Black Gold –
America’s Demon
Introduction - The United States currently consumes 25% of the world’s energy, but produces less than 5 percent. Heavily dependent on foreign oil (black gold), America imports 11 million barrels each day. America is sending nearly $1 million a minute out of the country to pay for that foreign oil. Our transportation uses two-thirds of that oil, and about one-third of that is consumed by the 8 million heavy-use trucks on our highways. By switching transportation needs to a product that comes out of our own ground and not foreign soils, we’d solve much of our security and debt problems over night. Domestic natural gas production is now booming to record-high levels with the U.S. literally swimming in natural gas, and it’s all on land with absolutely no more need to make expensive and unsafe drills off shore. Besides making more land-based natural gas discoveries in the last five years than any other country in the world aided by advances in technology for extracting natural gas from shale and methane beds, America is finally posed to arrive at energy independence. But a big obstacle stands in the way of that goal – big oil and the lawmakers whose pockets are being lined by big oil interests.
Natural Gas is God's cornucopia gift to America. With our abundance of natural gas, America is poised to take big oil down, but the tentacles of black gold interests have corrupted legislators selling their souls to the Black Gold Devil. The most obvious is the 2011 NatGas Act (New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions) introduced by bipartisan groups of senators and representatives in the previous two Congresses. The NatGas Act bill will give tax credits for buying natural gas vehicles (starting with heavy-use trucks) and building natural gas stations. What will the Nat Gas Act do?
* The NatGas Act will jump-start the use of natural-gas-powered vehicles. * The NatGas Act will provide over a million new U.S. jobs ranging from design engineers to toolmakers to manufacturers to those who maintain the vehicles.
* The NatGas Act will change the world from oil dependence to natural gas dependence, a natural resource we have 400 years worth. As for oil we have less than 2% of the world’s supply.
* The NatGas Act is about U.S. energy security - plain and simple.
President Barack Obama publicly endorsed the plan for natural gas vehicles on March 30, 2011 and again in his State of the Union address in Jan 2012. He said,
“the potential for natural gas is enormous. … last year, more than 150 members of Congress from both sides of the aisle produced legislation providing incentives to use clean-burning natural gas in our vehicles instead of oil. And that's a big deal.”
Bankrolled by big oil companies certain members of Congress have recently launched public opposition to the NatGas Act. They cloak their opposition by saying subsidies would “distort the competitive process that so capably yields affordable and viable products.” They said this despite the fact that these were the very people who passed legislation in 2004 giving heavy subsidies to the ethanol industry, something Americans have been paying for in higher food prices ever since. And more recently these are the same people who fervently continue to support outdated and unnecessary tax breaks, to the tune of $40 billion a year, for big oil companies even though these subsidies distort the same marketplace. Not surprisingly, these legislators receive significant funding from big oil. These legislators will continue handouts to a 20th century dirty technology rather than shifting to a 21st century emerging fuel that the rest of the world is rushing to adopt. In the 2011 Congressional session those that voted to continue the oil subsidies received, on average, five times more money from oil interests than those who voted against it.
With 12,000,000 natural gas vehicles on the road today world-wide we have only 112,000 or less than one percent, and most of those are commercial vehicles. If congressional efforts to protect big oil are successful, it will harm our economy, our competitiveness, our security, and our environment as natural gas vehicles are about 90% cleaner than gasoline vehicles. As gridlock Congress, fueled by special interests, sits on the Nat Gas Act which would give us 100% energy independence instead of the 70% we buy offshore, America will continue to hemorrhage at the rate of $1.6 billion a day in international balance of payment (IPOB) deficits which is about equal to our purchase of foreign oil, an amount we could be selling in the form of natural gas instead of buying in the form of dirty polluting oil. This is the fastest “selling of America” we have going on, day after day! It won’t be long before China will own us lock stock and barrel!
The Darth Vader of the Bush Administration. To understand who is torpedoing our chances to produce natural gas if Congress were to vote for the NatGas Act we have to first look at the process energy companies are using to extract huge quantities of natural gas. Hydraulic fracturing (or fracking) is the process of pumping millions of gallons of water, sand, and chemicals, thousands of feet underground to break up rocks laced with tiny pockets of natural gas. These gas wells use tons of water from fresh streams or local water sources. If clean chemical-free water were used then perhaps the debate wouldn’t be so controversial. However, a cheaper method is being used that employs the use of chemicals to more easily extract the imbedded gas. The chemical wastewater is trapped in ponds, and as it evaporates all of the chemicals and carcinogens (and even some radiation) is evaporated into the atmosphere while the extra thick stuff finds its way to landfills. And if the wellhead is not properly installed some of the natural gas and chemicals make their way into groundwater aquifers. Everyday people have gotten sick from dangerous and unsafe levels of volatile organic compounds, methane gas, and other various chemicals from improper fracking. In the Delaware River watershed people’s water has turned brown making them sick with horses and pets losing their hair, all the result of fracking as asserted in a landmark study by Duke University.
Fracking could be controlled and made safe, but regulators have their hands tied thanks to the “the Halliburton Loophole,” which exempts fracking from the Safe Drinking Water Act. This loophole is a result of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. In 2001 President W. Bush appointed Vice President Dick Cheney to head a secret Energy Task Force to establish the energy criteria that would eventually find its way into the 2005 Energy law. In secret meetings with Dick Cheney, energy companies and their lobbyists shaped a huge give-away to the oil industry plus the ability to drill for natural gas in the cheapest way possible. Environmental concerns were frozen out of all of these lopsided meetings. What came out was one of the worst pieces of legislation to hit the American public at the expense of the health and safety of people in the fracking area and perhaps to the detriment of future natural gas production.
The Black Demon Company. Founded in 1919, Halliburton is one of the world's largest providers of products and services to the petroleum and energy industries with annual revenue of about $15 billion. Halliburton has over 55,000 employees in approximately 70 countries. Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney was chairman and CEO of Halliburton Company from 1995 to 2000. He retired from the company during the 2000 U.S. presidential election campaign with a severance package worth $36 million along with generous stock options.
For whatever reason Halliburton has seen fit to do work in the cheapest way hiring inexperienced scab workers at slave wages, and by overcharging government, Halliburton has reaped huge profits. Listed here are some of the most glaring results of that policy.
* Feb 2011 - Halliburton and 11 other energy companies have been charged with illegally pumping over 32 million gallons of diesel fuel into the ground in 19 states between 2005 and 2009 while drilling for natural gas using hydraulic fracturing.
* April 2010 - Halliburton has been accused of being responsible for the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill with a botched well head cementing job that contributed to a methane blast that sank BP's rig in the Gulf of Mexico and killed 11 people.
* Sep 2009 - Dimock, PA - Up to 8,000 gallons of Halliburton-manufactured fracking fluid leaked from faulty supply pipes seeping into wetlands and a streams killing fish and wildlife.
* 2003-2008 – Iraq. At least a dozen soldiers and Marines were electrocuted as a result of shoddy installation of showers by Halliburton’s subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR).
* Mar 2003. In the run-up to the Iraq war, Halliburton’s subsidiary KBR was awarded a five year $7 billion sole-source contract for support facilities in Iraq. Army Corps of Engineers Principal Assistant Responsible for Contracting (PARC) Bunny Greenhouse objected to the contract’s 5-year term questioning the probability of an emergency lasting for five years, but at the urging of Vice-President Dick Chaney the contract was pushed through and Greenhouse’s reward for trying to save taxpayer money was a demotion in rank. A year later, after an audit review, KBR had to return one billion dollars in over charges. Testifying before Congress in June 2005, Greenhouse called the contract the worst case of government abuse she had ever witnessed in her 20-year career. With the help of the National Whistleblowers Center, Greenhouse filed a lawsuit challenging her demotion. In July 2011, Greenhouse reached a $970,000 settlement with the government.
One would think that Halliburton would be one of the cheerleaders for natural gas as they have made hundreds of millions off fracking, but now Halliburton can't move away from natural gas fast enough. In Jan 2012 Halliburton warned that more customers will scale back gas production this year due to low prices. CEO Dave Lesar told investors that this move comes with some long-term benefits. Halliburton, which drills wells and gets them ready for production, is moving with the industry to focus on fields that hold more oil than gas. That should generate higher revenues than before since oil production tends to be a more intensive, allowing Halliburton to charge higher contract rates.
The Frac Act (H.R.1084 - Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act of 2011) is a bill currently stalled in Congress that will hopefully close the Halliburton Loophole. In 2009, Congress introduced the Frac Act to remove the exemption of hydraulic fracturing from the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) and require disclosure of chemicals used in the fracturing process. Under heavy lobbying pressure from big oil, the Frac Act has not yet passed. Since its introduction there have been no Republican co-sponsors thus keeping it on the back burner along with the Nat Gas Act. Once again big oil has bought off Congress.
Keystone. There is a current push in Congress to move forward with big oil in a way that shows the stark reality of where Congress has its priorities. This story begins in Canada where huge quantities of oil sands (tar sands) are located. These oil sands are a mixture of sand, clay, and bitumen - a highly dense and viscous tar-like form of petroleum. Extraction of these tar sands is one of the most polluting forms of any fossil fuel mining with release of greenhouse gases when about 800 million cubic feet of natural gas (approximately 10% of Canada’s total natural gas consumption) is burned daily to create heat for extraction. Coupled with this there have been at least fourteen known spills on the pipeline moving these tar sands though Canada since the start of operations in June 2010. TransCanada, a Canadian company, has made application for the extension of its pipeline, called Keystone XL, 1,700-miles from Alberta, Canada, through Nebraska and Kansas to refineries in Oklahoma and Texas. Being all about big oil, Congress has made TransCanada's construction application a hot issue. On 30 November 2011, seeking to circumvent the required environmental impact assessment, the Senate introduced legislation aimed at forcing the Obama administration to approve the Keystone XL pipeline within 60 days, unless the president declared the project not in the national interest. On 18 January 2012 he did just that not giving in to the Senate ultimatum. Obama sent a report to Congress detailing why he decided against the pipeline prior to completion of the environmental impact assessment that is ongoing and should eventually clear the way for construction in several years. Job creation would not be as high as purported. Keystone has admitted that they lied about the number of construction jobs, around 6,500 temporary jobs, not 20,000 as original claimed. This palls in comparison to one million plus permanent jobs that would be created by passage of the Nat Gas and Frac Acts.
All during the W. Bush administration, U.S. oil production kept falling, but under the current administration, U.S. production of crude oil has been steadily climbing each year to its current (Feb 2012) 8-year-high despite a pause in deep water oil production caused by the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill April 20, 2010. The administration lifted its post-Gulf oil spill moratorium on oil drilling in deep waters in October 2010 and starting issuing new permits in March 2011. Despite all this, big oil backed legislators are using Keystone to blame the administration for the recent run up in gas prices, a condition caused by the bipartisan Iran Threat Reduction Act (H.R. 1905) which puts severe restriction on Iranian oil exports and has oil market speculators driving up gas prices. These folks are hoping to cash in on the public’s anger over gas prices by voting out those that would harm their sweetheart relationship with their sugar daddy, big oil.
In the final analysis big oil interests continue to be successful in getting legislators to make an all out push for Canadian oil while pigeon holing both the FacAct and NatGas bills, passage of which is in the vital and strategic interest of America. If only voters could see through the smoke with millions of big oil dollars being spent on lying to the American public. Then, perhaps, just maybe, we’d be able to vote the right legislators out of office.
