Another Algal Fuels Collaboration

“We believe that genetically modified algae provides the best, large-scale, sustainable solution to the multiple resource limitations the global economy is experiencing, providing high-quality alternatives to fossil fuels, petro-chemicals and protein sources without impacting arable land and water,” said Dr. Noam Gressel, co-founder and board member of TransAlgae. _Bioenergy

Genetic modification of micro-organisms is almost certain to transform the liquid fuels industry. Not overnight. Give it 20 years. But between now and 20 years from now, a lot of things will be happening that you may not hear about from the MSM. You may well wake up one morning and discover that everything has changed.

Endicott Biofuels, LLC, a Houston-based, next-generation biodiesel producer, and TransAlgae, Ltd., an algal biotechnology company, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the development of algae as a potential transportation fuel and renewable chemical feedstock source.


TransAlgae’s mission is to develop commercially viable algae strains for a variety of algae biomass growth platforms in order to deliver cost effective transportation fuels as well as other non-energy applications.

For the past year, Endicott has been involved in a fully flexible feedstock development program for the production of biodiesel, which includes algae oil-to-biodiesel commercialization. Among its future development plans are technologies that provide a higher degree of freedom for algae producers in algae strain selection and algae oil extraction for the production of biofuels. _Bioenergy

Algae can produce oil for fuel, but it also produces biomass that can be turned into fuels. Algae also makes good proteins for animal (including human) feed, and is used in the human cosmetics industry, among others. Most of the world's future plastics may be made from algal hydrocarbon production.

The monetary potential for tomorrow's algal tycoons is enormous -- into the trillions of 2010 US dollars. That is why billions of dollars of research goes into the nascent algal industry -- even though in 2010 algal oil is nowhere near competitive with fossil oils.

Micro-organisms are the future of liquid fuels. But we have to get to the future to enjoy it. That means we will have to create open access to all forms of energy today -- oil, coal, gas, kerogens, bitumens, nuclear ..... The energy starvation policies of Obama, Pelosi, Boxer, Salazar and the other incompetents in US government, will not get us there.

Obama Follows Through on Promise to Kill Coal

In a time of economic crisis and impending energy starvation, Obama's EPA is freezing 79 coal mining operations in 4 different US states. This dictate will have a severe impact on Appalachian states that are already suffering from an Obama economic depression.

"Coal mining throughout Appalachia cannot reassure thousands of anxious workers and their families, and we cannot plan for the economic future of our operations absent a workable, transparent process that provides certainty," National Mining Association President Hal Quinn said in a statement.

"EPA's answer of more delay and study is at cross-purposes with our nation's need for affordable energy, investments and secure jobs."

The United Mine Workers labor union also criticized the delay.

"It is imperative that the process for approving or rejecting permits be clarified so that everyone can know what to expect," President Cecil Roberts said in a statement. "Dragging things out only adds unnecessary pressure to coal miners, their families and their communities and makes it much more difficult to meet America's energy and economic needs."....

"People all over West Virginia can't believe this is happening," West Virginia Coal Association President Bill Raney said in a statement. "They don't understand why Washington is willing to kill-off good paying jobs when our economy is still on the ropes and the unemployment rate is still unacceptably high." _BW

Obama's energy starvation policy is being carried out by various agencies, departments, and czars of the new US administration. During Obama's presidential campaign, he promised environmental lobbyists and contributors that he would put coal plants out of business via strangulating regulations.

If Obama had any viable baseload energy alternatives to offer, his moronic attacks on fossil fuels and obstructionist delays on nuclear energy, would be more understandable. But Obama has offered no intelligent alternatives. He apparently intends for the US to starve for energy, thus shutting down broad swathes of US production and commerce.

Meanwhile in congress, the Boxer et Pelosi energy starvation campaign is in full bloom.

Obama Energy Policy is "Wishful Thinking"

Obama wants to move the US away from coal (almost 50% of electric power generation) to renewables such as solar and wind (less than 3% of electric power generation). This is extremely bad news for the US economy, since neither wind nor solar are anywhere close to being able to take over for coal. More bad news for solar comes from a recent National Science Foundation poll of energy experts on the potential of 26 new solar technologies:

“The main point we’re trying to raise is that PV technology may not become economically attractive for large-scale electricity supply in the near term,” says Curtright. “Many low-carbon technologies will likely be cheaper than PV. If we’ve got limited funds – is PV the way to go?” asks Curtright.

