Green Light at the End of the Tunnel (Part 1)
Stafford Williamson
August 12, 2006
It is amazing. I have been talking to people for a couple of years now about a method of producing “green” renewable energy. Yes, the process is amazing, but what amazes me even more is that is hasn’t taken on a life of its own. It feels a little like the world has the “gasoline” religion and I am not preaching according to any acceptable gospel.
Have we really become so blinded by the holy trinity of Detroit, Houston and Saudi Arabia that we can’t see beyond petro dollar interests? Come to think of it, is Willie Nelson really the new “John the Baptist” crisscrossing the country in his French fry grease powered bus? Or does that just make him the “French Friar”?
Sorry about that. I couldn’t resist.
It does look promising that a new era of fuel alternatives is about to be upon us. The General Motors (GM) campaign to
“Live Green, Go Yellow” promoting the 85 % ethanol fuel mixture that can power their “flex fuel” vehicles is a start. Ford has a “bold moves” promotional campaign that claims they will have “a fleet” of Hydrogen powered shuttle buses next year (2007) using hydrogen based internal combustion engines, not fuel cells. You have to give the folks at Ford some credit (I mean kudos, as far a credit goes, they have some 26 Billion in the bank according to some recent reports). They invited a spokesperson from an Amazon rainforest preservation group to speak in one of their online videos on the subject of Ford’s crummy history of eco-friendly moves in the past.
Speaking of past blunders, I have also been working on a documentary film for television for a couple of years. Well, yes, that may, in itself be a blunder, but I came upon a clip that I thought might provoke some renewed thinking on the part of some of Detroit’s engineers, so I put it on the net. Have a look.
The soaring price of petroleum based fuels is, after all, based almost entirely on a lack of foresight on the part of the big oil companies since there is plenty of petroleum in Alberta and Colorado “tar sands” and “oil shale” to supply the world for the next hundred years or so. According to reports Published on 21 Jun 2004 by The Edmonton Journal,
Syncrude (the entity that operates the Alberta Athabaska Oil Sands refinery, owned by Canadian Oil Sands, Imperial Oil, Petro-Canada, ConocoPhillips Canada, Mocal Energy, Nexen Inc. and Murphy Oil Co.) reported production costs of just CDN$21.07 in 2003 and was promising then to reduce costs to CDN$18 a barrel by 2005. Since recent international spot prices on oil were fluctuating between US$74 and US$78, I think there is a large margin for error while still making a profit for all concerned, don’t you? In spite of the fact that the tar sands production accounts for nearly 1/3 of Canada’s oil exports it is insignificant compared to the consumption of the United States at the present time. A recent CDN$8 billion expansion of the production facility has still not been enough to make any significant progress in reducing the reliance on oil imports from the Middle East, Africa and South America.
Next time I am going to reveal more about how we can create alternative sources for “green” fuels, and why that is better than “petrol”.
Have we really become so blinded by the holy trinity of Detroit, Houston and Saudi Arabia that we can’t see beyond petro dollar interests? Come to think of it, is Willie Nelson really the new “John the Baptist” crisscrossing the country in his French fry grease powered bus? Or does that just make him the “French Friar”?
Sorry about that. I couldn’t resist.
It does look promising that a new era of fuel alternatives is about to be upon us. The General Motors (GM) campaign to
“Live Green, Go Yellow” promoting the 85 % ethanol fuel mixture that can power their “flex fuel” vehicles is a start. Ford has a “bold moves” promotional campaign that claims they will have “a fleet” of Hydrogen powered shuttle buses next year (2007) using hydrogen based internal combustion engines, not fuel cells. You have to give the folks at Ford some credit (I mean kudos, as far a credit goes, they have some 26 Billion in the bank according to some recent reports). They invited a spokesperson from an Amazon rainforest preservation group to speak in one of their online videos on the subject of Ford’s crummy history of eco-friendly moves in the past.
Speaking of past blunders, I have also been working on a documentary film for television for a couple of years. Well, yes, that may, in itself be a blunder, but I came upon a clip that I thought might provoke some renewed thinking on the part of some of Detroit’s engineers, so I put it on the net. Have a look.
The soaring price of petroleum based fuels is, after all, based almost entirely on a lack of foresight on the part of the big oil companies since there is plenty of petroleum in Alberta and Colorado “tar sands” and “oil shale” to supply the world for the next hundred years or so. According to reports Published on 21 Jun 2004 by The Edmonton Journal,
Syncrude (the entity that operates the Alberta Athabaska Oil Sands refinery, owned by Canadian Oil Sands, Imperial Oil, Petro-Canada, ConocoPhillips Canada, Mocal Energy, Nexen Inc. and Murphy Oil Co.) reported production costs of just CDN$21.07 in 2003 and was promising then to reduce costs to CDN$18 a barrel by 2005. Since recent international spot prices on oil were fluctuating between US$74 and US$78, I think there is a large margin for error while still making a profit for all concerned, don’t you? In spite of the fact that the tar sands production accounts for nearly 1/3 of Canada’s oil exports it is insignificant compared to the consumption of the United States at the present time. A recent CDN$8 billion expansion of the production facility has still not been enough to make any significant progress in reducing the reliance on oil imports from the Middle East, Africa and South America.
Next time I am going to reveal more about how we can create alternative sources for “green” fuels, and why that is better than “petrol”.
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