Transportation Ignorant –
That’s Us.
sep 26, 2010
Today the U.S. lags behind the rest of the world in transportation. We are fuelish, wasteful, inconsiderate, and global polluters of unparalleled proportions. With four percent of the world's population, the U.S. accounts for about 25 percent of the Earth's greenhouse gas emissions, half of that coming from our vehicles. The rest of the world looks upon our transportation habits with great distain. We continue to build oversized and unsafe vehicles requiring unnecessary gas consumption hence the need to drill for it in dangerous deep water places or purchase it from terrorist sponsored Middle East countries. Our president is hell bent on leapfrogging from oil to an even more dirtier fossil fuels in the form of electric from coal burning power plants, while downplaying the cleanest of fossil fuels we have right here under out feet, not offshore. And then there is another clean newly reformulated fossil fuel currently in filling stations that can be transitioned seamlessly into a 100% biofuel. However, the experts seem to pretend that these practical alternatives the rest of the world is turning to just don’t exist. According to Ian Parry, a senior fellow at “Resources for the Future,” “We’re pretty much stuck with our dependency on oil.” He was featured in the Virginian Pilot on June 21, 2010 in a feature article, “The Move from Oil Is a Herculean Task.” He says that oil satisfies the need for the range needed to drive our vehicles, and that the next step has to be fuel cell or battery where technology has yet to solve the difficult questions of rang, power, and weight. Our President, our press, and the aforementioned “expert” have all thrown up their hands to what is right under our dumb noses. So let’s have a look.
Fuels We Should be Using.
Natural Gas. After an era of declining production, domestic natural gas production in the U.S. is booming to record-high levels. The U.S. is now swimming in natural gas, and it’s all on land with absolutely no more need to make expensive and unsafe drills off shore. Besides making more land-based natural gas discoveries in the last five years than any other country in the world aided but advances in technology for extracting natural gas from shale and methane beds, America has finally arrived at energy independence. The U.S. is quite literally staring in the face of an era when a switch to Natural Gas Vehicles (NGV) and later Fuel Cells Vehicles (FCV) (FCV run on hydrogen extracted from natural gas) will return the U.S. to total energy self-sufficiency. The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said America does not need any new coal or nuclear plants "ever" again. With this unexpected bonanza in the cleanest of fossil fuels (oil, coal, and natural gas), one would expect the press, Congress, corporate America, and the President to be rushing to boast of our great fortune and grease the skids for a surge in natural gas use in our vehicles. But this is not to be because we’re a transportation ignorant nation. The discovery of gold in California created a “gold rush” in 1848. Have we lost what used to drive us to places like the moon? For example, let’s look at how Congress is handling this overwhelming stupendous good news. On April 05, 2009 Dan Boren (D-OK) introduced H.R. 1835, “the New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions Act” (or “NAT GAS” Act), to the 111th Congress, a bill that contains robust support for natural gas transportation initiatives, legislation that would provide incentives, mostly as tax credits, for gas-fueled vehicle production and overnight installation of natural gas filling stations. Amid the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico and our continuing requirement to import 65% of our oil from Middle East terrorist sponsor nations, you’d think Congress would leap at a bill that takes advantage of our new found discoveries of clean natural gas. Well think again. A year and a half later Congress still has not passed this legislation.
Currently there is only one natural gas vehicle (NGV) sold in America, the Honda Civic GX NGV, acclaimed the “world’s cleanest internal-combustion vehicle.” It’s produced in Marysville, Ohio and purchase of this NGV qualifies buyers for a $7,000 tax credit. NGV’s are 90 percent cleaner than the average gasoline-powered car and 98 percent of the natural gas fuel the vehicles uses is taken out of U.S. soil. The MPG rating is 24 mpg city – 36 mpg highway. With compressed natural gas (CNG) selling for $0.70 per gallon and gasoline at say $2.60 per gallon, that’s the same as 90 mpg city /134 mpg highway equivalent. So what’s the catch? This car sounds too good to be true. Why aren’t we seeing these cars all over the place? First the car is sold in only two states, New York and California, and even there natural gas stations are not in abundance. Even with natural gas stations in some places further apart than the car’s range, Honda can’t build them fast enough and there’s an eight month wait. Besides buying a Honda NGV, there are conversion kits that sell for as low as $100. If the vehicle runs out of CNG, the system automatically switches back to gasoline. Of course the whole slowdown is coming from an uninformed public that simply has not ever heard about the natural gas act. So with little pressure from constituents Congress sits on the NAT GAS Act and as of this date has not brought it to the floor of the Senate. Democrats who could bring NAT GAS up for a vote don't support it on the basis that it’s fossil fuel and not solar or wind power.
Today, there are more than 7 million NGV’s in the world, but only 2% of them (150,000) are in the US, and most of those are commercial vehicles. With less than 2% of the world’s oil supply and more natural gas than any other country (except for Russia) we could have taken big oil down a long time ago by switching to NGV’s. Being the world’s largest auto consumer, the rest of the world would follow, not the opposite way around as U.S. automakers scramble to catch up with just about every new innovation coming down the pike. While the U.S. automakers have little incentive to make NGV’s, up north across the border, the Canadian Natural Gas Vehicle Alliance is making an all out effort to promote natural gas vehicles. My son who just moved from NH to GA says that people are smarter the further north you go. There must be something to that.
So we’d think that the President would be putting America’s fortunes in either NGV or FCV with all the natural gas we have. Think again. The Obama Administration says plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) will lead to quicker reduction in emissions and oil reliance in a short time, all beginning in 2012. The administration is pushing for something not yet available, a light unsafe car that will not be as pollution free as NGV’s or FCV’s when utility emissions are factored into the equation shifting emissions from cars to coal-fired power plants; will add $2,000 to $3,000 to the cost of a conventional hybrid; and will put resale values in the toilet when factoring in the replacement cost of that $5,000 lithium battery (after 100,000 miles). It just seems to me as if someone has erased our collective memories. Remember “expert” Ian Parry’s testimony? “We’re pretty much stuck with our dependency on oil. We don’t have any substitutes.” Admittedly, we’d have to build a lot of natural gas filling stations, and that could take some time, perhaps six months or less. Perhaps we forgot how fast we switched over from leaded to unleaded gasoline. Protagonists said it would take years to retrofit gas stations, but it happened over night. But then there’s another clean fuel we already have in our filling stations, a fuel just about everyone in the rest of the world is latching onto except us, and the crying shame of it is, we have it here, now, today in our filling stations, all going for the most part unused. Read on….
Diesel. New clean diesel is a proven reformulated fuel that delivers the best of all worlds: high fuel efficiency, high performance, low-emissions coupled with a widely available fuel. Federal clean car tax incentives from $900 up to $1,800 still remain available through the end of 2010 for consumers purchasing certain clean diesel vehicles. With all that going for diesel, you’d think American consumers would be rushing to buy diesel vehicles? Think again. Auto manufacturers are dragging their feet in introducing these clean high mileage diesels back into the U.S. market because American consumers continue to have a mindset of the old 20 year ago diesels that were loud, dirty, and hard to start in winter. In 2006 the EPA required the introduction of Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel (ULSD) which removed a major polluting component of diesel fuel, paving the way for clean emission control technology, higher mileage, and more powerful turbo engines. Coupled with recent engineering breakthroughs, today’s turbo diesels outperform gasoline engines in every aspect – environment, fuel economy, maintenance, longevity, and acceleration. Clean diesel cars on the market today deliver 30% better fuel economy than gasoline cars, and it’s cheaper to refine. In Europe diesel fuel is 25% cheaper than gasoline. Here it’s more expensive because of supply and demand. But with wider ownership of diesels Americans would cut their fuel cost in half while reducing pollution. About half of all cars sold today in Europe are diesel and that percentage is quickly increasing. Here diesels are less than one percent of the market. This year Volkswagen, Audi, and BMW will introduce more diesel models. The big U.S. three automakers still have nothing to offer.
Now comes the part hard to believe, but then again we’re about the dumbest nation when it comes to energy usage. Diesel fuel comes from two places – fossil fuel, and animals and plants in the form of biodiesel. Biodiesel can be mixed in with fossil diesel in any proportion. Pure biodiesel (B100) reduces carbon dioxide (the main greenhouse gas) by more than 75 percent, lowers sulfate emissions by 100 percent, and lowers polluting hydrocarbons emissions by 93 percent. So as more bio products become available diesel will become 100% non-fossil, and unlike ethanol which competes for food sources we eat, biodiesel comes from non eatable plants and trees. And the one tree that is gaining world-wide acclaim is the moringa tree, a better source of biofuel than even the Jatropha. To encourage biodiesel production, the federal government six years ago provided a biofuel tax incentive, but those incentives ran out at the end of 2009 because Congress failed to extent the credit, causing the fledgling U.S. biodiesel industry to suffer dearly. On Sep 16, 2010, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) attempted to add the renewal of the credit to a small business bill currently under consideration in the Senate, but his motion did not receive the necessary 67 votes. The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Montana Democrat Max Baucus, called Grassley’s motion and another GOP proposal stunts meant to score political points. Thus big oil continues to hold Congress hostage, and Americans continue to be in the dark about legislation that could have prevented the Gulf oil spill. Florida, who’s shores are currently being polluted by oil, are growing more Jatropha than all of the other states combined in unwanted arid southwest Florida – oh, the irony, and oh the ignorance!
Vehicles We Should Not Be Driving.
American vehicle consumers need to undergo a fundamental lobotomy in rethinking their vehicle buying preferences. Considering all classes of vehicles, we have 34 percent of our vehicles in a gas guzzler bracket getting 20 mpg or less (combined city / highway mileage). In stark comparison European and Japanese vehicle owners fit less than one percent of all their vehicles into this category. I repeat, for these gas guzzler vehicle types, U.S. - 34%; Europe and Japan - less than one percent. Typical of vehicles we should not be driving are Sport Utility Vehicles (SUV). Classified as trucks, SUVs have become so popular in the U.S. that almost half of the country drives one, an overly heavy vehicle, designed for off-road driving, a vehicle that consumes 40% more fuel than a four door sedan. Of all classes of fuelish vehicles, SUVs stand alone with 76% of all SUV model types in that gas guzzler category. Ok, so they’re fuelish, but we buy them for safety sake, right? This is the bill of bogus goods the dealers hand to uninformed customers, but in fact SUV’s are among the most dangerous types of vehicles on the highway today, not only to their occupants, but to others on and off the road because of their poor road visibility, stopping distance, and weight. They roll over easily, especially when hitting a guard rail. There’s a little known secret here. American guard rails were designed for sedans, not SUVs. The SUV high clearance actually helps the SUV to flip when hitting a protective guard rail, and when they do flip, nearly half of the people are killed when the roof caves in because of poor roof supports according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. If we are outraged about the Gulf oil spill we could buy more fuel efficient and sensible vehicles. Statistically only 5% of SUV’s are used for their intended purpose (hauling and off-road). The other 95% of Americans driving SUVs and the other vehicles in the gas guzzler category should be made aware in no uncertain terms that they are culpable in pushing the U.S. trade deficit to new heights (we import 64 percent of our crude oil) and contributing to the selling of our country to the Chinese (China is the largest holder of U.S. debt created through our balance of payment deficit), all because we have to import so much oil to quince our gluttonous fuelish habits. We’re truly a nation of transportation hogs frittering away a precocious resource into the air made that much dirtier and creating more global warming. Driving these gas guzzlers is on a par with that dirty, filthy, disgusting habit of cigarette smoking. Thirty years ago we had no idea that cigarettes were harmful to us. And so it goes; today most Americans have little idea the harm that driving fuelish tank sized vehicles down the road is doing to us, to our children, and to our grandchildren.