But solar power is riding on a wave of enthusiasm for clean energy technologies. Around the globe, governments are introducing legislation that incentivises investment in and deployment of renewables, including PVs.

“This is a cautionary tale for policymakers,” says Curtright. “We all want PVs to work and we’ve certainly come a long way since the 1980s, but we haven’t thought through the cost implications.” _EnergyEfficiencyNews

Obama has said he will flush many billions of dollars down the wind and solar rat-hole, many years before the technology and infrastructure will be prepared to deal with large scale power from those technologies. It is, simply, wishful thinking. But then, very little solid, real world communication is coming out of this pie in the sky administration.

Perhaps we will need to wait for all the political scandals to die down, for the Obama administration to show that it is thinking in real world terms, and for some of the worst anti-energy offenders of the Pelosi / Boxer congress to get a good slap-down. Perhaps that is what the Obama administration needs to see. There is always Oynklent Green [OTC:OYNK] if all else fails.

Wind Kite Power, Hot Air Balloon Power, More

This Rotokite wind generator is an interesting variation on the wind power theme. It has much in common with this new hot air balloon power generating scheme. Both methods utilise natural forces to provide a slow cyclic up and down movement over significant distances, like two stroke engines with a very long stroke.

The sun only provides about 6 hours of useful energy per day, and the wind is quite unpredictable. The best way to make use of solar and wind currently, is by either grid intertie or off-grid, on a small to medium scale. For grid intertie, you will need to negotiate with the utility. For off-grid, you will need your own method of power storage, for sunless, windless periods of time. Off-grid applications will need to be extremely energy efficient, preferably making maximum use of passive solar design and insulation. Power use and state of energy storage will need to be metered in real time, to prevent excessive depletion of power storage. A lot of trouble, sure. But for some it is worth it.

For large scale "modern" society, attached to utility power, the choices are clear: increase power generation and upgrade the transmission networks. Failure to do either or both will result in energy starvation and increasingly serious power failures on a wide scale. Addicted to power, modern societies will not function well without plentiful power supplies.

We understand that the narcissist-elect is inexperienced, unqualified, and incompetent. But is he completely unintelligent, so unintelligent as to be unaware of the problem? Is he as stupid as Boxer and Pelosi? We will soon see.

General Electric + University of Wyoming = IGCC

General Electric has partnered with the University of Wyoming to find optimal clean solutions for burning Powder River Basin coal, and other Wyoming coals. GE has developed IGCC, integrated gasification combined cycle electricity generation from coal to an advanced state. This allows the clean and highly efficient production of electricity using both gas turbines and steam turbines in combined cycles. In addition, process heat can be produced for industry and general heating needs, further increasing overall efficiency and usefulness of the process.

Wyoming is uniquely positioned in the nation's energy landscape and has vast coal resources capable of supporting a substantial portion of the nation's energy needs. The state produces approximately 40 percent of all of the coal used in the United States to generate electricity.
The new center will include a small-scale gasification system that will enable researchers from GE and the university to develop advanced gasification solutions for Powder River Basin and other Wyoming coals. The research is expected to expand the range of coals that can be used with GE's integrated gasification combined-cycle (IGCC) technology for power plants. The facility is expected to be operational by 2012.

.... GE is a world leader in IGCC technology and has been at the forefront of IGCC technology since the Coolwater project, a 120 MW technical demonstration IGCC project started in 1984. GE's IGCC technology also has operated at the 250 MW TECO Polk I station in Florida for more than 12 years. Today, GE offers a 630 MW IGCC reference plant that produces 75 percent less SOx, 33 percent less NOx, 40 percent less particulate matter, uses 30 percent less water and offers 90 percent mercury capture, compared to a traditional pulverized coal plant.

