said "Over the last year. I have obtained and closely examined more than 100 very technical production reports from Saudi Arabia. What I glean from examining the data is that it is very likely that Saudi Arabia, already a debtor nation, has very likely gone over its Peak." In Dec. 2003, Aramco confirmed these downgrades when they announced that over the next 5 years Saudi Arabia does not plan to expand production above current levels. The "official" measurement of Iraq's oil reserves (according to the Oil & Gas Journal) is 112.5 billion barrels. The ASPO model assumes that Iraq's remaining oil reserves plus future discoveries will total about 118 billion barrels (ASPO Newsletter 26), and they will be increasing production in the future. A technical article published by AAPG's Search and Discovery subsidiary indicates there are only 41 billion barrels left in Iraq's 28 largest fields. (http://www.searchanddiscovery.net/documents/gong03/index.htm) Since then, there have been hints that Iraq's fields have been damaged by inefficient production methods over the last decade, and this would reduce recoverable reserves still further. Finally, in January 2004 Royal Dutch/Shell downgraded their estimated reserves by 20%. It is interesting to speculate how many more of these downgrades have yet to be disclosed. If the above refinements of the model are true, then "The Peak" will be brought forward in time. But, as dire as the above model and forecast appears, it gets worse. The Crunch In addition to the above supply side of the equation, we also have to consider the demand factor. Over the next few years, the world's population will continue to expand. On balance, each of these people will want an increasing supply of fossil fuel energy. As we approach "The Peak" the relentless increase in demand will outstrip the last remaining expansion in supply. Thus the total demand will run into a ceiling before the actual "Peak" is reached. The geologic supply restriction will set in at this point. Even before this point is reached, the energy return on energy investment will continue to decline. The "easy" oil is pretty much gone. The remaining oil will take a proportionately larger unit of input for each unit produced. The World's Economy Over the last 100 years the world's economy (and population) has expanded tremendously due to utilization of fossil fuels. In the past it has taken relatively little energy to get oil out of the ground, and the products derived from oil have produced a great benefit to world. It is this huge difference between "selling price" and "cost of production" that has produced the "energy profit" to drive the world's economy. As "easy oil" disappears and is replaced by "difficult oil", this "profit margin" will continue to disappear. Then, after "The Peak", we will have less "product" to sell whether there is any "profit" or not. If you compare this "world economy" to the operation of an ordinary business, the conclusion should be the same. Finally, it is easier to look at the big picture as if you had inherited a large amount of money. If you inherited a fortune, you could splurge, live-it-up, etc. until you had spent everything. Then what? The human race has inherited a large endowment of fossil fuels, courtesy of 500 million years of geological storage of solar energy. Our technology has not fabricated a way to create energy. We have only learned how to raid the bank account. We are living-it-up and splurging the whole inheritance. Now what? What to watch for and a rough timetable As we approach "The Crunch" what are the signs to watch for. The most obvious of course is increases in energy prices. Oil prices will tend to rise relentlessly. (In North America, natural gas prices are already up sharply, and over time, will continue higher. Efforts to alleviate the demand/supply gap with imported LNG will not bring down prices.) Before "The Oil Crunch", the diminishing margin between maximal supply and demand means it will take less in the way of "temporary problems" to produce short term price spikes. Temporary relief resulting from the occasional periods when "everything goes right" will diminish in frequency. After the crunch begins in earnest, oil distribution will be allocated via price. The highest bidders will get what oil is available. Everyone else will get a diminishing supply of scraps. Products that depend on oil and natural gas will be the first "collateral damage" victims. It takes a lot of natural gas (fertilizer) and oil (pesticides, processing, transportation, etc.) to obtain today's high crop yields per acre. As fossil fuel expenses go up, farmers will have to increase food prices just to break even. Then as the supply of fossil fuels begins to decrease, the world's supply of food will also begin to decrease. At this point there will be little difference as to whether your Internet access is by dial-up or broadband. Indicators and Financial Signs First, you should realize that the following sequence will be spread over at least a decade. As we approach "The Crunch", there will be an extended period of rising oil and natural gas prices as speculators begin to take long positions in anticipation of coming shortages. Countries that have large reserves (e.g. Saudi Arabia) will begin to hoard what they have got, as opposed