Solution to the oil problem

[Libsmasher]

I've already posted part of this, but here's the whole idea.

The US creates plants to "gassify" coal. The coal gassification plants are powered by a new generation of nuclear reactors, the first of maybe 100 new reactors to be built.

That more energy goes into the gassification than is yielded by the resulting synthetic gasoline is irrelevent - the US has huge amounts of both coal and uranium, and nuclear reactors generate energy in abundance.

After the amount of synthetic gas created equals that of a suitable base year, imports of oil are illegalized.

The gassification plants stay in operation until practical electric cars are created - then the gassifications plants are shut down, and the huge new demands for electricity to power the nations electric cars is available as the nuke plants switch their output to the power grid. In practice, there will be a gradual shut down of gassification plants and re-direction of the new electricrty produced, as electric cars become cheaper and in wider use.

The end result:

- Minimal polution.
- An end to energy imports.
- No more middle east blackmail of the US.
- As the technology spreads to other countries, an end to oil-financed islamofascists and arab theocracies.

 

[Sihouette]

We're in a jamb energy-wise and what does the right propose? More insanity: Coal and nukes and of course...more oil...

Guess what else is availible and non-lethal to either people or the environment. Wind for Chicago, Solar for Pheonix, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, all of Texas and the South, Geothermal for Seattle and Portland, Hydro for New York...

You get the idea. California wants the hydrogen highway. The byproducts of this known and viable form of vehicle propulsion is water, steam vapor.

Get your dirty, sticky, grubby and dangerous ideas out of the energy world. Their time has come and gone. Get with the times..

 

[GenSeneca]

We're in a jamb energy-wise and what does the right propose? More insanity: Coal and nukes and of course...more oil...

Guess what else is availible and non-lethal to either people or the environment. Wind for Chicago, Solar for Pheonix, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, all of Texas and the South, Geothermal for Seattle and Portland, Hydro for New York...

You get the idea. California wants the hydrogen highway. The byproducts of this known and viable form of vehicle propulsion is water, steam vapor.

Get your dirty, sticky, grubby and dangerous ideas out of the energy world. Their time has come and gone. Get with the times..

Theres really no point in setting you straight since you totally ignore all facts that don't comport with your worldview... but what the hell:

Wind grew by 300% under Bush - Would have been 500% but Environmentalists blocked the other 200%.

Hydrogen: 95% of GHG's are Water vapor - the byproduct of Hydrogen.

The only dangerous energy ideas are those that limit our options.

Global Warming flavored cool-aid will leave you with a bad taste in your mouth.

 

[Sihouette]

We should be leading the world with 1,000% more implemented safe alternatives whose technology has been availible (and actively suppressed by BigOil) for four decades.

Instead we have the GOP/BigOil proponents (stockholders, CEOs, arab allies) telling us we should stay with antiquated, dirty, unsafe third-world forms of energy like fossil fuels, coal and nuclear.

Shameful. Shameful that a country like Iceland can get about 90% of it's energy from safe alternative renewable and clean resources while we get 90%of ours from hazardous, outdated, finite and filthy resources. Oh look how great America is everyone. BigOil is not only sacking our economy and placing us in a vulnerable position, they're making us look like fools..

No matter. As long as they get rich..

 

[Libsmasher]

We're in a jamb energy-wise and what does the right propose? More insanity: Coal and nukes and of course...more oil...

The insanity regarding nukes is strictly that of the nukophobes. Other than people killed WITHIN a plant from industrial-type accidents, know what the total number of people killed from nuclear plants in the US in over 60 years of operation all over the US? A BIG, FAT, PERFECTLY ROUND ZERO. I would add to my plan psychological treatment centers for ecofascists where they can work on their nukophobia issues.

Guess what else is availible and non-lethal to either people or the environment. Wind for Chicago, Solar for Pheonix, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, all of Texas and the South, Geothermal for Seattle and Portland, Hydro for New York...

You get the idea. California wants the hydrogen highway. The byproducts of this known and viable form of vehicle propulsion is water, steam vapor.

None of this chicken-sh__ boutique energy amounts to a rat's ass. They are nothing more than an ecofascist's pipe dream, and the US has to get on with the serious business of solving the energy problem with REAL solutions.