Conclusion.
On April 20, 2010 this country, at one twentieth of the world’s population, was using 20 million barrels of oil a day, 25 percent of the world's produced oil. That’s 60 times more oil usage per U.S. citizen than non-US citizen. April 20th was the day of the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig causing the loss of 11 lives and a gargantuan oil spill of 200 million gallons into the Gulf of Mexico. Today, months later, we are still using 20 million barrels of oil a day. Legislators were caught in the crosswinds of public outrage and big brother oil companies who heavily fund legislators’ campaign coffers. Since January 2009, BP has investing nearly $16 million to ensure politicians pass favorable legislation. It is no wonder that some legislators openly criticized a $20 billion escrow account President Obama demanded BP set aside to pay victims of the spill. Not only are we addicted to oil, but BP and their big brother oil corporations continue to insure that those oil drug dealers in Congress keep us hooked. Folks around the world are quietly looking upon the Gulf oil disaster as the U.S. getting its just rewards for such appalling fuelish habits.
Perhaps the “Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch,” twice the size of Texas, the largest of several swirls in our great oceans containing mostly discarded plastic oil-based articles that break up into little pieces for fish to swallow and for us to eat; just perhaps God is trying to tell us something, and yet we don’t get it. We can’t make the connection. We just ignore that Infiniti QX S.U.V. 14 mpg driver (solo most times) who cavalierly tosses an empty plastic coke bottle out the window, to run into the stream, into the Bay, and then into the ocean. God help us all.
sep 26, 2010
Today the U.S. lags behind the rest of the world in transportation. We are fuelish, wasteful, inconsiderate, and global polluters of unparalleled proportions. With four percent of the world's population, the U.S. accounts for about 25 percent of the Earth's greenhouse gas emissions, half of that coming from our vehicles. The rest of the world looks upon our transportation habits with great distain. We continue to build oversized and unsafe vehicles requiring unnecessary gas consumption hence the need to drill for it in dangerous deep water places or purchase it from terrorist sponsored Middle East countries. Our president is hell bent on leapfrogging from oil to an even more dirtier fossil fuels in the form of electric from coal burning power plants, while downplaying the cleanest of fossil fuels we have right here under out feet, not offshore. And then there is another clean newly reformulated fossil fuel currently in filling stations that can be transitioned seamlessly into a 100% biofuel. However, the experts seem to pretend that these practical alternatives the rest of the world is turning to just don’t exist. According to Ian Parry, a senior fellow at “Resources for the Future,” “We’re pretty much stuck with our dependency on oil.” He was featured in the Virginian Pilot on June 21, 2010 in a feature article, “The Move from Oil Is a Herculean Task.” He says that oil satisfies the need for the range needed to drive our vehicles, and that the next step has to be fuel cell or battery where technology has yet to solve the difficult questions of rang, power, and weight. Our President, our press, and the aforementioned “expert” have all thrown up their hands to what is right under our dumb noses. So let’s have a look.
Fuels We Should be Using.
Natural Gas. After an era of declining production, domestic natural gas production in the U.S. is booming to record-high levels. The U.S. is now swimming in natural gas, and it’s all on land with absolutely no more need to make expensive and unsafe drills off shore. Besides making more land-based natural gas discoveries in the last five years than any other country in the world aided but advances in technology for extracting natural gas from shale and methane beds, America has finally arrived at energy independence. The U.S. is quite literally staring in the face of an era when a switch to Natural Gas Vehicles (NGV) and later Fuel Cells Vehicles (FCV) (FCV run on hydrogen extracted from natural gas) will return the U.S. to total energy self-sufficiency. The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said America does not need any new coal or nuclear plants "ever" again. With this unexpected bonanza in the cleanest of fossil fuels (oil, coal, and natural gas), one would expect the press, Congress, corporate America, and the President to be rushing to boast of our great fortune and grease the skids for a surge in natural gas use in our vehicles. But this is not to be because we’re a transportation ignorant nation. The discovery of gold in California created a “gold rush” in 1848. Have we lost what used to drive us to places like the moon? For example, let’s look at how Congress is handling this overwhelming stupendous good news. On April 05, 2009 Dan Boren (D-OK) introduced H.R. 1835, “the New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions Act” (or “NAT GAS” Act), to the 111th Congress, a bill that contains robust support for natural gas transportation initiatives, legislation that would provide incentives, mostly as tax credits, for gas-fueled vehicle production and overnight installation of natural gas filling stations. Amid the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico and our continuing requirement to import 65% of our oil from Middle East terrorist sponsor nations, you’d think Congress would leap at a bill that takes advantage of our new found discoveries of clean natural gas. Well think again. A year and a half later Congress still has not passed this legislation.
Currently there is only one natural gas vehicle (NGV) sold in America, the Honda Civic GX NGV, acclaimed the “world’s cleanest internal-combustion vehicle.” It’s produced in Marysville, Ohio and purchase of this NGV qualifies buyers for a $7,000 tax credit. NGV’s are 90 percent cleaner than the average gasoline-powered car and 98 percent of the natural gas fuel the vehicles uses is taken out of U.S. soil. The MPG rating is 24 mpg city – 36 mpg highway. With compressed natural gas (CNG) selling for $0.70 per gallon and gasoline at say $2.60 per gallon, that’s the same as 90 mpg city /134 mpg highway equivalent. So what’s the catch? This car sounds too good to be true. Why aren’t we seeing these cars all over the place? First the car is sold in only two states, New York and California, and even there natural gas stations are not in abundance. Even with natural gas stations in some places further apart than the car’s range, Honda can’t build them fast enough and there’s an eight month wait. Besides buying a Honda NGV, there are conversion kits that sell for as low as $100. If the vehicle runs out of CNG, the system automatically switches back to gasoline. Of course the whole slowdown is coming from an uninformed public that simply has not ever heard about the natural gas act. So with little pressure from constituents Congress sits on the NAT GAS Act and as of this date has not brought it to the floor of the Senate. Democrats who could bring NAT GAS up for a vote don't support it on the basis that it’s fossil fuel and not solar or wind power.
Today, there are more than 7 million NGV’s in the world, but only 2% of them (150,000) are in the US, and most of those are commercial vehicles. With less than 2% of the world’s oil supply and more natural gas than any other country (except for Russia) we could have taken big oil down a long time ago by switching to NGV’s. Being the world’s largest auto consumer, the rest of the world would follow, not the opposite way around as U.S. automakers scramble to catch up with just about every new innovation coming down the pike. While the U.S. automakers have little incentive to make NGV’s, up north across the border, the Canadian Natural Gas Vehicle Alliance is making an all out effort to promote natural gas vehicles. My son who just moved from NH to GA says that people are smarter the further north you go. There must be something to that.
So we’d think that the President would be putting America’s fortunes in either NGV or FCV with all the natural gas we have. Think again. The Obama Administration says plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) will lead to quicker reduction in emissions and oil reliance in a short time, all beginning in 2012. The administration is pushing for something not yet available, a light unsafe car that will not be as pollution free as NGV’s or FCV’s when utility emissions are factored into the equation shifting emissions from cars to coal-fired power plants; will add $2,000 to $3,000 to the cost of a conventional hybrid; and will put resale values in the toilet when factoring in the replacement cost of that $5,000 lithium battery (after 100,000 miles). It just seems to me as if someone has erased our collective memories. Remember “expert” Ian Parry’s testimony? “We’re pretty much stuck with our dependency on oil. We don’t have any substitutes.” Admittedly, we’d have to build a lot of natural gas filling stations, and that could take some time, perhaps six months or less. Perhaps we forgot how fast we switched over from leaded to unleaded gasoline. Protagonists said it would take years to retrofit gas stations, but it happened over night. But then there’s another clean fuel we already have in our filling stations, a fuel just about everyone in the rest of the world is latching onto except us, and the crying shame of it is, we have it here, now, today in our filling stations, all going for the most part unused. Read on….
Diesel. New clean diesel is a proven reformulated fuel that delivers the best of all worlds: high fuel efficiency, high performance, low-emissions coupled with a widely available fuel. Federal clean car tax incentives from $900 up to $1,800 still remain available through the end of 2010 for consumers purchasing certain clean diesel vehicles. With all that going for diesel, you’d think American consumers would be rushing to buy diesel vehicles? Think again. Auto manufacturers are dragging their feet in introducing these clean high mileage diesels back into the U.S. market because American consumers continue to have a mindset of the old 20 year ago diesels that were loud, dirty, and hard to start in winter. In 2006 the EPA required the introduction of Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel (ULSD) which removed a major polluting component of diesel fuel, paving the way for clean emission control technology, higher mileage, and more powerful turbo engines. Coupled with recent engineering breakthroughs, today’s turbo diesels outperform gasoline engines in every aspect – environment, fuel economy, maintenance, longevity, and acceleration. Clean diesel cars on the market today deliver 30% better fuel economy than gasoline cars, and it’s cheaper to refine. In Europe diesel fuel is 25% cheaper than gasoline. Here it’s more expensive because of supply and demand. But with wider ownership of diesels Americans would cut their fuel cost in half while reducing pollution. About half of all cars sold today in Europe are diesel and that percentage is quickly increasing. Here diesels are less than one percent of the market. This year Volkswagen, Audi, and BMW will introduce more diesel models. The big U.S. three automakers still have nothing to offer.
Now comes the part hard to believe, but then again we’re about the dumbest nation when it comes to energy usage. Diesel fuel comes from two places – fossil fuel, and animals and plants in the form of biodiesel. Biodiesel can be mixed in with fossil diesel in any proportion. Pure biodiesel (B100) reduces carbon dioxide (the main greenhouse gas) by more than 75 percent, lowers sulfate emissions by 100 percent, and lowers polluting hydrocarbons emissions by 93 percent. So as more bio products become available diesel will become 100% non-fossil, and unlike ethanol which competes for food sources we eat, biodiesel comes from non eatable plants and trees. And the one tree that is gaining world-wide acclaim is the moringa tree, a better source of biofuel than even the Jatropha. To encourage biodiesel production, the federal government six years ago provided a biofuel tax incentive, but those incentives ran out at the end of 2009 because Congress failed to extent the credit, causing the fledgling U.S. biodiesel industry to suffer dearly. On Sep 16, 2010, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) attempted to add the renewal of the credit to a small business bill currently under consideration in the Senate, but his motion did not receive the necessary 67 votes. The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Montana Democrat Max Baucus, called Grassley’s motion and another GOP proposal stunts meant to score political points. Thus big oil continues to hold Congress hostage, and Americans continue to be in the dark about legislation that could have prevented the Gulf oil spill. Florida, who’s shores are currently being polluted by oil, are growing more Jatropha than all of the other states combined in unwanted arid southwest Florida – oh, the irony, and oh the ignorance!
Vehicles We Should Not Be Driving.