to increasing production. It will become increasingly obvious that anyone who has large energy resources in the ground owns a valuable commodity. We appear to be beginning this stage now. Except for temporary respites when "everything goes right" the rise in oil prices will be relentless. There will be logical explanations that oil will be plentiful and cheaper in the near future. The politicians will assure us that everything will be OK. The price of oil will continue to rise. Other signs that should appear in the financial markets would be falling bond prices (rising interest rates) in spite of Federal Reserve (and other government) efforts. As "Capital Requirements" escalate in attempts to finance more oil exploration and production, the money will have to be drawn from somewhere. This phase hasn't started yet, but may do so in coming months. If/when you see 30-year bond rates go over 6% and T-bill rates over 2%, it should be a good confirmation that "The Crunch" is underway. This will probably be accompanied by oil prices in excess of $40. Eventually most other securities will start their declines as the era of growth comes to an end, and the era of contraction begins. Food prices are likely to rise rapidly. Agriculture is basically a process of turning fossil fuels into food. When fossil fuel prices rise, food will follow. The world's food supply will begin to decrease. What food is available will be allocated by price. Those people that can't afford the price will be left behind. Precious metals may not fare well. In an ordinary financial crisis, people tend to buy gold, silver, etc. to protect their purchasing power. However, in the expected energy crisis, precious metals will have to be sold in order to pay for the basics of life. Finally, there will be a widespread decrease in our standard of living. Our standard of living is a product of ample fossil fuels (and in particular oil) that can be supplied via a "large profit margin". Without the profit margin, which in turn will be followed by less fossil fuel energy, someone has to lose. Eventually (decades from now), the earth's population will stabilize at a lower level that can be sustained by renewable resources, but we face a very difficult time making the transition. --------------- Text given in this message was from Mike Stasse, energyresources yahoo group to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------- Forwarded message ---------- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 11:46:11 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: [PGP-Discuss] Chicago O'Hare Mr. Stasse - I never said the oil crunch was a myth and I don't appreciate having statements attributed to me I didn't make. Peak global oil production may well have been reached in the year 2000. In 01, 02, and 03 global oil production has been marginally descending. The decline of ongoing global oil supplies will have very serious economic consequences, but oil from wells is far from humankind's only future energy option. Biofuels are a valid alternative to oil from wells -and- a machine was recently invented - http://forums.biodieselnow.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=829 which turns almost anything into oil at a price of (US)$15. per barrel. It will, of course, take years to mass produce millions of said oil (& mineral) machines and formulate the needed infrastructure for the intake of materials to be recycled into oil & minerals. Said machine will be an ideal way to recycle garbage, waste food, sewage, dead animals, etc. Cultivating algae (particularly seaweed) will probably also be necessary, via said machine, for production of oil & other oil-related fuels. All oil machine production, by the way, will be carbon-neutral, just as other biofuels are. Even without the big advance in biofuel tech, as demonstrated by the oil machine, prospects for biofuel replacing the role of oil are compelling. Only 11,000 square miles of biofuel crops are necessary to fully replace oil in the U.S. and that's -without- an oil machine. A large share of biofuel sources can also be cultivated in the ocean (seaweed). Prospects for replacing fossil fuel power plants with green renewables (such as wind) are also compelling. The state of South Dakota alone has enough untapped wind power to provide all the electrical energy needs of the U.S. I've already read all the nonsense Hanson has to say about biofuels and I've seen his highly misleading "net energy loss" equations. Hanson has no formal education credentials, whatsoever, in the field of energy technology and I've found countless, supposedly "scientific claims" he's made, which are absolutely false. MikeF. ________________________/ ---From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Michel€Ńtasse) Date: Thu, Feb 19, 2004, 9:37pm To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] I'm afraid you're the one with zero credibility! €‹Jay Hanson may not be perfect......€žI do not agree with his 'accumulate wealth' solution to the oil crunch, but for you to say the oil crunch is a myth is........