Jim Booth wrote:
> "Qui si parla Campagnolo" wrote in message
> news:1125665104.586267.12150@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> >
> > big...@backpacker.com wrote:
> > > NEW YORK- A car whose driver was apparent distraught over the rapid
> > > fluctuations in gasoline prices allegedly drove his car into two gas
> > > pumps at a service station located at the corner of Amboy Road and
> > > Clark in the Richmond section of Staten Island. The driver, a 43 year
> > > old Staten Island resident, was heard shouting "What are they doing for
> > > us?", "We can't can't afford to live!", "Food or gas we must choose!"
> > > as he was taken into police custody.
> >
> > Anything that will get the typical fat american outta his SUV is a good
> > thing. Fat america has been set up by the car and oil industry and now
> > are a gonna get screwed.
>
>
> How about getting ANWR on line. We Alaskan's are trying to help....but a few
> environmental groups keeps us from doing just that!
The Alaska National Wildlife Refuge won't help to any significant
degree, but the governor of Montana has an interesting idea: convert
coal to gasoline and fuel oil. He says the process becomes cost
effective with oil at $32/barrel, and that Montana has enough coal to
supply all US oil-derived energy needs for 40 years. Don't know what
that will do to Montana's ecology, but at least there won't be any
supertankers sinking, and I like to think that a Democratic governor is
not proposing to destroy his state with strip mining. Supposedly this
kind of conversion produces relatively clean fuel as sulphur in coal is
removed by the process. Still, it dumps just as much carbon into the
air.
If this process is cost effective at $32/barrel and oil is selling at
~$70/barrel, what is the incentive for oil companies to make an
investment in the technology? It seems like it would have the effect of
suddenly cutting the value of their reserves in half.
The plants are expensive but there is a shortage of refining capacity
now. Maybe, instead of building new oil refineries, it makes more sense
to build coal conversion plants. BTW, the US has huge coal deposits-
it's the Saudi Arabia of coal- which would certainly put the shoe on
the other foot in a few decades, assuming we didn't incinerate the
Earth with all that CO2.
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