Get your dirty, sticky, grubby and dangerous ideas out of the energy world. Their time has come and gone. Get with the times..

You think the "times" is powering an advanced industrial society by burning food and hamsters running in cages - sorry won't work. Try to fight your way back to sanity - if you can.

 

[GenSeneca]

actively suppressed by BigOil

This is what I mean.... Conspiracy theories are your forte. We have told you repeatedly - BIG OIL IS NOT A COMPETITOR IN THAT MARKET. They have NO REASON to suppress altertnatives - its the ENVIRONMENTALISTS AND ANIMAL RIGHTS WACKOS - who suppress alternatives.

Unlike your silly theory, I can site court cases and legislation to back what I say.

Shameful that a country like Iceland can get about 90% of it's energy from safe alternative renewable and clean resources

Gas is over $4 a gallon in Iceland.... Iceland (the entire country) is the size of Indiana (1 of 50 states). Its shameful you have no concept of reality.

 

[Libsmasher]

Also, Iceland has a whopping population of 300,000 - about one tenth of just the county where I live, and they just happen to be sitting on top of an extremely rare area of intense thermal energy. Maybe folks in Iowa could do that - just look around for a steam geyser.

 

[Andy]

We should be leading the world with 1,000% more implemented safe alternatives whose technology has been availible (and actively suppressed by BigOil) for four decades.

Proven many time to be a lie. You just repeat the same lies over. Is there an echo in here?

Instead we have the GOP/BigOil proponents (stockholders, CEOs, arab allies) telling us we should stay with antiquated, dirty, unsafe third-world forms of energy like fossil fuels, coal and nuclear.

We are the stockholders. Nearly everyone with a 401K is a stockholder. Third-world is apparently everyone in the European union and more.

Shameful. Shameful that a country like Iceland can get about 90% of it's energy from safe alternative renewable and clean resources while we get 90%of ours from hazardous, outdated, finite and filthy resources. Oh look how great America is everyone. BigOil is not only sacking our economy and placing us in a vulnerable position, they're making us look like fools..

No matter. As long as they get rich..

Shameful that we don't have the geology to do what Iceland has done. It's all our fault that our continent doesn't have such vast heat vents as Iceland. It's those greedy corporate who went back in time, to form the U.S. on a location not brimming with geysers and tar pits all over for us to tap into.

Why do you go get an education.

 

[Sihouette]

Ever been to Yellowstone? The Cascades? The Eastern Sierra? Ever wonder what all those steam clouds rising everywhere are from? Bubbling cauldrons at or just below grade..

Try again.

When you say, "Proven many time to be a lie", you need to cite sources to where you're getting that from.

"Proven" is a strong word that needs appropriate backing to be believed

We have the technology right now to make Chicago a wind-run city. To make Phoenix, LA, Las Vegas and all the South and Southwest solar run regions. We have the technology, right now, today, to harness steam generation all along the Cascades and the Yellowstone area to provide power to the PNW and the Rocky Mountain states.

We have hydro in the East, today.

There are all sorts of other non-developed but interesting forms of alternative energy as well. Salt inversion ponds that trap high heat at their base layer, even in snow conditions, enough to create steam generation. Vibration technologies that create electron flows via even minute vibrations from streets and other sources. I even recently saw in India how a guy used dead batteries immersed in liquid cow crap and had enough energy generated from this process to run the town TV, radio and other appliances. There were a very small number of these homemade containers, about 20 the size of small coffee cans.

The research showed how electricity can be created as the microorganisms in rumen fluid break down cellulose – a complex carbohydrate that is the primary component of the roughage that cows eat. That breakdown releases electrons.

This study represents the first time that scientists have used cellulose to help charge a fuel cell.

The researchers presented their findings on August 31 in Washington, D.C., at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society. Christy and Rismani-Yazdi conducted the work with Ohio State colleagues Olli Tuovinen, a professor of microbiology, and Burk Dehority, a professor of animal sciences.

The researchers extracted rumen fluid from a living cow. The rumen is essentially a fermentation vat crawling with microorganisms where much of the food that a cow eats is temporarily held and is continuously churned until it can be completely digested. This liquid mass is what scientists call rumen fluid.

The researchers collected the fluid through a cannula, a surgically implanted tube that leads directly from the cow's hide into its rumen. The cow used in the study ate a normal diet.