American vehicle consumers need to undergo a fundamental lobotomy in rethinking their vehicle buying preferences. Considering all classes of vehicles, we have 34 percent of our vehicles in a gas guzzler bracket getting 20 mpg or less (combined city / highway mileage). In stark comparison European and Japanese vehicle owners fit less than one percent of all their vehicles into this category. I repeat, for these gas guzzler vehicle types, U.S. - 34%; Europe and Japan - less than one percent. Typical of vehicles we should not be driving are Sport Utility Vehicles (SUV). Classified as trucks, SUVs have become so popular in the U.S. that almost half of the country drives one, an overly heavy vehicle, designed for off-road driving, a vehicle that consumes 40% more fuel than a four door sedan. Of all classes of fuelish vehicles, SUVs stand alone with 76% of all SUV model types in that gas guzzler category. Ok, so they’re fuelish, but we buy them for safety sake, right? This is the bill of bogus goods the dealers hand to uninformed customers, but in fact SUV’s are among the most dangerous types of vehicles on the highway today, not only to their occupants, but to others on and off the road because of their poor road visibility, stopping distance, and weight. They roll over easily, especially when hitting a guard rail. There’s a little known secret here. American guard rails were designed for sedans, not SUVs. The SUV high clearance actually helps the SUV to flip when hitting a protective guard rail, and when they do flip, nearly half of the people are killed when the roof caves in because of poor roof supports according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. If we are outraged about the Gulf oil spill we could buy more fuel efficient and sensible vehicles. Statistically only 5% of SUV’s are used for their intended purpose (hauling and off-road). The other 95% of Americans driving SUVs and the other vehicles in the gas guzzler category should be made aware in no uncertain terms that they are culpable in pushing the U.S. trade deficit to new heights (we import 64 percent of our crude oil) and contributing to the selling of our country to the Chinese (China is the largest holder of U.S. debt created through our balance of payment deficit), all because we have to import so much oil to quince our gluttonous fuelish habits. We’re truly a nation of transportation hogs frittering away a precocious resource into the air made that much dirtier and creating more global warming. Driving these gas guzzlers is on a par with that dirty, filthy, disgusting habit of cigarette smoking. Thirty years ago we had no idea that cigarettes were harmful to us. And so it goes; today most Americans have little idea the harm that driving fuelish tank sized vehicles down the road is doing to us, to our children, and to our grandchildren.
Conclusion.
On April 20, 2010 this country, at one twentieth of the world’s population, was using 20 million barrels of oil a day, 25 percent of the world's produced oil. That’s 60 times more oil usage per U.S. citizen than non-US citizen. April 20th was the day of the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig causing the loss of 11 lives and a gargantuan oil spill of 200 million gallons into the Gulf of Mexico. Today, months later, we are still using 20 million barrels of oil a day. Legislators were caught in the crosswinds of public outrage and big brother oil companies who heavily fund legislators’ campaign coffers. Since January 2009, BP has investing nearly $16 million to ensure politicians pass favorable legislation. It is no wonder that some legislators openly criticized a $20 billion escrow account President Obama demanded BP set aside to pay victims of the spill. Not only are we addicted to oil, but BP and their big brother oil corporations continue to insure that those oil drug dealers in Congress keep us hooked. Folks around the world are quietly looking upon the Gulf oil disaster as the U.S. getting its just rewards for such appalling fuelish habits.
Perhaps the “Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch,” twice the size of Texas, the largest of several swirls in our great oceans containing mostly discarded plastic oil-based articles that break up into little pieces for fish to swallow and for us to eat; just perhaps God is trying to tell us something, and yet we don’t get it. We can’t make the connection. We just ignore that Infiniti QX S.U.V. 14 mpg driver (solo most times) who cavalierly tosses an empty plastic coke bottle out the window, to run into the stream, into the Bay, and then into the ocean. God help us all.
Fuel Cells
March 5, 2010 - A fuel cell is an electrochemical cell that converts a fuel and an oxidant into an electrical current triggered in the presence of an electrolyte. Fuel cells are different from batteries in that they rely on the oxidant and fuel from an external source. Many combinations of fuels and oxidants are possible. They can use hydrogen, natural gas and alcohols as its fuel and oxygen (usually from air), chlorine, and chlorine dioxide as its oxidant. Fuel cells have been hailed as saviors of the environment, because they can cleanly and efficiently turn hydrogen and other fuels into electricity.
The Fuel for Fuel Cells
Hydrogen. In the short term hydrogen will be produced and supplied from natural gas, thereby taking advantage of the existing infrastructure and distribution networks. Over the medium to long term, hydrogen will be produced via electrolysis using clean renewable power from solar, wind, and geothermal sources as well as biomass gasification.
Hydrogen and Syngas from Biomass. Feb 2010. Hydrogen and Gasification production are presently being developed in many countries from waste biomass products such as dead trees, branches, tree stumps, yard clippings, wood chips, and garbage. ClearFuels Technology Inc will begin operations at five commercial biorefinery facilities in the U.S. NLT 2015 on logging sites in the southeast revolutionizing the logging industry; and Alliance Federated Energy is building a renewable energy plant that will be up and running in 2013 and will convert trash into a synthetic gas (syngas).
http://www.allbusiness.com/energy-utilities/energy-utility-regulation-policy/13849095-1.html.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100215100515.htm
http://www.clearfuels.com http://www.biofuelsbusiness.com/news/qa_stories.asp?ArticleID=107741
http://nashville.bizjournals.com/nashville/stories/2010/02/22/daily13.html
Two Fuel Cell Breakthroughs.
Nanotubes – Microscopic carbon nanotubes are a material that is at least as light as carbon fiber, but stronger than steel and capable of distributing electricity quicker and more efficiently. Nanotubes are 100,000 times thinner than strands of human hair (light as cotton), possessing higher electrical properties than copper, and are as efficient in conducting heat as a diamond. While carbon nanotubes are an expensive material today, they are getting cheaper.
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- Oct 2009 - Honda is also working on nanotube technology in a joint effort with scientists at
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http://theotcinvestor.com/neah-power-announces-fuel-cell-breakthrough-307/#
The Bloom Box - Feb.18, 2010. Fuel cell company Bloom Energy made quite a stir on CBS "Sixty Minutes" TV program (The Bloom Box: An Energy Breakthrough?) when CEO John Donahoe raved that his little black boxes will “change the world.” Bloom has spent 8 years and close to $400 million developing the Bloom Box. Bloom has had a number of companies testing the product in data centers, including Google, FedEx, Staples and eBay. In the world of energy, the Holy Grail is a power source that's inexpensive and clean, with no emissions. Well over 100 start-ups in
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2010-02-24-fuel-cell_N.htm
Fuel Cells Vehicles.
Automakers have been working on fuel cells powered vehicle using hydrogen as the fuel for vehicles for years. In 2003 President George Bush proposed the Hydrogen Fuel Initiative (HFI), which was later implemented by legislation through the 2005 Energy Policy Act and the 2006 Advanced Energy Initiative. These aimed at further developing hydrogen fuel cells and its infrastructure technologies with the ultimate goal to produce commercial fuel cell vehicles by 2020. By 2008, the
Pike Research Challenges Govermnent’s 10 to 20 year FCV Claims- Market intelligence firm Pike Research predicts Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCV) will be launched on a commercial scale in most of the world by 2014 and cumulative sales of fuel cell cars and trucks should hit almost 3 million worldwide in 10 years. And industry analyst Dave Hurst said "Fuel cell vehicles have been an elusive goal for the automotive industry, but they are on the verge of commercial reality.” With substantial support from the largest automakers, the pressure is on gas companies and governments to make sure that hydrogen fueling stations are available to support this emerging market. One of the primary attractions of FCVs is their emissions: oxygen, heat and a little water.
The Fuel Cell Vehicle Competition.
Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEV) - As supported by the Obama Administration retail sales for the PHEV will start in late 2011, three years ahead of FCV and will...
* Will not save their owners significant amounts of money;
* Will not be as fuel efficient as Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEV) or Natural gas Vehicles (NGV) when battery capacity is factored into the equation.
* Will not be as CO2 efficient as HEVs when utility emissions are factored into the equation.
* Will be feel-good, taxpayer subsidized vehicles
* Will shift emissions from cars to coal-fired power plants
* Will add $2,000 to $3,000 to the cost of a conventional hybrid
* Will put resale values in the toilet when factoring in the replacement cost of $5,000 for a lithium battery (after 100,000 miles).
Natural Gas Vehicles (NGV) – Available Now and Little Recognized. While the Obama Administration says PHEV’s will lead to quicker reduction in emissions in a shorter time, all beginning in late 2011 at the earliest, NGV are here now. The US could be producing NGV’s that are 90 percent cleaner than the average gasoline-powered car, full sized four passenger sedans, get 36 MPG with natural gas fuel @ $0.63 per gallon, and unlike oil, 98 percent of the natural gas fuel the vehicles uses is taken out of US soil. And on the safety side, natural gas is actually lighter than air, so any leakage tends to dissipate very rapidly and harmlessly into the atmosphere, which makes it even safer than gasoline. Ignition temperature is also twice that of gasoline, so the possibility of explosion is remote. This all sounds too good to be true, but that is exactly what the specifications for the only car sold in America US US US US Russia US US
http://www.cngva.org/about.htm
http://gas2.org/2008/05/05/the-cleanest-cars-on-earth-honda-civic-gx-and-other-natural-gas-vehicles-ngvs
http://mudomaha.com/news/2009/cng.5.13.pdf
Priced at $25,860, Honda Civic GX NGV is $1,540 more than a Civic Hybrid and almost $7k more than a gasoline-powered Civic LX, though the GX is eligible for a $4,000 Federal tax credit. This price is only reflective of its limited production and could easily be manufactured for the same cost as a gasoline-powered Civic LX. More recently there has been a growing level of interest in natural gas as a serious alternative to hybrids and gasoline engines. It’s like Rip Van Winkle waking up from a long sleep which occurred in America
Diesel Vehicles - Honda will bring a clean-diesel car to the U.S. Europe more than 50 percent of new cars purchased are diesel, but here in the US U.S. U.S. US Chesapeake US
http://greenliving.lovetoknow.com/Hybrid_Car_Batteries
http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/diesel-cars-460409
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/06/07/2009-honda-accord-diesel-to-hit-52-mpg
http://hamptonroads.com/2008/01/odu-experiment-turning-sewage-algaebased-biodiesel-flourishing
http://www.jatrophahq.com/jatropha-curcas-news/south-florida-gets-its-first-real-biofuel-plant-1
OPEC Thanks America
The OPEC Minister Would Like to Thank Americans
"We are at war with you infidels. You have more missiles, bombs, and technology; so we are fighting you with the best weapon we have and extracting on a net basis about $700 billion/year out of your economy. We shall, in a short time, destroy you!
While you are still here, I would like to thank you for the following: Not developing your 250-300 year supply of oil shale and tar sands. We know well that if you did this, it would create millions of jobs for US citizens, expand your engineering capabilities, and keep your wealth within the U.S. instead of sending it to us to finance our war you don't seem to notice we are waging against you.
Thanks for limiting your defense department purchases of oil sands from your neighbors to the north. We love it when you confuse your allies.
Thanks for over-regulating every segment of your economy and thus delaying, by decades, the development of alternate fuel technologies.
Thanks for limiting drilling off your coasts, in Alaska, and anywhere there is a bug, bird, fish or plant that might be inconvenienced. Better that your people suffer! It fills us with great joy to see our lobbying efforts have been so effective.
Corn based Ethanol. Oh, my! Praise Allah for this sham program! You will destroy yourself from the inside with these types of policies. This is a gift from Allah, praise his name!
We never would have thought of this one! This is better than when you pay your farmers NOT TO GROW FOOD. Yes!! Have them use more energy to create less energy, and simultaneously drive food prices through the roof.
Thank you U.S. Congress!!!!