€žwell just UTTERLY MISTIFYING!!!! €‹Wake up to yourself. €‹Mike Stasse Energy spokesperson Queensland Greens Australia [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Mr. Neuman - Citing the views of Jay Hanson or those who echo his views is not legitimate support of your statements. I've spent the last four years studying the world's energy situation and what our future energy options are. Mr. Hanson has zero credibility and his views are commonly perceived as hysterical nonsense by energy tech literate individuals and organizations. The views of Mr. Hanson -define- the meaning of "visionlessness" and "pseudo-science". I agree the transition from non-renewable, global warming-causing fossil fuels to renewable, green energy sources will be a very rocky road, but their are many excellent reasons to believe modern civilization will endure the transition. At this point in humankind's industrialism we have only tapped the easy, obvious energy sources, but tappable, infinite energy sources abound. In terms of real energy resources we have not even scratched the surface. I suggest you investigate our real, future energy options instead of relying on claims by people with the knowledge and vision of insects. MikeF. __________________________/---From: [EMAIL PROTECTED](MikeF.) Date: Thu, Feb 19, 2004, 10:11am To: The best plan for the long-term future of O'Hare [Airport] is to shut it down. There will be no need for O'Hares without fuel to burn in a heating up world. No one will be going anywhere in the long-term. [EMAIL PROTECTED](MikeF.)-writes: I'm not particularly concerned over the future status of O'Hare Airport, but I'm interested in your comments about "no fuel" and "no one will be going anywhere". Could you please expound on those comments ? Are you among those misled by Jay Hanson, perhaps ? MikeF. €ž______________________/---\_______ Date: Thu, Feb 19, 2004, 5:12pm (PST+2) To: I lost my E-mail messages. I think a reply from PGP-DISCUSS on my O'Hare message of a couple days ago asked me to give my references in support of my statement that long term plans for O'Hare should be to shut it down because fuel won't be available for aviation.€žI believe there was mention of Jay€žfrom the group called 'die-off', by the person that posted the reply to this group. I requested comment from the yahoo group owner of powertothepeople to help in my reply on the fuel running out.€žIn addition to input from 'powertothepeople' group owner, I plan to ask Tom Robertson, owner of yahoogroup 'energyresources' for his comment.€žI do not have expertise in how much fossil fuel might be left to burn, basing my views on those of others.€žMy expertise is in hydrology and studies about global warming, basing my views on my own study of the facts and experience in hydrologic predict ion within the Great Plains, Midwest and Great Lakes States. It may take me a couple days or more to get my reply together. In the meantime, I suggest others to view the messages on energyresources and powertothepeople, if they haven't been doing so already. --------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "lawrence_01749" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 23:00:20 -0000 Subject: [energyresources] "Infinite Energy" on tap (was: Chicago O'Hare) Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Once we get past the snide and insults, Mr. F offers something that sounds suspiciously like the "zero-point" energy wackos. Or maybe he's actually referring in a grandiose way to solar, wind, tide etc. sources of energy that don't violate basic laws of thermodynamics. He does acknowledge a "very rocky road" yet "tappable, infinite energy sources abound". Why bother with the rocky road part when we've got infinite energy on tap? ask him to get to the point. What's his magic energy source that's going to save civiliation? I want to invest in it now. Ask for some numbers on how fast it can be brought online to fill in for declining oil and gas. Truthfully, I don't know if modern industrial civilization will survive the next 40 years. Mr. F is modest enough to say "there are many excellent reasons to believe" that it will, which leaves him some wiggle room. Anyone who claims to know is lying or ignorant. Dick Lawrence --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Please see the Fw posts below. If you would like to > provide comment that I might use in a reply to MikeF. > I would appreciate that. > > > Fw: Re: Chicago O'Hare > > ---Fw from pacific-green-party-discussion list --- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 21:18:12 -0800 (PST) > Subject: Re: [PGP-Discuss] Chicago O'Hare - Citing the views of Jay Hanson or those > who echo his views is not legitimate support of your > statements. I've spent the last four years studying the world's > energy situation and what our future energy options are. > Mr. Hanson has zero credibility and his views are commonly > perceived as hysterical nonsense by energy tech literate > individuals and organizations. The views of Mr. Hanson > -define- the meaning of "visionlessness" and > "pseudo-science". I agree the transition from non-renewable, > global warming-causing fossil fuels to renewable, green > energy sources will be a very rocky road, but their are many > excellent reasons to believe modern civilization will endure > the transition. At this point in humankind's industrialism we > have only tapped the easy, obvious energy sources, but > tappable, infinite energy sources abound. In terms of real > energy resources we have not even scratched the surface. > I suggest you investigate our real, future energy options > instead of relying on claims by people with the knowledge > and vision of insects. > > MikeF.