The researchers filled each of two sterilized glass chambers with strained rumen fluid to create the microbial fuel cell. Each chamber was about a foot high and about 6 inches in diameter.

The chambers were separated by a special material that allowed protons to move from the negative (anode) chamber into the positive (cathode) chamber. This movement of protons, along with the movement of electrons across the resistor and wire that connects the two electrodes, creates electrical current.

The anode chamber was filled with rumen fluid and cellulose, which served as a food source for the microorganisms. Cellulose is plentiful on most farms, as harvesting usually leaves behind plenty of it in the form of crop residue in the fields.

The other chamber, the cathode, was filled with potassium ferricyanide, a chemical that acts as an oxidizing agent to round out the electrical circuit.

Two small pieces of plain graphite served as the fuel cell's electrodes (an electrode draws and emits electrical charge.) A piece of graphite was placed in each chamber. The researchers used a meter to measure the output of the fuel cell.

That output reached a consistent maximum of 0.58 volts. After about four days, the voltage fell to around 0.2 volts, at which time the researchers added fresh cellulose to bring the voltage back up to a higher level.

“While that's a very small amount of voltage, the results show that it is possible to create electricity from cow waste,” Christy said. Source: http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/cowpower.htm

Driving through the Heartland and near Stockton feed lots in California, I notice mountains of manure just waiting to be utilized.

I'll post more quirky, yet viable, energy alternatives as time permits. I'm sure the Pro-Oil people can't wait to hear about them...

 

[Libsmasher]

There is no proof that "alternate energy" has any possibility of providing more than a tiny fraction of US energy needs, now or in any time but the most remote future. If you have any PROOF to the contrary, provide it, otherwise shut up. The biggest "mountains of manure" are from the "alternate energy" wackos.

 

[Andy]

Ever been to Yellowstone? The Cascades? The Eastern Sierra? Ever wonder what all those steam clouds rising everywhere are from? Bubbling cauldrons at or just below grade..

Why yes of course! Those bubbling cauldrons and steam clouds rising all over Ohio! Why didn't I think of it before?? We can shut down all our power plants and covert completely over to geothermal here in Ohio... and sit in the dark... Try again.

When you say, "Proven many time to be a lie", you need to cite sources to where you're getting that from.

"Proven" is a strong word that needs appropriate backing to be believed

We have the technology right now to make Chicago a wind-run city. To make Phoenix, LA, Las Vegas and all the South and Southwest solar run regions. We have the technology, right now, today, to harness steam generation all along the Cascades and the Yellowstone area to provide power to the PNW and the Rocky Mountain states.

Ugh... I did prove it in any number of the other stupid threads you had on your dumb alternative fuel theories.

Wind power can not be used as a baseline source of power. The reason is because when the wind stops, the entire city has a black out. You must have coal or nuclear, or gas power plants running to pick up the slack.

Geothermal is nice, and is fine in area where it is available. It can not, and will not, be sufficient to replace conventional energy sources.

Solar, thus far is a complete joke. The amount of electrical power used in creation of a solar panel, is more than the panel will ever produce in it's life time. Further, the cost of a solar panel is still far too expensive to be economically practical. If/when that changes we'll talk about it.

You just have bought in to so much garbage, that instead of looking at the fact, you have adopted a stupid illogical conspiracy theory to explain why alternative forms of energy can not replace conventional.

There are all sorts of other non-developed but interesting forms of alternative energy as well. Salt inversion ponds that trap high heat at their base layer, even in snow conditions, enough to create steam generation. Vibration technologies that create electron flows via even minute vibrations from streets and other sources. I even recently saw in India how a guy used dead batteries immersed in liquid cow crap and had enough energy generated from this process to run the town TV, radio and other appliances. There were a very small number of these homemade containers, about 20 the size of small coffee cans.

I know about inversion ponds. Israel has been using them, on a very limited basis because they are expensive, and require measures that can "disrupt the ecology of the pond". If they are expensive in Israel where the massive sun output is much higher than here, then likely they won't be very practical in the U.S.

Yeah I'm sure everyone is going to be clamoring for cow crap to run their home appliances. I'm sure interested...