And finally, we appreciate you letting us fleece you like our sheep without end. Perhaps you are not aware that we have been accumulating shares in your banks, real estate, and publicly held companies with a small amount of the money you send us.
We also finance a good portion of your National debt and are progressing every day in our ability to manipulate your markets, your pitiful dollar, and your plummeting economy to our benefit.
Soon we will own you. Your forefathers must be whirling in their infidel graves!
THANK YOU!! THANK YOU AMERICA!"
http://pmchronicle.blogspot.com/2008/06/opec-minister-may-look-you-in-eye-and.html
p.s. Energy ignorant, that's us.
"We are at war with you infidels. You have more missiles, bombs, and technology; so we are fighting you with the best weapon we have and extracting on a net basis about $700 billion/year out of your economy. We shall, in a short time, destroy you!
While you are still here, I would like to thank you for the following: Not developing your 250-300 year supply of oil shale and tar sands. We know well that if you did this, it would create millions of jobs for US citizens, expand your engineering capabilities, and keep your wealth within the U.S. instead of sending it to us to finance our war you don't seem to notice we are waging against you.
Thanks for limiting your defense department purchases of oil sands from your neighbors to the north. We love it when you confuse your allies.
Thanks for over-regulating every segment of your economy and thus delaying, by decades, the development of alternate fuel technologies.
Thanks for limiting drilling off your coasts, in Alaska, and anywhere there is a bug, bird, fish or plant that might be inconvenienced. Better that your people suffer! It fills us with great joy to see our lobbying efforts have been so effective.
Corn based Ethanol. Oh, my! Praise Allah for this sham program! You will destroy yourself from the inside with these types of policies. This is a gift from Allah, praise his name!
We never would have thought of this one! This is better than when you pay your farmers NOT TO GROW FOOD. Yes!! Have them use more energy to create less energy, and simultaneously drive food prices through the roof.
Thank you U.S. Congress!!!!
And finally, we appreciate you letting us fleece you like our sheep without end. Perhaps you are not aware that we have been accumulating shares in your banks, real estate, and publicly held companies with a small amount of the money you send us.
We also finance a good portion of your National debt and are progressing every day in our ability to manipulate your markets, your pitiful dollar, and your plummeting economy to our benefit.
Soon we will own you. Your forefathers must be whirling in their infidel graves!
THANK YOU!! THANK YOU AMERICA!"
http://pmchronicle.blogspot.com/2008/06/opec-minister-may-look-you-in-eye-and.html
p.s. Energy ignorant, that's us.
What's Wrong with US Car Makers
Lack of Innovation Makes US Automakers Losers
http://gas2.org/2008/05/05/the-cleanest-cars-on-earth-honda-civic-gx-and-other-natural-gas-vehicles-ngvs/
http://mudomaha.com/news/2009/cng.5.13.pdf
US Automakers Lost Opportunity No. 2 to Be Innovative. While in Europe more than 50 percent of new cars purchased are diesel, cars that actually get better gas mileage than hybrids, the US automakers are instead pushing small unsafe hybrids that have absolutely no resale value when you consider a 100,000 mile life-time battery that needs to be replaced for $5,000. The reason you see so fewer diesel cars in the U.S. is because US automakers have chosen not to push diesel cars because they last longer. Remember how “planned obsolescence” almost killed Chrysler before Lee Iacocca stepped in back in 1979? Today, only Volkswagen, Mercedes and Jeep sell diesel-powered cars in the U.S. The new turbo-charged diesel cars give the driver the sort of get-up-and-go that leaves a gasoline engine in the dust and, unlike the smelly, hard-to-start, and loud cars of 20 years ago, the new turbo-charged diesel cars are virtually indistinguishable from gasoline powered cars. Plus they have much better resale value because the engine is virtually indestructible, and as far as gas mileage, well the American Honda Accord gasoline version gets 30 MPG and the European diesel version gets 52 MPG (WOW). But there’s even better news for diesel. Biodiesel can be mixed in any proportion with fossil fuel diesel and pure biodiesel reduces net carbon dioxide emissions by 78 percent compared to 100 percent petroleum diesel, a perfect marriage for environmental concerns and an energy hungry public. And to think that we could be producing all of our fuel for diesel cars from algae-based biodiesel and the jatropha plant, all grown in the US . Remember how last year the failed biodiesel plant in Chesapeake was going to buy all the jatropha oil it could get its hands on? As biofuel production picks up in the US , the big three automakers are making only meager plans to build diesel cars. As in the case of the Canadian NVG’s, we’ll end up trying to catch up with European diesel vehicles.
http://greenliving.lovetoknow.com/Hybrid_Car_Batteries.
http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/diesel-cars-460409). http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/06/07/2009-honda-accord-diesel-to-hit-52-mpg. http://hamptonroads.com/2008/01/odu-experiment-turning-sewage-algaebased-biodiesel-flourishing
http://www.jatrophahq.com/jatropha-curcas-news/south-florida-gets-its-first-real-biofuel-plant-1.
US Automakers Lost Opportunity No. 3 to Be Innovative. Flex-fuel cars run on gasoline, ethanol, or a mixture of the two in the same tank. Brazil has become a world leader in producing flex cars and making big bucks doing so. Flex cars sold in Brazil don't cost any more than traditional models, and, while engines use 25 percent more ethanol per mile than gasoline, ethanol sells between a third to half of the price of gasoline making it cheaper that gasoline. By using second-generation bio-fuels from non food crops (waste biomass - those grass clippings we pay to have trashed, the stalks of wheat, corn, wood, and newly developed bio-hydrogen and bio-methanol), the US could produce 100 percent of its ethanol fuel needs for flex cars. Better yet our flex-fuel cars could be natural gas / gasoline. But, as in the case of the Canadian NVG’s and European diesel cars, we’ll end up trying to catch up with Brazilian flex cars.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biofuel
http://www.worldculturepictorial.com/blog/content/brazil-a-leader-green-power-50-cars-able-use-100-biofuel-70-electricity-sourced-hydropower
Aug 8, 2009. Thank goodness our computer industry stayed ahead of the power curve and led the world with innovative new products, but unfortunately not so for the Big Three US automakers. Here are three examples to drive home my point.
US Automakers Lost Opportunity No. 1 to Be Innovative. What would you say if I told you we could produce a car that’s 90 percent cleaner than the average gasoline-powered car, is a full sized four passenger sedan, gets 36 MPG and the fuel that runs it costs $0.63 per gallon, and, unlike oil, 98 percent of the fuel the vehicle uses comes from North America. Then what would you say it I told you the big three US auto makers have little desire to make such a vehicle? Well, you’d think I was crazy, but it’s actually our US automotive industry that’s crazy. With all the natural gas we have the US automakers should have been a world leader in the manufacture of natural gas vehicles (NGV) a long time ago. For just one example the Honda Civic GX NGV meets all of the aforementioned requirements using compressed natural gas (the simplest and cleanest-burning hydrocarbon available) and has been acclaimed the “world’s cleanest internal-combustion vehicle.” The US could be a leader in producing NGV’s that combine top performance with low emissions. There are more than 7 million NGV’s in the world, but only 150,000 in the US . Having more natural gas than any other country (except for Russia ) we could have taken oil down (we have a measly 3 percent of the world’s oil supply) a long time ago by switching to NGV’s. Being the world’s largest auto consumer, the rest of the world would have to follow, not the opposite way around as US automaker scramble to catch up with just about every new innovation coming out lately. While the US automakers have little incentive to make NGV's, up north across the border, the Canadian Natural Gas Vehicle Alliance is making an all out effort to promote NGV's.
http://www.cngva.org/about.htm.http://gas2.org/2008/05/05/the-cleanest-cars-on-earth-honda-civic-gx-and-other-natural-gas-vehicles-ngvs/
http://mudomaha.com/news/2009/cng.5.13.pdf
US Automakers Lost Opportunity No. 2 to Be Innovative. While in Europe more than 50 percent of new cars purchased are diesel, cars that actually get better gas mileage than hybrids, the US automakers are instead pushing small unsafe hybrids that have absolutely no resale value when you consider a 100,000 mile life-time battery that needs to be replaced for $5,000. The reason you see so fewer diesel cars in the U.S. is because US automakers have chosen not to push diesel cars because they last longer. Remember how “planned obsolescence” almost killed Chrysler before Lee Iacocca stepped in back in 1979? Today, only Volkswagen, Mercedes and Jeep sell diesel-powered cars in the U.S. The new turbo-charged diesel cars give the driver the sort of get-up-and-go that leaves a gasoline engine in the dust and, unlike the smelly, hard-to-start, and loud cars of 20 years ago, the new turbo-charged diesel cars are virtually indistinguishable from gasoline powered cars. Plus they have much better resale value because the engine is virtually indestructible, and as far as gas mileage, well the American Honda Accord gasoline version gets 30 MPG and the European diesel version gets 52 MPG (WOW). But there’s even better news for diesel. Biodiesel can be mixed in any proportion with fossil fuel diesel and pure biodiesel reduces net carbon dioxide emissions by 78 percent compared to 100 percent petroleum diesel, a perfect marriage for environmental concerns and an energy hungry public. And to think that we could be producing all of our fuel for diesel cars from algae-based biodiesel and the jatropha plant, all grown in the US . Remember how last year the failed biodiesel plant in Chesapeake was going to buy all the jatropha oil it could get its hands on? As biofuel production picks up in the US , the big three automakers are making only meager plans to build diesel cars. As in the case of the Canadian NVG’s, we’ll end up trying to catch up with European diesel vehicles.
http://greenliving.lovetoknow.com/Hybrid_Car_Batteries.
http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/diesel-cars-460409). http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/06/07/2009-honda-accord-diesel-to-hit-52-mpg. http://hamptonroads.com/2008/01/odu-experiment-turning-sewage-algaebased-biodiesel-flourishing
http://www.jatrophahq.com/jatropha-curcas-news/south-florida-gets-its-first-real-biofuel-plant-1.
US Automakers Lost Opportunity No. 3 to Be Innovative. Flex-fuel cars run on gasoline, ethanol, or a mixture of the two in the same tank. Brazil has become a world leader in producing flex cars and making big bucks doing so. Flex cars sold in Brazil don't cost any more than traditional models, and, while engines use 25 percent more ethanol per mile than gasoline, ethanol sells between a third to half of the price of gasoline making it cheaper that gasoline. By using second-generation bio-fuels from non food crops (waste biomass - those grass clippings we pay to have trashed, the stalks of wheat, corn, wood, and newly developed bio-hydrogen and bio-methanol), the US could produce 100 percent of its ethanol fuel needs for flex cars. Better yet our flex-fuel cars could be natural gas / gasoline. But, as in the case of the Canadian NVG’s and European diesel cars, we’ll end up trying to catch up with Brazilian flex cars.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biofuel
http://www.worldculturepictorial.com/blog/content/brazil-a-leader-green-power-50-cars-able-use-100-biofuel-70-electricity-sourced-hydropower
Carbon Capture and Storage
Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) Feb 2009
Carbon Capture And Storage (CCS) is an approach to mitigating the contribution of fossil fuel emissions to global warming, based on capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) from coal burning power plants. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage and http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf83.html
President Obama’s Energy Policy includes investment in low emissions coal plants using carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) technology.
http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/factsheet_energy_speech_080308.pdf
The Political Debate. Environmentalists are coming together in Washington DC in March 2009 to stage what they hope to be a huge protest – a day of civil disobedience. They say clean coal is a sham. This good news/bad news story underscores the dilemma faced by the coal industry and a society hoping to change its energy habits. According to government data, since 1963 when the US passed its first Clean Air Act, utilities have gradually cut coal pollutants by more than 70% as measured by the regulated hazardous emissions. Particulates – soot – are down 90% even as coal use has tripled. Coal does have enormous virtues - it’s cheap and abundant. That’s why we have become so reliant on it. While petroleum is the world’s primary energy source, accounting for about 37% of consumption, coal is second at more than 25% and its share is growing because it’s abundant in more than 70 countries. So coal will be with us well into the 22nd century, and probably far beyond. The terms of the controversy are being defined in the US, the world’s second biggest producer and leading coal consumer.
