Turning coal into oil, “cracking” coal, was Germany’s main oil source during WWII and was South Africa’s only oil source when it was cut off during apartheid. Now it is a growing source of oil in India and China.
I have been TOLD that cracking is now cheaper than buying oil.
Our rulers have the usual problem of contradictions here. They are bitching that coal cracking is worse on global warming than oil. On the other hand, the Kyoto Treaty would allow countries who use cracking more and more, like India, to grow wildly, while only developed countries would be restricted.
I have been TOLD that cracking, even before the improvements that will inevitably take place, is already cheaper than buying oil on the world market.
America has more coal than anybody else on earth. Coal cracking would make America an oil source that would put the Middle East to shame. Fighting it will be next big push of the Jane Fondas, in tandem, as before, with the oil companies.
In our lifetime, coal cracking could take care of Peak Oil.
Will the crisis be enough to silence the Fondas?
#1 by Dave on 03/13/2008 - 11:58 am
“There are two Europe’s but only one America”.
And the “Europe” that exists in California and New York is heavily into Europe’s time honored weapon of tyranny and that weapon is called “the development permit”.
Nothing kills competition better than the “development permit”, and if you want one in Europe or California or New York you better come with a huge bank account. And you’d better have some knowledge as to hiring the right mouthpieces at the going rate of $1,000 per hour and greasing the right palms. But even that doesn’t work for projects that might affect “real money”.
France and Germany have done such a splendid job of organizing their economies around “the development permit” that most development permits are not available at any price. Accordingly, they have also killed any hope whatsoever of reforming their economies.
Yet they will be stunned, absolutely dismayed, when their fake currency called the “euro” bites the dust, which it will probably do in catastrophic fashion, sooner rather than later.
Now economic catastrophe is something the Jane Fonda’s can always get behind, as she and her ilk are incapable of imagining being broke, just like the buffoons in Brussels.
#2 by backbaygrouch4 on 03/13/2008 - 7:29 pm
Another way for the US to effect energy independence would be to develop its vast shale oil in the Rockies. The sand oil technology being used in booming Alberta may be applicable. In any case the infant industry argument made by Alexander Hamilton in his seminal 1791 Report on Manufactures could justify substantial investments in the area. The only thing keeping America from energy autarky is the stupidity and/or cupidity of the Washington elite.
#3 by AFKAN on 03/13/2008 - 10:58 pm
First, one and all should look at “Winning The oil Endgame,” by Amory Lovins and the team at the Rocky Mountain Institute.
The Alberta tar Sabds projects involve, among other things, incredible amounts of water; the Rocky Mountain project would also have as its output vast quantities of saline material.
In short, the Limits to Growth people are right – wrong on energy, up to a point, but right as to natural limits, and that limit is WATER.
Remember, under FTA (the predecessor to NAFTA) we claimed the right to purchase water from Canada.
There was a reason for Commerce putting that clause in there.
As well, it’s useful to remember that we want oil for what it can do; if something else can do that better, then we will go with that.
I am a strong supporter of Hamiltonian governance, at least in the economic realm.
I also suspect the abiotic theory of oil creation may be accurate, and there is a lot more oil out there – thanks to modern sensing technology and serious computing technology – than we are using; I suspect we are finding more new oil than we are using the “old” oil, and this trend will continue as we hopefully, finally, realize the importance of weaning ourselves off petroleum, and, in a manner Hamilton would enthusiastically support, invest our money in American technology.