OPEC has us by our NUTS...thanks 'consumers'

Drop this into google "anything into oil"

May be too good to be true, but seems theres a fair amount of money behind it and successful running of a pilot plant and the building of a full scale one.

Looks like an interesting new development. They're saying this could potentially fit in the back of a pickup truck? That means household units. When I think about how much waste comes out of our family of two that's either plastic or organic I always wonder why we couldn't do something better.

But then, I'm sort of an environmentalist to begin with.

An environmentalist wouldn't go for turning waste into oil. An environmentalist generally has a wide range of political and social goals that don't match up with finding a way to make oil a renewable fuel.

Someone who cares about saving money and resusing things for effeciency, for geting the most out of what is available, someone who is interested in consvering the planet's resources, would be interested in turning garbage into a fuel. It's much like biodiesel engines that can run off what is drained from resturant grease traps.

Brent,

Garbage (non-boilogical waste) is far more valuable as a source of raw materials, ie: wood, metal, plastic, etc. for recycling. And as for biological waste garbage, such as food waste, dirty diapers, etc. while that can be used to create oil, your not going to get enough out of it to service all the transportation needs.

Ted

I heard on PBS last night that while the Arabs have oil, the U.S.A. has enough coal reserves to supply the energy needs of the country for

300-400 years. This resource needs more development.

Oh yeah - coal soot is so beautiful and healthful.

But it's true - we do sit on a whole bunch of coal in this country.

This old theory has been around for a long time, Rex. Tisn't new at all. Yes, there can be inorganic sources of hydrocarbon production but the fact is that what we drill for today, for the most part, is undoubtedly fossil in nature.

And in the USA, there isn't enough of it. Neither is there enough gas for the long haul.

There is a lot of coal... good luck.

It doesn't have too much to do with environmentalists preventing drilling in most of the USA...yes, there are sensitive areas where drilling is restricted, but the facts are that we have pissed away our hydrocarbon reserves, don't have too much left except the dregs.

And we keep pissing it away as fast as we can.

Some day, when we are forced to save our feces to make gas like the Chinese do (but for a different reason), and when obtaining fuel takes on all the aspects of a Mad Max movie, people will wonder why we didn't take it more seriously back when we could have done something about it.

We are too sure of our immortality, I think.

"All natural resources are man-made".

Remember all the cryin' back in the '50s* when we ran out of whale oil? The world was about to end...but we figured out to use coal oil. Then we stopped using that, and switched to petrol. We'll just switch to something else.

Don't get stuck in a "petrol or nothing" paradigm.

*1850's!

I have heard how we are all going to be poisoned to death, run out of oil, and will not be able to eat the poisoned food since I was a little kid. I still have food on my table, gas in my car, and I can expect to live longer and longer every year. What isn't new at all are those scare tactics. And it is not only sensitive areas that environmentalists prevent drilling in. Whenever they hear oil, they go nuts. And they don't care about the details.

Why do environmentalists drive cars when they can ride a bicycle? I think I will go trade my truck in for a Hummer.

Yeah. So what if all the above actually happen in 40-50 years? As long as you have fuel for your SUV to haul your fat ass around today, what's the problem?

Oh, I'm definitely not stuck in the past. Facts are that the low fruit has already been picked. Oil and gas production in the USA is about half what we use, and not improving.

The world will not run completely out of produceable oil any time soon. But it will get scarcer, more expensive. We will have to suck up to offensive regimes and make deals with the devil, as always, to fuel our gluttony.

Oil is more useful than just for tooling down the freeway at 90 mph.

Yes, there are technologies which might substitute for fossil fuels but they are not ready yet if ever, and will be expensive. And there is all too little serious research being done in that area.

Our lifestyles are supported by one of the world's most successful economies, and it is all fueled with oil. Chemicals, medicine, plastics, building materials, food production, exportable hard goods...all depend upon the available of hydrocarbons and energy.

Without it, our status would appear to be aimed toward 'third world' economics.

As long as we are on it, we have

-too many children being born

-to single parent 'families' with trailer trash attitudes

-who don't instill cause and effect thinking in these citizens of tomorrow,

-or the ethic of hard work and intense education.

We piss away our resources at an enormous rate and hope that from the ranks of this motly band of Jerry Springer candidates, saviors will arise who will magically keep us in the position of being 'the best country in the world'.