--------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "Mike Stasse" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 23:25:04 -0000 Subject: [PGP-Discuss] Re: The Oil Machine Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> This at first glance appears like a good idea, however, where does all the waste come from? It is now becoming so common for companies to come up with ideas to 'solve' problems' without analysing the entire lifecycle of what they're trying to solve, that serious mistakes are often made.... like GMOs for instance. Recycling turkey guts (pity we can't fee George W into this one!) makes sense until you think about the way these turkeys are raised. I'd very surprised if they're free range organic ones! Modern agriculture consists of turning fossil fuels into food. 9 out of 10 calories we put in our mouths today are oil/gas/coal based. All the waste mentioned, plastic bottles, tires, etc, are ALL made from oil. Copious amounts of CO2 would have been emitted in that process. So whilst this looks like a good ide, turning oil waste into hydrogen, it can only last whilst FFs last, it does not improve your country's energy security one iota, it does not abate greenhouse emissions. And then you have to wonder if it even makes an energy profit on the energy invested. Time will tell. Mike Stasse Australia --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > http://www.discover.com/issues/may-03/features/featoil/ €ž > Brian Appel, CEO of Changing World Technologies, strolls through a > thermal depolymerization plant in Philadelphia. Experiments at€ňhe > pilot facility revealed that the process is scalable—plants can sprawl over acres and handle 4,000 tons of waste a day or be€¨small enough to go on the back of a flatbed truck* and handle just one ton daily, says Appel. The oil-to-mineral ratios vary too. Plastic bottles, for example, yield copious amounts of oil, while tires yield more minerals and€íther > solids. So far, says Adams, *nothing hazardous comes out from any > feedstock we try.*€¨The only thing this process can't handle is > nuclear waste,* Appel says. *If it contains carbon, we can do it.* This Philadelphia pilot plant can handle only seven tons of waste a day, but 1,054 miles to the west, in Carthage, Missouri,€ßbout 100 yards from > one of ConAgra Foods' massive Butterball Turkey plants, sits the > company's first commercial-scale thermal depolymerization plant. The $20 million facility, scheduled to go online any day, is expected to digest more than 200 tons of€ňurkey-processing waste every 24 hours. It will be profitable, promises Appel. *We've done so much testing in > Philadelphia, we already know the costs,* he says. *This€çs our > first-out plant, and we estimate we'll make oil at $15 a barrel. In > three to five years, we'll drop that to $10, the same as€ß medium- size oil exploration and production company. And it will get cheaper from there.* > *We've got a lot of confidence in this,* Buffett says. *I represent > ConAgra's investment. We wouldn't be doing this if we > didn't€ßnticipate success.* Buffett isn't alone. Appel has lined up > federal grant money to help build demonstration plants to > process€áhicken offal and manure in Alabama and crop residuals and > grease in Nevada. In the works are plants to process turkey waste€ßnd manure in Colorado and pork and cheese waste in Italy. He says the first generation of depolymerization centers will be up and€đunning in 2005. I imagine every municipality with over 100,000 people will want to > invest in one of these if for no other€đeason than to cleanly dispose of its more troublesome waste streams.....and what would having several hundred independent oil producers scattered around the country do to the price of oil ? Also this process produces a large amount of natural gas for running the€ńystem with about 85% excess produced....thus excess > to run turbines and produce electricity...say give the local electric company a€ŕreak and sell it to them to half a cent less than they sell their electricity...they get a profit..(you are after all using their infrastructure...they burn less oil/coal). > __________________________________ --------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "Mike Stasse" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 23:38:15 -0000 Subject: Re: [PGP-Discuss] Chicago O'Hare --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Mr. Stasse - I never said the oil crunch was a myth and I don't > appreciate having statements attributed to me I didn't make. Sorry, must've misunderstood your post. I've made biodiesel in an old washing machine, and we used it to fuel a friend's 1966 Merc for some time. Nice smell! However, I'm really concerned that hype about the 'oil machine', hydrogen/biodiesel/ethanol will convince people all over the world we can continue business as usual whilst abating greenhouse emissions and securing our energy future. FACT: it would take THREE times as much arable land as we have today to power the current car fleet on biofuel. What would YOU eat? This doesn't even include the energy required the MAKE the new fleet, let alone