In addition to providing a cleaner alternative for power generation, IGCC is well-suited for carbon capture. Carbon capture technology is in use in GE's industrial gasification applications around the world today. _Source

Regular readers of Al Fin Energy know that Al Fin is concerned about reducing pollution, but not particularly concerned about reducing CO2--which is far from being a pollutant. IGCC reduces the important pollutants that come from coal by a large margin.

If a radical environmentalist-driven Obama reich blocks such gasification coal plants on the basis of CO2 release, it would the the epitome of stupidity and self-destruction. Nevertheless, it is what we expect the Obama administration combined with the Pelosi/Boxer congress to do. Keep your eyes open, so that you will have the best possible options available to you.

Coal Polygeneration: Cleaner, More Efficient Coal

A new special report from Nexant provides information on the exciting new possiblities from the co-production of power,chemicals, or fuels using clean and efficient coal gasification technologies.

Advanced coal gasification technologies have raised the efficiency of coal conversion far above that of conventional coal combustion. As a result, these advanced technologies offer the promise of economically and environmentally acceptable uses of coal for chemicals and liquid fuels.

One of the more promising advanced development concepts is polygeneration from coal. Polygeneration involves the gasification (or conversion) of coal to produce synthesis gas (syngas) that can be simultaneously used for the generation of electricity and in the manufacture of chemicals and liquid fuels. This approach offers an integrated strategy for optimizing the value of coal.

In polygeneration from coal, electricity is produced in conventional integrated gasification/ steam turbine combined cycle (IGCC) systems, while commodity chemicals (methanol, ammonia, and their derivatives such as olefins and acetic acid from methanol and fertilizers from ammonia) or liquid fuels (methanol, diesel, dimethyl ether (DME), and gasoline) are produced via state-of-the-art chemical processes.

Since 2006, the unprecedented rise in prices of crude oil and other forms/sources of energy, along with a range of technology advances, has resulted in a significant favorable change in coal's potential investment economics. In the interim, despite price volatility, mid-2008 prices are still well above those in the first quarter of 2008. Thus, we observe that many petrochemicals can now be made very competitively on a full cost basis by using syngas made via polygeneration. Polygeneration-based syngas as a feedstock is demonstrating increasing competitiveness. _Nexant

The greatest obstacle to the use of clean, efficient coal polygeneration is the US Congress--particularly Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, Harry Reid, and their co-religionist US Congressional believers in the orthodoxy of carbon hysteria. Boxer, Pelosi, and their ilk have brought the US economy to the brink of disaster, and US energy supplies to a choking point. Religion and legislation should not be allowed to mix, but Pelosi and Boxer are mixing it up at a record pace.

If US voters decide in favour of the carbon hysteria orthodoxy in November, by giving Boxer and Pelosi's co-religionists complete control of the US government, they will have slit their own throats. Such a suicidal gesture will not be the end, but it will be the acceleration of some very bad times.

Nancy Pelosi! Stop Blocking Energy Production!

75% of the earth's surface is covered by oceans so it is no surprise that as onshore oil and gas reserves are depleted that exploration and production has extended into offshore basins that fringe the world's continents. Today ~ 60% of the world's petroleum production comes from offshore operations in waters of more than half the coastal nations on earth, including Canada.

To meet energy demand operations are moving into ever deeper waters and today oil and gas is produced off the Louisiana coast in the Gulf of Mexico in over 8,000 feet of water.

A description of 126 ongoing offshore projects around the world can be found at www.offshore-technology.com.

If humans are to transition from a fossil fuel economy to an electric and renewable economy, they will absolutely have to maintain the flow of energy in all available forms--that means offshore oil, arctic oil, shale oil, coal to liquids, etc. If we allow energy supplies to drop enough to destroy our economies, the ability to develop alternatives will slip through our fingers. Why does Obama pretend not to realise this?

Contemporary 4-D surveying adds the dimension of time. Satellites help find and quantify sub sea deposits, track their flows, and predict their next steps. Some 70 percent of 4-D wells hit oil.

Obama's Don't Ask, Don't Drill policy spurns these marvels and embraces outdated information gathered with obsolete instruments. This is the audacity of ignorance.

Adults should not make decisions in willful oblivion. Democrats like Obama prefer not to know what riches rest off America's coasts. They resemble kindergartners who cover their ears and hum loudly to muffle their parents' unwelcome words.