The consequences of coal mining and burning have been evident for more than a century, yet country after country has made a cost/benefit analysis that the damage caused by coal is worth paying because of the economic benefits it yields. At least until recent years, we as a society have made a collective judgment that dirty but cheap energy is worth the costs. The Obama administration has made it clear that is going to change. A cap-and-trade system, a carbon tax, or a combination of the two is inevitable. That would set a cost for greenhouse gas emissions, which would create a financial incentive for coal (and oil) companies to fund CCS or retrofit power plants to use natural gas which emits almost 30 percent less carbon dioxide than oil, and just under 45 percent less carbon dioxide than coal - http://www.naturalgas.org/environment/naturalgas.asp
The greens’ goal is admirable. Who would not want a world humming along on windmills and solar panels? But is it feasible? Here’s where their argument goes fuzzy. The unspoken green myth is that the world can make an orderly and relatively rapid transition from a fossil fuel present to a green energy future. But there are huge technical and economic hurdles. The current relatively low cost of energy allows the U.S. to make a profit on its goods. Raising that cost would raise the cost of literally everything. Currently only a small number of CCS power plants have opened and others are on the drawing boards, but costs are high. More daunting, is storing massive amounts of carbon dioxide safely for many centuries.
http://www.ethicalcorp.com/content.asp?ContentID=6380
Worldwide progress is making CCS cost effective, progress that cannot be ignored in the March 2009 Washington debates.
U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Flagship Project. FutureGen is a DOE project announced by President George W. Bush in 2003; its initial plan involved the construction of a near zero-emissions coal-fueled power plant to produce hydrogen and electricity while using membrane technology and carbon capture and storage. Despite cancellation of funding by DOE, the FutureGen Alliance continues to move forward with a project in Mattoon, Texas (August 2008) making a concerted effort with the Obama administration to reinstate the project and get the power plant built as originally planned. The $1.3 billion FutureGen coal-based power plant is designed to be a nearly emission-free. Using coal gasification a water-shift reactor will produce hydrogen and carbon dioxide. The CO2 will then be separated by membrane technology and sequestered geologically. The hydrogen will then be used to generate electricity in a 275 MW generating plant and also in fuel cells.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FutureGen#cite_note-33
U.S. - CCS Partnership in the Appalachian Basin
February 11, 2009 - A U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) team of regional partners has begun injecting carbon dioxide (CO2) into coal seams in the Central Appalachian Basin to determine the feasibility of CO2 storage in unmineable coal seams and the potential for enhanced coalbed methane recovery. The results of the study will be vital in assessing the potential of carbon storage in coal seams as a safe and permanent method to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions while enhancing production of natural gas. The DOE's Southeast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (SECARB) began injecting CO2 at the test site in Russell County, Va., in mid Jan 2009. About 1,000 tons of CO2 will be injected over a 45-day period. The site was selected because it is representative of the Central Appalachian Basin, an area of about 10,000 square miles located in southern West Virginia and southwestern Virginia. This area has been assessed by researchers to have the capacity to store 1.3 billion tons of CO2 in the coal seams while increasing natural gas production up to 2.5 trillion cubic feet. Injecting CO2 into coal seams boosts coalbed methane recovery, which provides an immediate commercial benefit and offsets infrastructure development costs, while providing long-term storage of CO2 in the formation—a win-win situation. The project is being coordinated by the Virginia Center for Coal and Energy Research under the direction of Dr. Michael Karmis, a professor in the Department of Mining and Minerals Engineering at Virginia Tech. http://www.powermag.com/POWERnews/1726.html
Utah Posed to Begin Power Production.
Feb 24, 2009 - http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,705287105,00.html
Utah is poised to become home to clean carbon energy as a new joint venture aims to put carbon dioxide emissions away for good. Headwaters Inc., a Utah-based natural resources company, announced a collaboration with the University of Utah’s civil and environmental engineering professor Brian McPherson, using carbon capture and sequestration technology, to store more than 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide in underground storage space large enough for 50 years' worth of current Utah-generated emissions.
Colorado to Use Ionic Liquid Technology – February 18, 2009 – http://ion-engineering.com/2009/02/20/ion-engineering-unveils-new-technology-to-capture-and-control-greenhouse-emissions/
ION Engineering is a new company that is the first to successfully integrate ionic liquid solutions into carbon capture and emissions control technology. Using new solutions based around ionic liquid technology, ION has developed the most economical way for the global energy industry to remove CO2 and other contaminants from fossil fuel power plant emissions and raw natural gas. Ionic liquids are molten salts that do not evaporate, and can be used to replace the current, inefficient, aqueous (water-based) amine technology that was, up until now, the state-of-the-art in emissions control technology. As a byproduct the process sweetens sour contaminated natural gas (representing half of worldwide reserves) to vastly increase natural gas reserves.
Japanese Are Making Dramatic Progress in CCT http://www.nedo.go.jp/kankobutsu/pamphlets/sekitan/cct2006e.pdf
2006 - The New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization
(NEDO) and the Japan Coal Energy Center (JCOAL) are making dramatic progress in Clean Coal Technology (CCT) by reducing CO2 emissions with the most highly advanced clean coal technologies in the world.
Electrostatic Precipitator - Flue gas containing ash and dust passes between two electrodes that are charged by a high voltage current. The negatively charged ash and dust are attracted toward and deposited on the cathode.
Flue Gas Desulfurizer - Limestone slurry is injected into the flue gas to induce a reaction between the limestone and the sulfur oxides in the flue gas to form calcium sulfite, which is further reacted with oxygen to form gypsum. The gypsum is then separated as a product.
Flue Gas Denitrizer - Ammonia is injected into the flue gas containing nitrogen
oxides. The gas mixture is introduced to a metallic catalyst (a substance which induces chemical reactions). The nitrogen oxides in the flue gas undergo catalyst-induced chemical reactions, causing them to decompose into nitrogen and water.
Tokyo to Begin Carbon Capture & Storage Project in 2010
Feb 20, 2009 - By March 2010 Tokyo will start storing CO2 under the seabed at the rate of 100,000 tons per year with a capacity to store 150 billion tons of CO2 in Japan underground and in surrounding coastal underseas areas. The daily rate of CO2 capture at this project is slightly under 11.5 tons per hour; which is faster than Vattenfall's pilot CCS project in Germany at 10 tons per hour.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/02/tokyo-carbon-capture-storage-project-2010.php?daylife=1&dcitc=daylife-article
Germany - Vattenfall's Project on CCS Jan 20, 2009 - As part of ongoing research and development efforts, Vattenfall initiated a project on carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) in 2001. The goal of the project is to develop commercial concepts for CCS at power plants between 2015 and 2020. On 9 Sep 2008 a 30 MW pilot plant with carbon capture and storage began operation to test technology that so far only has been tested in laboratories. http://www.vattenfall.com/www/co2_en/co2_en/index.jsp
Norway Current Sequestering a Million Tons of CO2 Per Year. In 1991, Norway became the first country to impose a federal tax (carbon trading) on atmospheric CO2 emissions from coal-fired power plants. Norway's strong financial incentive to develop strategies for safe disposal of CO2 waste has lead to advanced technology in capturing excess CO2 and injecting it underground, to remain sequestered from the atmosphere for thousands of years. Since 1996, Norway has been injecting about a million tons of CO2 per year. https://www.llnl.gov/str/Johnson.html
Membrane Technology - Aug 2, 2008 - http://www.engineerlive.com/Oil-and-Gas-Engineer/Environment_Solution/New_membranes_design_will_improve_carbon_dioxide_capture/19942 Carbon dioxide (CO2) gases from coal-fired power plants must be separated from waste gases and sequestered in the ground. The current methods uses expensive separation chemicals. A new membrane technology internationally patented by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim. Using membranes made from a plastic material that has been structured by means of nano technology, it catches CO2 while other waste gases pass freely. Its effectiveness increases proportionally to the concentration of CO2 in the gas. This method, known as facilitated transport, is comparable to the way human lungs get rid of CO2 when we breathe: it is both a complex and an effective mechanism. Instead of using a filter that separates directly between CO2 and other molecules, NTNU uses a fixed carrier agent in the membrane that helps the CO2 molecules to form the chemical bicarbonate which is then quickly transported through the membrane. In this manner, the CO2 is released while the other gases are retained by the membrane.
Update Source - Carbon Capture Journal - http://www.carboncapturejournal.com/morenews.php?Category=Separation
Carbon Capture Journal is specifically about developments with industrial scale carbon capture and geological storage technology, with news about the major projects and development with government policy.
Carbon Capture And Storage (CCS) is an approach to mitigating the contribution of fossil fuel emissions to global warming, based on capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) from coal burning power plants. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage and http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf83.html
President Obama’s Energy Policy includes investment in low emissions coal plants using carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) technology.
http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/factsheet_energy_speech_080308.pdf
The Political Debate. Environmentalists are coming together in Washington DC in March 2009 to stage what they hope to be a huge protest – a day of civil disobedience. They say clean coal is a sham. This good news/bad news story underscores the dilemma faced by the coal industry and a society hoping to change its energy habits. According to government data, since 1963 when the US passed its first Clean Air Act, utilities have gradually cut coal pollutants by more than 70% as measured by the regulated hazardous emissions. Particulates – soot – are down 90% even as coal use has tripled. Coal does have enormous virtues - it’s cheap and abundant. That’s why we have become so reliant on it. While petroleum is the world’s primary energy source, accounting for about 37% of consumption, coal is second at more than 25% and its share is growing because it’s abundant in more than 70 countries. So coal will be with us well into the 22nd century, and probably far beyond. The terms of the controversy are being defined in the US, the world’s second biggest producer and leading coal consumer.
The consequences of coal mining and burning have been evident for more than a century, yet country after country has made a cost/benefit analysis that the damage caused by coal is worth paying because of the economic benefits it yields. At least until recent years, we as a society have made a collective judgment that dirty but cheap energy is worth the costs. The Obama administration has made it clear that is going to change. A cap-and-trade system, a carbon tax, or a combination of the two is inevitable. That would set a cost for greenhouse gas emissions, which would create a financial incentive for coal (and oil) companies to fund CCS or retrofit power plants to use natural gas which emits almost 30 percent less carbon dioxide than oil, and just under 45 percent less carbon dioxide than coal - http://www.naturalgas.org/environment/naturalgas.asp
The greens’ goal is admirable. Who would not want a world humming along on windmills and solar panels? But is it feasible? Here’s where their argument goes fuzzy. The unspoken green myth is that the world can make an orderly and relatively rapid transition from a fossil fuel present to a green energy future. But there are huge technical and economic hurdles. The current relatively low cost of energy allows the U.S. to make a profit on its goods. Raising that cost would raise the cost of literally everything. Currently only a small number of CCS power plants have opened and others are on the drawing boards, but costs are high. More daunting, is storing massive amounts of carbon dioxide safely for many centuries.
http://www.ethicalcorp.com/content.asp?ContentID=6380
Worldwide progress is making CCS cost effective, progress that cannot be ignored in the March 2009 Washington debates.