manufacture the rest of the goodies we have all become accustomed to consuming....... Not to mention the bitumen roads! There are NO solutions to running out of FFs, except doing with much much less energy. No flying, 10% of current car fleet MAX, possibly each using 50% of the current energy requirement. Personally I'm looking forward to some of the outcomes..... like organic food. The go go go non stop society we now belong to is inhumane. I think it largely explains the amazing levels of depression in our society, the incredibel divorce rate, suicide rate, levels of mental disorders, etc etc....... Get used to it. Mike Stasse Australia Peak global > oil production may well have been reached in the year 2000. In 01, 02, and 03 global oil production has been marginally descending. The decline of ongoing global oil supplies will have very serious economic > consequences, but oil from wells is far from humankind's only future > energy option. Biofuels are a valid alternative to oil from wells - and- a machine was recently invented - > http://forums.biodieselnow.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=829 which turns almost anything into oil at a price of (US)$15. per barrel. It will, of course, take years to mass produce millions of said oil (& mineral) machines and formulate the needed infrastructure for the intake of materials to be recycled into oil & minerals. Said machine will be an ideal way to > recycle garbage, waste food, sewage, dead animals, etc. Cultivating > algae (particularly seaweed) will probably also be necessary, via said machine, for production of oil & other oil-related fuels. All oil > machine production, by the way, will be carbon-neutral, just as other biofuels are. Even without the big advance in biofuel tech, as > demonstrated by the oil machine, prospects for biofuel replacing the > role of oil are compelling. Only 11,000 square miles of biofuel crops are necessary to fully replace oil in the U.S. and that's -without- an oil machine. A large share of biofuel sources can also be cultivated in the ocean (seaweed). Prospects for replacing fossil fuel power plants with green renewables (such as wind) are also compelling. The state of South Dakota alone has enough untapped wind power to provide all the > electrical energy needs of the U.S. I've already read all the nonsense Hanson has to say about biofuels and I've seen his highly misleading > "net energy loss" equations. Hanson has no formal education credentials, whatsoever, in the field of energy technology and I've found countless, supposedly "scientific claims" he's made, which are absolutely false. > MikeF. > ________________________/- --From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Michel€Ńtasse) > Date: Thu, Feb 19, 2004, 9:37pm To: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > I'm afraid you're the one with zero credibility! > €‹> Jay Hanson may not be perfect......€žI do not agree with his > 'accumulate wealth' solution to the oil crunch, but for you to say the oil crunch is a myth is........€žwell just UTTERLY MISTIFYING!!!! > €Őake up to yourself. > €Ëike Stasse > Energy spokesperson > Queensland Greens Australia > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Citing the views of Jay Hanson or those who echo his views is not legitimate support of your statements. I've spent the last four years studying the world's energy situation and what our future energy options are. Mr. Hanson has zero credibility and his views are commonly perceived as hysterical nonsense by energy tech literate individuals and organizations. The views of Mr. Hanson -define- the meaning of > "visionlessness" and "pseudo-science". I agree the transition from > non-renewable, global warming-causing fossil fuels to renewable, green energy sources will be a very rocky road, but their are many excellent reasons to believe modern civilization will endure the transition. At this point in humankind's industrialism we have only tapped the easy, obvious energy sources, but tappable, infinite energy sources abound. In terms of real energy resources we have not even scratched the surface. I suggest you investigate our real, future energy options instead of > relying on claims by people with the knowledge and vision of insects. > MikeF. > __________________________/- --From: [EMAIL PROTECTED](MikeF.) Date: > Thu, Feb 19, 2004, 10:11am To: -wrote: The best plan for the long-term > future of O'Hare [Airport] is to shut it down. There will be no need for O'Hares without fuel to burn in a heating up world. No one will be going anywhere in the long-term. > [EMAIL PROTECTED](MikeF.)-writes: I'm not particularly concerned > over the future status of O'Hare Airport, but I'm interested in your > comments about "no fuel" and "no one will be going anywhere". Could you please expound on those comments ? Are you among those misled by Jay > Hanson, perhaps ? MikeF. €‹> THE WORLD IS IN CRISIS DUE TO GLOBAL WARMING! ________________________________________________________________ The best thing to hit the Internet in years - Juno SpeedBand! Surf the Web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER! Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today! Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/biofuel/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