Meanwhile, Americans struggle to fuel planes, trains, and automobiles. Despite this national nightmare, congressional Democrats fled on a five-week summer vacation, rather than vote on Republican amendments to extend offshore drilling. Democrats chose suntan oil over oil production.

Instead of voting on Republican energy proposals, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D- Calif., dispatched her colleagues to build sandcastles. Nevertheless, GOP representatives unofficially are pleading their case to tourists inside the House chamber. _Source

Obama, Pelosi, Boxer, Reid, and the rest of the Luddites apparently want to destroy the current economy--in hopes that a grand and glorious utopian energy economy will rise from the ashes, by magic. Al Fin has devoted a lot of effort to promote biomass, biofuels, solar energy of all forms, nuclear energy, and a number of other alternatives to fossil fuels--as well as some innovative ways to exploit unconventional fossil fuels. We have to have all of these forms of energy in order to make the transition!

By 2006, after major advances in seismic technology and deepwater drilling techniques, the MMS resource estimate for that area had ballooned to 45 billion barrels. In short, there could be much more oil under the sea than previously known. The demand for energy is going up, not down. And for a long time, even as alternative sources of energy are developed, more oil will be needed. _WaPo

Congressional Democrats are living in a fantasy world, believing that they can mould reality to fit their distorted beliefs and impressions. The entire country suffers as a result of their mismanagement. If congressional Democrats can get one of their own into the White House, the Obamanation of magical utopianism will unfold. Let me know how you like it.

Taken from a post at Al Fin

$7 B Coal to Liquids Plant to be Built on Crow Land

The legislature for the Crow American Indian tribe has ratified a contract to build a $7 billion plant for coal to liquids (CTL) production. The American Indian tribe stands to earn 50% of profits after investor payoffs.

The Many Stars coal-to-liquids plant initially would produce 50,000 barrels a day of diesel and other fuels. Construction would begin in several years and coal for the project would come from a mine yet to be developed by the tribe on the reservation, Crow leaders said.

The tribe's chairman, Carl Venne, said the coal-to-liquids project offered an unprecedented chance at improving the lives of the tribe's 12,000 members. The agreement calls for the Crow to receive up to 50 percent of profits from the plant after investors in the project recoup their costs.

"It means we will become self sufficient as a tribe," Venne said. "I won't need no more federal dollars. I won't need no more state dollars."

Total proceeds to the tribe could eventually top $1 billion annually — a breathtaking sum that dwarfs the Crow's current annual budget of about $26 million....

...The Crow reservation sits atop some of the nation's largest coal reserves — an estimated 9 billion tons of recoverable resources. Yet only limited mining has occurred, and the tribe's economy remains hobbled by high rates of poverty and unemployment. _AP

The Crow tribe is clearly more forward looking in its approach to energy resources than Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, and the rest of the pathetic Luddites in a "let them eat cake" congress.

It is unclear what will have to be done to deal with Pelosi and the other energy obstructionists intent on reducing the US economy to the status of third world hovel. But whatever is eventually done, the longer it is delayed, the less Pelosi and her band of stone age warlords and nobles will like it.

The World On Coal

Coal is providing an ever larger proportion of world energy production. The economics of high oil and gas prices pushes coal to the forefront--even in Persian Gulf countries such as Oman and Dubai. Now coal is moving beyond the role of electric power producer, and is going head to head with oil in the liquid fuels market!

CONSOL Energy Inc., the US’ largest producer of bituminous coal, and Synthesis Energy Systems Inc. (SES) have formed a joint venture—Northern Appalachia Fuel LLC (NAF)—to develop their first US coal gasification and liquefaction plant to be located near Benwood, West Virginia. The two companies announced last year that they were jointly exploring coal gasification opportunities. (Earlier post.)

...The feedstock will be a blend of run of mine coal and coal otherwise not recovered in the normal preparation process. Coal will be gasified to syngas utilizing SES’ U-GAS technology, licensed from the Gas Technology Institute (GTI); the syngas will be used to produce approximately 720,000 metric tons per year of methanol that can be used as a feedstock for the chemical industry. The partners also expect that the project will be capable of converting methanol production to approximately 100 million gallons/year of 87 octane gasoline. _GCC

The venture all hinges on whether the US Democratic Party controlled Congress will allow them to go ahead with production, then sell their product inside the US.