Of course, it isn't as bad as I have painted it. We are immortal.

want to, being the spoiled

Guess we know where you are comming from. This country has all it has because of sacrifice and hard work. People like you want us to be ashamed of what we have accomplished because other places in the world have not done the same. You think pride is a bad word. Why do you people never mention the billions and billions in aid we give others? That help would not be there if we were not great.

A few stupid TV shows and all of a sudden that is all that people who put America down talk about in these messages. You would think 9 out of 10 in the country watch that stuff. Just another misleading way to make us ALL look bad.

BioDiesel is particularly attractive. I wish I didn't have to wait until 2006 to buy a Diesel hybrid.

Each refinery is certainly designed for a particular type or range of types of crude. Likewise there are issues with by products, hence the ability to refine any given crude might not be available at any one specific refinery. But rest assured that the west coast has been *flooded* with ANS (Alaska North Slope) crude for 25 years, refiners long since adapted as needed!

There was a problem at the peak of North Slope production (in

1988 at just over 2 million barrels a day) and some crude was shipped via the Panama Canal to Gulf state refineries, which had to be modified to handle ANS.

However, by 1999 the volume of oil had been reduced to less than half of what it was in 1988 (currently it is running at about

900,000 barrels a day). Obviously there is the capability to handle at least twice the current production.

It was specifically illegal to export ANS until 1996. Beginning that year and until 2000, ANS was exported to Korea (50%), Japan (36%) and China (12%) in the following annual amounts,

YEAR(S) VOLUME

1977-1995 0 1996 30,000 bd 1997 66,500 bd 1998 52,900 bd 1999 75,200 bd 2000 ?? 2001-2003 0

In early 2000 Congress was prepared to once again make it illegal to export ANS due to claims that West Coast refineries were leveraging the price of gasoline in California. To avoid that action BP Alaska agreed to cease exports, and none has been exported since approximately May or June of 2000.

The above numbers are the best that I have been able to come up with. I've seen them repeated in three or four places, but here is a URL which provides very similar numbers and discussion. The document was generated by the Congressional Research Service (The Library of Congress) for the US Congress.

There are two refineries in North Pole (near Fairbanks) and one at Nikiski on the Kenai Peninsula south of Anchorage. I'm not sure how much ANS is shipped over to Nikiski as opposed to refining Cook Inlet crude. Nikiski supplies much of the Alaska market outside of Fairbanks and Anchorage (all bulk POL products here in Barrow are barged in from Nikiski, for example). The largest markets for refined products are jet fuel, heating fuel, and gasoline for Fairbanks and Anchorage. The North Pole refineries supply a substantial portion of those markets, delivering products to the Anchorage area via the Alaska Railroad. (There are also small refineries on the North Slope and at some of the pump stations, used to produce local requirements for diesel fuels.)

The refineries in North Pole are an interesting case. As noted above, it isn't just the supply of crude that affects a refinery, but the disposal of the waste products. In most cases some type of local chemical industry is necessary for a refinery to function, otherwise it would be too costly to transport waste to some place where it could be used. The North Pole refineries are the only examples of refineries where that is /not/ the case! They are about 10 miles from Eielson AFB (a major user of jet fuel) and have a pipeline between Eielson (where the Trans Alaska Pipeline passes) and the refineries. That pipeline alternates between three products: 1) Crude going to the refineries from the TAPS, 2) refined products going to Eielson AFB, and 3) by products from the refineries to be re-inserted into TAPS.

They just put it all right back into the pipeline and let other refineries separate it for the chemical companies...

-- Floyd L. Davidson Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska) snipped-for-privacy@barrow.com

No, because unlike you, there are millions who actually care.

Only millions ? that it ?

They can care all they want, but because votes are meaningless in our fake democracy, caring isn't enough.

If you hadn't slept through high school civics, you would remember that the USA is a Republic.

Ed

Jon, you need to create your own ideas. Not just repeat what we all have been told to believe since grade school. All you want to see is the bad. You constantly repeat the same complaints and ignore and good news or anything good about this country. If you want to live your life being ashamed of what you have, that is fine. But you want to tell everyone else not to drive what they want and that they are bad for having anything that brings them joy.