U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Flagship Project. FutureGen is a DOE project announced by President George W. Bush in 2003; its initial plan involved the construction of a near zero-emissions coal-fueled power plant to produce hydrogen and electricity while using membrane technology and carbon capture and storage. Despite cancellation of funding by DOE, the FutureGen Alliance continues to move forward with a project in Mattoon, Texas (August 2008) making a concerted effort with the Obama administration to reinstate the project and get the power plant built as originally planned. The $1.3 billion FutureGen coal-based power plant is designed to be a nearly emission-free. Using coal gasification a water-shift reactor will produce hydrogen and carbon dioxide. The CO2 will then be separated by membrane technology and sequestered geologically. The hydrogen will then be used to generate electricity in a 275 MW generating plant and also in fuel cells.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FutureGen#cite_note-33
U.S. - CCS Partnership in the Appalachian Basin
February 11, 2009 - A U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) team of regional partners has begun injecting carbon dioxide (CO2) into coal seams in the Central Appalachian Basin to determine the feasibility of CO2 storage in unmineable coal seams and the potential for enhanced coalbed methane recovery. The results of the study will be vital in assessing the potential of carbon storage in coal seams as a safe and permanent method to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions while enhancing production of natural gas. The DOE's Southeast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (SECARB) began injecting CO2 at the test site in Russell County, Va., in mid Jan 2009. About 1,000 tons of CO2 will be injected over a 45-day period. The site was selected because it is representative of the Central Appalachian Basin, an area of about 10,000 square miles located in southern West Virginia and southwestern Virginia. This area has been assessed by researchers to have the capacity to store 1.3 billion tons of CO2 in the coal seams while increasing natural gas production up to 2.5 trillion cubic feet. Injecting CO2 into coal seams boosts coalbed methane recovery, which provides an immediate commercial benefit and offsets infrastructure development costs, while providing long-term storage of CO2 in the formation—a win-win situation. The project is being coordinated by the Virginia Center for Coal and Energy Research under the direction of Dr. Michael Karmis, a professor in the Department of Mining and Minerals Engineering at Virginia Tech. http://www.powermag.com/POWERnews/1726.html
Utah Posed to Begin Power Production.
Feb 24, 2009 - http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,705287105,00.html
Utah is poised to become home to clean carbon energy as a new joint venture aims to put carbon dioxide emissions away for good. Headwaters Inc., a Utah-based natural resources company, announced a collaboration with the University of Utah’s civil and environmental engineering professor Brian McPherson, using carbon capture and sequestration technology, to store more than 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide in underground storage space large enough for 50 years' worth of current Utah-generated emissions.
Colorado to Use Ionic Liquid Technology – February 18, 2009 – http://ion-engineering.com/2009/02/20/ion-engineering-unveils-new-technology-to-capture-and-control-greenhouse-emissions/
ION Engineering is a new company that is the first to successfully integrate ionic liquid solutions into carbon capture and emissions control technology. Using new solutions based around ionic liquid technology, ION has developed the most economical way for the global energy industry to remove CO2 and other contaminants from fossil fuel power plant emissions and raw natural gas. Ionic liquids are molten salts that do not evaporate, and can be used to replace the current, inefficient, aqueous (water-based) amine technology that was, up until now, the state-of-the-art in emissions control technology. As a byproduct the process sweetens sour contaminated natural gas (representing half of worldwide reserves) to vastly increase natural gas reserves.
Japanese Are Making Dramatic Progress in CCT http://www.nedo.go.jp/kankobutsu/pamphlets/sekitan/cct2006e.pdf
2006 - The New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization
(NEDO) and the Japan Coal Energy Center (JCOAL) are making dramatic progress in Clean Coal Technology (CCT) by reducing CO2 emissions with the most highly advanced clean coal technologies in the world.
Electrostatic Precipitator - Flue gas containing ash and dust passes between two electrodes that are charged by a high voltage current. The negatively charged ash and dust are attracted toward and deposited on the cathode.
Flue Gas Desulfurizer - Limestone slurry is injected into the flue gas to induce a reaction between the limestone and the sulfur oxides in the flue gas to form calcium sulfite, which is further reacted with oxygen to form gypsum. The gypsum is then separated as a product.
Flue Gas Denitrizer - Ammonia is injected into the flue gas containing nitrogen
oxides. The gas mixture is introduced to a metallic catalyst (a substance which induces chemical reactions). The nitrogen oxides in the flue gas undergo catalyst-induced chemical reactions, causing them to decompose into nitrogen and water.
Tokyo to Begin Carbon Capture & Storage Project in 2010
Feb 20, 2009 - By March 2010 Tokyo will start storing CO2 under the seabed at the rate of 100,000 tons per year with a capacity to store 150 billion tons of CO2 in Japan underground and in surrounding coastal underseas areas. The daily rate of CO2 capture at this project is slightly under 11.5 tons per hour; which is faster than Vattenfall's pilot CCS project in Germany at 10 tons per hour.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/02/tokyo-carbon-capture-storage-project-2010.php?daylife=1&dcitc=daylife-article
Germany - Vattenfall's Project on CCS Jan 20, 2009 - As part of ongoing research and development efforts, Vattenfall initiated a project on carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) in 2001. The goal of the project is to develop commercial concepts for CCS at power plants between 2015 and 2020. On 9 Sep 2008 a 30 MW pilot plant with carbon capture and storage began operation to test technology that so far only has been tested in laboratories. http://www.vattenfall.com/www/co2_en/co2_en/index.jsp
Norway Current Sequestering a Million Tons of CO2 Per Year. In 1991, Norway became the first country to impose a federal tax (carbon trading) on atmospheric CO2 emissions from coal-fired power plants. Norway's strong financial incentive to develop strategies for safe disposal of CO2 waste has lead to advanced technology in capturing excess CO2 and injecting it underground, to remain sequestered from the atmosphere for thousands of years. Since 1996, Norway has been injecting about a million tons of CO2 per year. https://www.llnl.gov/str/Johnson.html
Membrane Technology - Aug 2, 2008 - http://www.engineerlive.com/Oil-and-Gas-Engineer/Environment_Solution/New_membranes_design_will_improve_carbon_dioxide_capture/19942 Carbon dioxide (CO2) gases from coal-fired power plants must be separated from waste gases and sequestered in the ground. The current methods uses expensive separation chemicals. A new membrane technology internationally patented by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim. Using membranes made from a plastic material that has been structured by means of nano technology, it catches CO2 while other waste gases pass freely. Its effectiveness increases proportionally to the concentration of CO2 in the gas. This method, known as facilitated transport, is comparable to the way human lungs get rid of CO2 when we breathe: it is both a complex and an effective mechanism. Instead of using a filter that separates directly between CO2 and other molecules, NTNU uses a fixed carrier agent in the membrane that helps the CO2 molecules to form the chemical bicarbonate which is then quickly transported through the membrane. In this manner, the CO2 is released while the other gases are retained by the membrane.
Update Source - Carbon Capture Journal - http://www.carboncapturejournal.com/morenews.php?Category=Separation
Carbon Capture Journal is specifically about developments with industrial scale carbon capture and geological storage technology, with news about the major projects and development with government policy.
Biodiesel
Biodiesel, made from the oily residue of non-food crops and animal waste, presents great potential to replace gasoline in fueling our vehicles. Biodiesel is gaining traction and its global market is estimated to reach 37 billion gallons per year by 2016. Europe has already begun a massive switch to diesel vehicles, where, little known to us, more than half of all vehicles sold in Europe are now diesel, new improved over the loud hard to start versions that we saw 25 years ago and virtually indistinguishable from gasoline-burning vehicles. Biodiesel can be mixed in any proportion with diesel made from fossil fuels, and pure biodiesel reduces net carbon dioxide emissions by 78% compared to 100% petroleum diesel.
Nearly every major automobile manufacturer has announced plans to market diesel vehicles in the U.S. starting in late 2008. But the Big Three (Chrysler, Ford, General Motors) will only be offering trucks – perhaps furthering their demise http://www.dieselforum.org/where-is-diesel/cars-trucks-suvs/other-diesel-vehicles-coming-soon/neste/5/
For many years, diesel fuel prices tended to be lower than gasoline. Since September 2004, this trend has disappeared with diesel fuel prices exceeding gasoline. This price differential is due to a variety of factors – global and domestic, economic and political. The demand for diesel and jet fuel in the last five years has grown faster that for gasoline. As result diesel fuel inventories have now reached their lowest five year level. China has been stockpiling diesel to prepare for the Olympics, and in Europe, with diesel vehicles being 20 to 40 percent more fuel efficient and with government incentives, there has been a major shift to diesel occurring over there. In the U.S. gasoline prices have not kept up with surging crude oil prices while diesel prices have. As a result, the gap between U.S. gas and diesel prices has grown. Another factor is that federal and state taxes are higher for diesel. As more diesel vehicles are introduced into the US market in 2009 oil companies will be responding by increasing refining capacity and biodiesel production should finally take off. http://www.dieselforum.org/fileadmin/templates/images/PDF/Diesel_Fuel_Price_Update.pdf
A rapid expansion in production capacity of biodiesel is being observed not only in developed countries such as Germany, Italy, France, and the United States but also in developing countries such as Brazil. About 500 million gallons of biodiesel were produced in the United States in 2007 but due to high feedstock prices and low demand from US petroleum marketers, plants where not operating at full capacity. By comparison, U.S. ethanol capacity recently hit 7 billion gallons per year http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKN1659947520071116
http://www.card.iastate.edu/iowa_ag_review/spring_07/article4.aspx
http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/blog2/2007/12/28/us-biodiesel-production-plunges-to-22-percent-of-capacity-feedstock-costs-low-demand-are-culprits/
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2008/05/05/story5.html?ana=from_rss
Already the world’s largest producer of ethanol, Brazil is now betting on biodiesel. Petrobras, Brazil’s state-owned petroleum giant, is already selling a fuel blend with 2% biodiesel at hundreds of its retail gas stations. It is also patenting a fuel known as H-Bio that it says will save millions of barrels of oil by using vegetable oil in the refining process to create a low-polluting petroleum diesel. http://articles.latimes.com/2006/sep/19/business/fi-biodiesel19
Algae-Biodiesel. At least Four companies are close to making the green pond scum into green fuel. Florida-based PetroAlgae wants to test a commercial algae-biodiesel system next year, while GreenFuel Technologies and Solazyme say they’re close to commercial applications as well. In addition California-based LiveFuels has a target of 100 million gallons of biodiesel from algae in the next two years. All of this is very good news in that growing algae on our garbage spread out in fields, can produce up to 100 times more oil per acre than jatropha crops and its potential as a fuel is so promising: it’s a non-food crop, removes large amounts of carbon dioxide from the air, and grows fast.