The current and future congress is haunted by carbon hysteria--an irrational fear of carbon dioxide that causes legislators to run screaming at the thought of productive use of fossil fuels. Barbara Boxer and Nancy Pelosi are particularly affected by this form of insanity, as are most government officials from California.

What the delusional dammes fail to note is that only a prosperous economy can devise and implement alternatives to current energy sources. By amputating US energy production at the neck, these foolish feminasties are wittingly or unwittingly dooming their own country to secondary status in the future.

Why Are They Building Coal Plants in Dubai?

New coal plants are being built in Abu Dhabi, Oman, Dubai. Even oil rich Russia is building 30 new coal plants within the next 2-3 years. China commissions a new coal plant every week to week and a half. What is going on?

They have opted for coal for a single compelling reason: cost. They can produce a megawatt-hour of electricity using Australian coal, Der Spiegel calculates, for $17.49 (U.S.). Using natural gas, the cost rises to $41.34. Using oil, the cost rises further to $79.50. At the same time, they can sell their oil on the global market for something approaching (or occasionally exceeding) $140 a barrel. _GlobeandMail

So even in the oil-saturated Persian Gulf, the economics of energy production favours coal over oil and gas--significantly. Of course, the fuel for a megawatt-hour of nuclear fission energy will cost you around $8 or so. So really, if you have your nuclear plant already built, nuclear is the way to go.

In the US, the Congress and environmental regulations/lobbies have made it almost impossible to generate power from any source whatsoever. Whatever compromises the Pelosi/Boxer Congress eventually reaches, you can be sure it will cost consumers and taxpayers at least double or triple what it should have cost. The joys of nanny state government--cradle to grave mismanagement.

H/T istockanalyst

Previously published in Al Fin

US President Bush Lifts Offshore Oil Ban E.O.

In a rare act of willful provocation to an inept US Congress, President Bush has thrown down the gauntlet of domestic energy production.

President Bush lifted an executive ban on offshore oil and gas drilling Monday, putting more pressure on congressional Democrats to address GOP calls to open more acreage for domestic energy exploration.

The executive ban, established under Bush's father in 1990, is coupled with another prohibition Congress established in 1981, so lawmakers on Capitol Hill must rollback the congressional ban before energy companies can start looking for oil and gas in the Outer Continental Shelf....the move increases pressure on congressional Democrats to confront a Republican measure that would open offshore drilling sites 50 miles from much of the country's coastline. Democratic leaders have blocked votes on this amendment in recent weeks, despite calls from their own members to consider it.

"With this action, the executive branch's restrictions on this exploration have been cleared away," Bush told reporters during a brief press conference in the White House Rose Garden. "This means that the only thing standing between the American people and these vast oil resources is action from the U.S. Congress. Now the ball is squarely in Congress's court." _Source

Don't expect a lot of action from Pelosi and Boxer's Congress, however. The US Congress is determined to gum up the works of the US economy at least until after Novemeber elections. They are gambling that the US voting public will not notice what the unpopular legislators are attempting.

Meanwhile, contrary to peak oil doomsterism, proven oil reserves are increasing rather than decreasing.

In the Americas, proven oil reserves have increased from 170 billion barrels to 180 billion barrels over the last two decades, according to the 2008 Statistical World Review from British Petroleum. In Europe and Eurasia, proven oil reserves almost doubled, from 76 billion barrels to 144. Africa's proven oil reserves did double, from 58 billion barrels to 117. Even the Asia Pacific region, where China and India are reputed to be sucking up everything in sight, has increased its proven reserves. And the Middle East, the gas tank of the world, shows no sign of slowing down -- its reserves soared by almost 200 billion barrels, from a whopping 567 billion barrels to a super-whopping 756.