Driving through the Heartland and near Stockton feed lots in California, I notice mountains of manure just waiting to be utilized.

I'll post more quirky, yet viable, energy alternatives as time permits. I'm sure the Pro-Oil people can't wait to hear about them...

Don't care at all. If you have an alternative form of energy you wish to use, feel free. At least the people in your neighborhood will know which house is saving of every by the smell.

But none of these alternative electricity sources replaces oil, so by all means. You won't be hurting my 401K. Maybe if I had stock in coal, but I don't. Do any of your posts every make sense?

 

[PLC1]

We need to do what works.

Nuclear power works, and needs to be expanded.

Coal into gasoline worked back in the '20s, but lost out to cheaper oil. Now, it is oil that is expensive and coal that is abundant within our own borders.

Wind power works, in some places, as does geothermal. Where it is economically viable, such plants need to be built.

Hydrogen is not a fuel. At best, it is a way to store energy temporarily, but it takes more energy to produce hydrogen than you get by burning that hydrogen. We can't run cars on water, no matter how much we'd like to. Batteries are getting better, and may turn out to be a safer and more efficient way to store electricity than hydrogen is.

Making oil from organic waste shows a lot of potential, as does growing algae as a source of energy. That technology is still developing, but bears watching.

We have learned to make our vehicles more fuel efficient, and can continue that trend. Hybrids have a place in today's market, and the more efficient hydraulic hybrid is beginning to be developed. Smaller, lighter, more fuel efficient vehicles are the way to go for personal travel, but a smaller and lighter truck is not going to deliver the goods efficiently.

US oil deposits need to be developed, but the idea that simply drilling for more oil alone is going to solve our energy problems is just wishful thinking.

We need to look toward the private sector for the solutions. Big government has given us roadblocks, along with the subsidization of uneconomic ideas like corn ethanol, as an example.

As a nation, we need to become energy independent, and we need to use every means we have to do so. Being dependent on unstable nations in the Middle East where the people often hate us for being "infidels" is a poor policy to say the least.

 

[Sihouette]

Yeah I'm sure everyone is going to be clamoring for cow crap to run their home appliances. I'm sure interested

Just like no one will want a nuclear reactor in their back yard...yeah...I hear ya.

That's why you develop a central power plant utlizing these electricy-generating bacterial reactions. Duh.

 

[Andy]

Just like no one will want a nuclear reactor in their back yard...yeah...I hear ya.

That's why you develop a central power plant utlizing these electricy-generating bacterial reactions. Duh.

Right, that's what we need. Instead of safe affordable nuclear power, we are going to have a stink plant in the middle of town? Good way to clear out the inner city.

Many people support nuclear power. That 'not in my back yard' fearism is wearing off. On the other hand, if you can build a massive cow patty power generator and get people to want it, by all means.

 

[GenSeneca]

US oil deposits need to be developed, but the idea that simply drilling for more oil alone is going to solve our energy problems is just wishful thinking.

Is there anyone seriously suggesting this?

Being dependent on unstable nations in the Middle East where the people often hate us for being "infidels" is a poor policy to say the least.

I agree. This is exactly what the Democrats will accomplish by implementing a profits tax on American oil companies.

CRS also found the windfall profits tax had the effect of decreasing domestic production by 3 percent to 6 percent, thereby increasing American dependence on foreign oil sources by 8 percent to 16 percent. A side effect was declining, not increasing, tax collections. Figure 1 clearly shows that while the tax raised considerable revenue in the initial years following its enactment, those revenues declined to almost nothing as the domestic industry collapsed.

The 1980 windfall profits tax was also found to be highly burdensome for the industry to comply with and for the Internal Revenue Service to administer, especially in years when no revenue was raised. It seems unlikely that a new tax could be designed in a less burdensome fashion. Tax Foundation economists estimate that U.S. companies currently spend nearly $150 billion annually to comply with the federal income tax alone. Enacting a new windfall profits tax would add an additional layer of complexity to the federal tax system.

The past year has clearly been a good year for oil companies. However, these large profits should be viewed in proper perspective, given the staggering amount of tax the industry currently pays and remits to governments at the federal, state, and local levels. As the experience of the past quarter-century has shown, governments have actually “profited” more from the oil industry than the industry has earned for its shareholders. TaxFoundation