http://domesticfuel.com/2008/05/05/algae-based-biodiesel-makers-getting-closer-to-marketable/
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-9934274-54.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
http://biodieselmastery.blogspot.com/2008_05_05_archive.html
Salicornia is a crop nourished by ocean water that holds the potential to feed the world, fuel our vehicles, and slow global warming. Salicornia is a salt-loving plant that thrives in hellish heat and pitiful soil on little more than a regular dousing of ocean water. Several countries are experimenting with salicornia and other saltwater-tolerant species as sources of biofuels. And, unlike grain-based ethanol, it doesn't need rain or prime farmland, and it doesn't distort global food markets. NASA has estimated that halophytes planted over an area the size of the Sahara Desert could supply more than 90% of the world's energy needs. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/latinamerica/la-fi-seafarm10-2008jul10,0,5000326.story
While Salicornia may hold promise and Algae-Biodiesel is still in the developmental stages, the plant that the world is wild about is Jatropha, the ideal plant for biodiesel. It is a miracle plant that is taking the world by bio-quantum leaps and bounds. Jatropha is a plant that produces eight times more oil than soy bean. It thrives in arid regions like central Florida and southwestern states, land not suitable for other types of agriculture. China, India, and numerous countries in Africa and Central and South America are now growing jatropha on large tracts of land. Not only can Jatropha put oil down, its side effects of putting a huge dent in carbon emissions makes it the sure bet for the near and far future. All around the world, countries and companies are investing big dollars in Jatropha as a source for biodiesel.
http://chemicallygreen.com/jatropha-curcas/
http://www.jatrophaworld.org/
The airline industry is now on the verge of converting from jet fuel from crude oil to biodiesel. Air New Zealand is planning a 747 jumbo jet flight from Auckland in the fall of 2008 with one of the four engines being powered by fuel refined from the seed of a fast-growing jatropha plant. The three-hour test flight could mark one of the more promising -- and more unusual -- steps by the financially strapped airline industry to find cheaper and more environmentally friendly alternatives to fossil fuel. Recently the airline announced plans to use the new fuel for 10% of its needs by 2013. Jatropha oil is also significantly cheaper than crude oil. It could cost an estimated $43 a barrel, or about one-third the cost of a barrel of crude oil.
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jun/05/business/fi-newfuel5
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-9877583-54.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jatropha#cite_note-7
Here is a list of the top five significant biodiesel plants operating, under construction, or planned. Two which have been scraped are listed as foot notes. The following web site listing these facilities is dated May 2008 but upon inspection has not been updated recently http://libtechplayground.wordpress.com/2008/05/01/al-fin-energy-12-largest-biofuel-plants-in-world-for-now/
Each lists the production in millions gallons of biodiesel fuel per year and then the crop source.
1. USA - Houston, Texas (in operation since Jun 1, 2008) 1,500 million gallons per year - waste-oil and multiple feed stocks including non-edible sources such as tallow and jatropha
http://sixthcolumn.typepad.com/duckwalls/2008/06/biodiesel-refin.html
2. USA - Grays Harbon, Washington (in production since Aug 2007) 100 million gallons per year – Washington State canola and Canada soy. http://www.imperiumrenewables.com/grays.html
3. USA - Dade City, Florida (in operation) producing 40 million gallons per year with production capacity of 120 million gallons per year - chicken fat, palm, and cottonseed oils - http://www.sptimes.com/2007/02/13/Business/OJ_plant_to_deliver_n.shtml
4. Canada - Innisfail, Alberta (under construction, opens fall 2008) - 100 million gallons per year - canola oil, sunflower, and mustard seed oil. http://www.biofuelsmagazine.ca/article.jsp?article_id=16&article_title=Mega+multi-production+plant+slated+for+Alberta
5. USA - Claypool, Indiana (in operation since Aug 2007) 80 million gallons per year - soybean oil. http://www.insideindianabusiness.com/newsitem.asp?ID=25053
#. USA - Chesapeake, Virginia (financial backing fails May 2008): 320 million gallons per year – jatropha. The developers, Smiling Earth Energy LLC, were long on promotion but short on substance. Smiling Earth could not get financing, and the landowner of the 44-acre site now consider the plant "a dead story."
http://hamptonroads.com/2008/05/even-without-biodiesel-plant-south-hill-residents-deserve-help
#. Evansville, Wisconsin, USA (construction halted) 45 million gallons per year – soybean. High soybean oil prices have halted construction making the end product too expensive compared with the pump price for regular diesel. http://www.soyatech.com/news_story.php?id=5555
Nearly every major automobile manufacturer has announced plans to market diesel vehicles in the U.S. starting in late 2008. But the Big Three (Chrysler, Ford, General Motors) will only be offering trucks – perhaps furthering their demise http://www.dieselforum.org/where-is-diesel/cars-trucks-suvs/other-diesel-vehicles-coming-soon/neste/5/
For many years, diesel fuel prices tended to be lower than gasoline. Since September 2004, this trend has disappeared with diesel fuel prices exceeding gasoline. This price differential is due to a variety of factors – global and domestic, economic and political. The demand for diesel and jet fuel in the last five years has grown faster that for gasoline. As result diesel fuel inventories have now reached their lowest five year level. China has been stockpiling diesel to prepare for the Olympics, and in Europe, with diesel vehicles being 20 to 40 percent more fuel efficient and with government incentives, there has been a major shift to diesel occurring over there. In the U.S. gasoline prices have not kept up with surging crude oil prices while diesel prices have. As a result, the gap between U.S. gas and diesel prices has grown. Another factor is that federal and state taxes are higher for diesel. As more diesel vehicles are introduced into the US market in 2009 oil companies will be responding by increasing refining capacity and biodiesel production should finally take off. http://www.dieselforum.org/fileadmin/templates/images/PDF/Diesel_Fuel_Price_Update.pdf
A rapid expansion in production capacity of biodiesel is being observed not only in developed countries such as Germany, Italy, France, and the United States but also in developing countries such as Brazil. About 500 million gallons of biodiesel were produced in the United States in 2007 but due to high feedstock prices and low demand from US petroleum marketers, plants where not operating at full capacity. By comparison, U.S. ethanol capacity recently hit 7 billion gallons per year http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKN1659947520071116
http://www.card.iastate.edu/iowa_ag_review/spring_07/article4.aspx
http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/blog2/2007/12/28/us-biodiesel-production-plunges-to-22-percent-of-capacity-feedstock-costs-low-demand-are-culprits/
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2008/05/05/story5.html?ana=from_rss
Already the world’s largest producer of ethanol, Brazil is now betting on biodiesel. Petrobras, Brazil’s state-owned petroleum giant, is already selling a fuel blend with 2% biodiesel at hundreds of its retail gas stations. It is also patenting a fuel known as H-Bio that it says will save millions of barrels of oil by using vegetable oil in the refining process to create a low-polluting petroleum diesel. http://articles.latimes.com/2006/sep/19/business/fi-biodiesel19
Algae-Biodiesel. At least Four companies are close to making the green pond scum into green fuel. Florida-based PetroAlgae wants to test a commercial algae-biodiesel system next year, while GreenFuel Technologies and Solazyme say they’re close to commercial applications as well. In addition California-based LiveFuels has a target of 100 million gallons of biodiesel from algae in the next two years. All of this is very good news in that growing algae on our garbage spread out in fields, can produce up to 100 times more oil per acre than jatropha crops and its potential as a fuel is so promising: it’s a non-food crop, removes large amounts of carbon dioxide from the air, and grows fast.
http://domesticfuel.com/2008/05/05/algae-based-biodiesel-makers-getting-closer-to-marketable/
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-9934274-54.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
http://biodieselmastery.blogspot.com/2008_05_05_archive.html
Salicornia is a crop nourished by ocean water that holds the potential to feed the world, fuel our vehicles, and slow global warming. Salicornia is a salt-loving plant that thrives in hellish heat and pitiful soil on little more than a regular dousing of ocean water. Several countries are experimenting with salicornia and other saltwater-tolerant species as sources of biofuels. And, unlike grain-based ethanol, it doesn't need rain or prime farmland, and it doesn't distort global food markets. NASA has estimated that halophytes planted over an area the size of the Sahara Desert could supply more than 90% of the world's energy needs. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/latinamerica/la-fi-seafarm10-2008jul10,0,5000326.story
While Salicornia may hold promise and Algae-Biodiesel is still in the developmental stages, the plant that the world is wild about is Jatropha, the ideal plant for biodiesel. It is a miracle plant that is taking the world by bio-quantum leaps and bounds. Jatropha is a plant that produces eight times more oil than soy bean. It thrives in arid regions like central Florida and southwestern states, land not suitable for other types of agriculture. China, India, and numerous countries in Africa and Central and South America are now growing jatropha on large tracts of land. Not only can Jatropha put oil down, its side effects of putting a huge dent in carbon emissions makes it the sure bet for the near and far future. All around the world, countries and companies are investing big dollars in Jatropha as a source for biodiesel.
http://chemicallygreen.com/jatropha-curcas/
http://www.jatrophaworld.org/
The airline industry is now on the verge of converting from jet fuel from crude oil to biodiesel. Air New Zealand is planning a 747 jumbo jet flight from Auckland in the fall of 2008 with one of the four engines being powered by fuel refined from the seed of a fast-growing jatropha plant. The three-hour test flight could mark one of the more promising -- and more unusual -- steps by the financially strapped airline industry to find cheaper and more environmentally friendly alternatives to fossil fuel. Recently the airline announced plans to use the new fuel for 10% of its needs by 2013. Jatropha oil is also significantly cheaper than crude oil. It could cost an estimated $43 a barrel, or about one-third the cost of a barrel of crude oil.
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jun/05/business/fi-newfuel5
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-9877583-54.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jatropha#cite_note-7
Here is a list of the top five significant biodiesel plants operating, under construction, or planned. Two which have been scraped are listed as foot notes. The following web site listing these facilities is dated May 2008 but upon inspection has not been updated recently http://libtechplayground.wordpress.com/2008/05/01/al-fin-energy-12-largest-biofuel-plants-in-world-for-now/
Each lists the production in millions gallons of biodiesel fuel per year and then the crop source.
1. USA - Houston, Texas (in operation since Jun 1, 2008) 1,500 million gallons per year - waste-oil and multiple feed stocks including non-edible sources such as tallow and jatropha
http://sixthcolumn.typepad.com/duckwalls/2008/06/biodiesel-refin.html
2. USA - Grays Harbon, Washington (in production since Aug 2007) 100 million gallons per year – Washington State canola and Canada soy. http://www.imperiumrenewables.com/grays.html
3. USA - Dade City, Florida (in operation) producing 40 million gallons per year with production capacity of 120 million gallons per year - chicken fat, palm, and cottonseed oils - http://www.sptimes.com/2007/02/13/Business/OJ_plant_to_deliver_n.shtml
4. Canada - Innisfail, Alberta (under construction, opens fall 2008) - 100 million gallons per year - canola oil, sunflower, and mustard seed oil. http://www.biofuelsmagazine.ca/article.jsp?article_id=16&article_title=Mega+multi-production+plant+slated+for+Alberta
5. USA - Claypool, Indiana (in operation since Aug 2007) 80 million gallons per year - soybean oil. http://www.insideindianabusiness.com/newsitem.asp?ID=25053
#. USA - Chesapeake, Virginia (financial backing fails May 2008): 320 million gallons per year – jatropha. The developers, Smiling Earth Energy LLC, were long on promotion but short on substance. Smiling Earth could not get financing, and the landowner of the 44-acre site now consider the plant "a dead story."
http://hamptonroads.com/2008/05/even-without-biodiesel-plant-south-hill-residents-deserve-help
#. Evansville, Wisconsin, USA (construction halted) 45 million gallons per year – soybean. High soybean oil prices have halted construction making the end product too expensive compared with the pump price for regular diesel. http://www.soyatech.com/news_story.php?id=5555
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