...But this is still not the end of it. Unconventional oil reserves are now in play. In 2005, the Rand Corporation estimated that the oil shale in America's Green River Formation, which covers portions of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, contains 1.5 to 1.8 trillion barrels of oil, with as much as 1.1 trillion barrels of oil recoverable, an amount comparable to the reserves of four Saudi Arabias. Oil shale becomes recoverable at $95 a barrel, it determined. With oil now trading at $140 a barrel, oil shale exploitation is now very much economic. Then there's Canada's tar sands, with its even greater potential--estimates of the total reserves that may be available top two trillion barrels, or eight Saudi Arabias.

This is still not the end to it. Most of the oil we know about lies in the well travelled portions of the globe. But most of the world remains unexplored -- the interiors of Africa, Asia and South America have seen relatively little oil exploration. Oil exploration in the oceans, too, is in its infancy. For all practical purposes, mankind has limitless oil supplies available to it. The story is similar for natural gas and coal, the other major nonrenewable sources of energy. And for nuclear power. And for the renewables. _Much More at the Source

We know that both solar and geothermal energy can potentially power the entire Earth's human population thousands of times over. Biomass and algae have the potential to eventually take over for fossil fuels, in a few decades. Nuclear fusion may not be far off, if the good news from the Bussard research group on IEC fusion continues. Safer and more reliable fission designs that are scalable for most any size from small towns to mega-cities are close to production stage.

This is not a time to talk doom. The only type of peak oil on the horizon is political peak oil, for which we can largely thank the US Congress of Pelosi and Boxer.

H/T Icecap

Previously published at Al Fin

Replacing One Cubic Mile of Oil a Year Worldwide

That is how much oil is consumed worldwide yearly--a cubic mile, give or take. How could that much oil be replaced, using other energy sources?

So, what would it take to replace the amount of energy in a cubic mile of oil Roughly 4.2 billion wind turbines, 91.2 solar panels, 2,500 nuclear power plants or 200 Three Gorges Dams, according to Menlo Park, Calif., nonprofit research institute SRI International.

In other words, no single category of renewable energy is growing anywhere near the speed it needs to bear the full brunt of displacing carbon-emitting fossil fuels anytime soon.

...While there is no doubt that wind, solar and geothermal have ample energy to power the planet--the sunlight that hits Earth in a single hour contains enough energy to fuel the human population for a year--they will need years to mature before they reach anything approaching their potential....The U.S. spends roughly $1 trillion each year--approximately 10% of gross domestic product--on the fuel needed to power 114 million households, 82 billion square feet of commercial building space, 130 million cars, 95 million trucks and the countless computers, ovens and alarm clocks that drive the metabolism of the modern economy. If there is a cheap and clean energy source out there, odds are someone--looking in the right place--will find it. __Forbes

Fortunately, the catastrophic global warming theory promoted by Al Gore--and used by the US Congress to hamstring the US energy industry--is turning out to be so much pig excrement. Which means that as soon as US voters understand what Barbara Boxer, Nancy Pelosi, and crew are doing to them, they can vote the miscreants out of office and hopefully replace them with no-nonsense pro-energy people.

The delays of an inept Congress are pushing the US into a corner, energy-wise. Every form of energy requires time and money to develop, and scale up to useful size.

North America is sitting on enough oil-equivalent (trillions of barrels) to last it hundreds of years at current consumption. But within a decade or two, better forms of solar and geothermal energies--to say nothing of better nuclear energy plants--will be available to provide electrical power for the grid. Oil equivalent resources only really need to last about 30 years. By then, algae biodiesel, synthetic biology energy, and biomass energy will be mature enough to replace most liquid fuels now consumed.

Predicting doom is okay for children who have no useful skills. But grownups will dig in and work, to see to it that doom does not actually fall on civilisation.

Pelosi and Boxer Need Some Tough Discipline

Recently the US Bureau of Land Management proposed to treat solar energy like other forms of energy in the way of requirements and time delays for environmental impact studies. Suddenly, the "constituency" was up in arms, and the policy change was quickly reversed. But in terms of US oil policy--which is where the rubber meets the road in today's energy prices (rhymes with crisis), where is the constituency willing to raise hell over government mismanagement?

While stunning, the BLM’s announcement illustrates the nightmare of U.S. energy policy. Or is it? That the ban could be reversed so quickly is a good sign that the old law on the books can be overwhelmed when enough people stand up and shout. On the other hand, when looking at the crude oil speculators driving oil prices up there are shouters on both sides that can keep the obvious policy move locked down. The difference is that the plants and creatures will get attended to, but the consumer will have to wait until the lenders putting up some 93% of the money to keep the oil futures market going will have a day of reckoning that might be a catastrophe. Imagine oil went down precipitously and lots of those borrowers can’t make the margin calls. Do you suppose the taxpayers will be cornered into bailing those lending guys out too? Just wait and see.

Let’s be sanguine about this and salt the concept with a dash of reality. Policy in the democracies is a market, too. Write that down. As noted above the shouting can come from lots of places and the power measured in money and the old boy network plays a powerful hand against the invisible individual voter. Just to keep things completely confused the media is busily making like they can write intelligent stories to guide us to think properly.

It enough to make the well informed mind swim in its own confusion. __NewEnergyandFuel

Everything rests at the food of the US Congress. If Congress cannot get its act together to adjust policy to meet the needs of its constituency, then Congress needs to get the boot, and hard!

Two congresspersons who are particularly obstructionist over energy policy, and causing more than their share of hardship, are Barbara Boxer and Nancy Pelosi. If there was ever any redeeming social feature from either of them, it has long since passed them by. By promoting energy approaches that will take decades to replace current infrastructure--at the expense of supplying current and near/intermediate term needs--Boxer and Pelosi (and the usual suspects) are painting the US economy into a corner.

I know what you are saying, that booting them back to the dying south-left coast is too easy on them. You are saying they should be drawn, quartered, burned, hung, then pulverised with a heavy mallet. You have a point, but there may be more important things to attend to than mere payback. High oil prices are killing economies around the globe, from inflating costs of doing business, and destroying consumer reserves.

Boxer and Pelosi are true believers in "global warming catastrophe". In order to save the planet from climate change, they are willing to sacrifice the economy of the US and the rest of the developed world. They are creating a "political peak oil", which is a self-fulfilling form of peak oil that is hard to argue with. If political cronies such as B and P make it impossible to drill for new oil and develop oil equivalents such as shale oil and newer coal technologies, then peak oil becomes something of a tautology. Even the borons at the peak oil sites can pat themselves on the back for their perspicacity.

No need for revenge. Just send them back to caw-lee-forn-ya, and Oynklent Green [OTC:OYNK] will weigh the pros and cons.

Oil Shale Secrets: Over 1 Trillion Barrels On Tap

If the current US Congress has anything to say about it, the US will be starving for energy and fuel within the next few years. Trillions of barrels of oil equivalent are buried within North America in the form of shale oil, oil sands, coal, and gas. Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer intend for as much of that black gold as possible to stay in the ground, far away from American consumers.

Geologists estimate the rocks hold over a trillion barrels of oil.

“That is more than all the reserves of the Middle East,” Vawter said.

But this mother-load is locked deep inside deposits across three states.

"Oh gosh, if you took just an acre, you are probably looking at 100,000 barrels of recoverable oil,” Vawter said....

Cobiella met Terry O’Connor of Shell Oil. She asked him: “how much oil did you pull from here?”

“We pulled 1,800 barrels of oil plus a substantial amount of natural gas, also,” he said.

All from a tiny 30-by-40 foot patch tucked inside a Shell Oil compound that was top secret.

When he saw the results, what did he think?

“We were really happy!” he laughed.

Shell's revolutionary approach involves dropping electric heaters deep underground to heat the shale to 650 degrees. At that magic temperature, oil and natural gas separate from the rock and can be pumped to the surface - all with minimal impact to the surrounding area.

“And with a modest amount of processing this is the final product we go, which can be used for jet fuel, diesel fuel and naphtha for gasoline,” O’Connor said.
_Source

Raytheon's microwave technique should provide even higher yields--with less use of power and precious water resources.

As long as the US government maintains its anti-energy attitudes, the American people will suffer. And if the American people suffer, the US economy suffers. And if the US economy suffers, the world economy suffers. It is a dangerous game that is being played by the Pelosi's and the Boxer's of Congress. They may not like how it all turns out.