We Don't Need No Stinkin' Giant Fans

Oil doesn't have a monopoly, and you can't strip it of it's
strategic value because it is used as much as a feed-stock as
it is a fuel source. May we have the next contestant please?

I was disappointed the websites Library didn't include George Olah's "The Methanol Economy". While the book makes a good case for methanol to replace oil as a liquid fuel (although with a lower ennergy denisty), he also devoted a chapter to the requirements to use methanol to replace hydrocarbons as the feedstock for plastics.

Maybe Olah's work was too realistic, openly stating that oil won't be replaceable for a decade or few, with that pesky thing called research and development taking time.

Well, you can use coal as a feed-stock too, 1, so that covers the non-monopoloy part. Still, each hydrocarbon source, be it oil, gas, coal, &c, has a set of properties that make it particularly suitable for some applications. It is in that sense that simple old-fashioned oil will maintain its strategic value for some time into the future.

Methanol will never be an alternative energy source, because its just too dangerous for consumers to be exposed to. It's one of the most deadly substances in use today. Most safety instructors won't even allow students no sniff it. Oilpatch operators can no longer carry it in regular storage tanks. It has to be in locked, airtight containers.

The city of Medicine Hat converted transit buses to methanol, with disastrous results. Several mechanics were poisoned, and have been in court for years, trying to get compensation. There was a methanol plant in the city, and it closed down a few years ago. It's sitting there, abandoned, and becoming an eyesore.

Every year there's a poisoning in the oilpatch due to improper storage of methanol. There's always some idiot putting it in a pop bottle, and leaving it sitting out on a workbench. One sip will either kill you outright, or cause you to develop malignant tumors in every major organ within a couple of years.

Maybe that's why the aforementioned book isn't in the library.

Look, if someone's putting methanol in a pop bottle they should at least be charged with attempted murder, and if some dies from it, with murder. But it's just methanol. It's a lovely, useful, wonderful chemical, and it's produced naturally too, by, um, Nature Inc. If you're not using it properly, that's your fault, not methanol's.

Boy it could really be somthing to behold when Al Jr. has is meltdown when all of this finally utterly collapses and he is left looking utterly rediculous. He is a walking case study of a guy who is trying to be what his old man wanted - Paul martin being the finest canadian example. It will not end well for
him.

What I'm getting at here, is that methanol can't replace oil as a liquid fuel, as Ln(e) suggested. It has to be so strictly controlled as to render it useless for retail consumption.

As for charging someone with attempted murder, it might be a good idea. It's just like leaving a loaded Glock in a playground.

I agree with Vitruvius that the incidents with methanol are operator error, and not the chemical. There are a lot more dangerous chemicals (like gasoline). Methanol is NOT one of the most deadly substances out there today. NASCAR uses it for it's fuel instead of gasoline, because it is that much inherently safer. It is also in your anti-freeze and other commercial products, including new power packs (Direct Methanol Fuel Cells - DMFC). I am curious to see the difference in the MSDS of methanol, ethanol, gasoline, diesel, dimethyl ether and benzene.

Also Vitruvius, I agree with the alternate feedstock of coal. Olah states that coal should be the primary carbon source for methanol (through gasification) until the technology for the utopian dream for getting CO2 out of the atmosphere for the sysnthesis of methanol; the primary hydrogen source would be through electrolysis with nukes providing the power, going to the utopian dream of solar power providing the power eventually. The process is coal gasification to methanol to di-methyl ether which leads to the base materials for the polymer industry. I may be off a couple details, as I read the book a year ago, and don't have it handy (it is one I loan out to technical friends to spread the idea). NOTE: utopian dream technology is the same as unobtainium for near term results.

For the record, I hope that oil stays strategic, as I am an oil & gas engineer. And it will because of it's high energy density and relative ease to alter into other useful chemicals (not to mention extensive infrastructure). But it is prudent to make plans now for after the oilsands are near exhausted (in a fair number of decades), because it will take that long to research and develop an alternative.

The point is being lost here. The website is not concerned with peak oil, they're concerned with being held to ransom. Petroleum is, as discussed here frequently, fungible.
fun⋅gi⋅ble
   /ˈfʌndʒəbəl/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [fuhn-juh-buhl] Show IPA Pronunciation
–adjective Law.
(esp. of goods) being of such nature or kind as to be freely exchangeable or replaceable, in whole or in part, for another of like nature or kind.

The last couple of months have demonstrated how incredibly sensitive to demand the price of oil is. By taking N.A. transit fuel out of the equation, the US has actually attained more strategic advantages than through any other current or recent actions. Russia, Venezuela,and Iran have all suffered serious setbacks. So has Canada but that's another discussion.
Of course, the reduction in N.A. demand wasn't exactly planned or ideal BUT it does illustrate the point the Citizens for Energy Freedom are making.
The latest rise in pump prices, while the per barrel price of oil is still dropping, is entirely due to refineries restricting production. They've said so themselves.
http://www.halifaxgasprices.com/news/Gas_prices_up_slightly_as_refineries_improve_margins/9229_347573/index.aspx

In yesterday's JPost.com, it was reported that an Israeli led group has just discovered massive gas reserves under the Med near Haifa.

Israel knows how important it is to be energy independent. They were in the process of building a big coal burning plant to stay independent and now they are calling on converting these plans to a natural gas burning plant.

Europe is now starting to understand (at last) that being dependent on Russia for a huge chunk of their energy needs is the stupidest thing you can do. France (which uses nuclear to meet about 80% of their needs) is in the best position if Russia, Venezuela, Iran, etc. decide to play games.

I hope the US wakes up and looks at every means available to be energy independent.

Ln(e), unless they forgot to announce the change NASCAR runs on good old-fashioned high octane gasoline. In fact they just converted to unleaded last year. I think that you meant Indy Car, which has had many serious incidents with methanol - significantly more than with gasoline in NASCAR.

"By restricting production in the face of growing world demand, OPEC has raised the price of oil from $11 per barrel in 1999 to $50 per barrel in 2005, to over $145 per barrel last summer. In consequence, US tribute for foreign oil this year will exceed $700 billion, total American oil payments will be $1.2 trillion, and humanity worldwide will be squeezed for nearly $5 trillion. This massive tax is sending the US and other industrial countries into recession, and threatens global depression."

OPEC only controls 40% of the market. Recent production cuts have had very little effect on the price of crude. Logic suggests that any production increase over the past year would have had negligable impact on price.

Blame those greedy commodity trading pricks instead.

Haifa?

even the Gazans cant claim Haifa,

must even be further than they can shoot with a wind.

No, it's not just you. Unfortunately, the call for energy "independence" is misguided. Politicians on both the right and the left call for it, but it's an unachievable objective. Worse, it leads to such boondoggles as the ethanol scam, as well as your stinkin' fans. See Robert Bryce's:

Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of Energy Independence

http://www.amazon.com/Gusher-Lies-Dangerous-Delusions-Independence/dp/1586483218

One of the leading professional "journalists" expert on the AGW file said three years ago that there is nothing we can do now - it's too late already, we just have to learn to live with the consequences.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/02/13/INGP4B7GC91.DTL

At the core of the global warming dilemma is a fact neither side of the debate likes to talk about: It is already too late to prevent global warming and the climate change it sets off.

The article says that not only do we have to cease all industrial activity that uses the oxidation of carbon as an energy source, we have to stop heating our homes, stop cooking, and stop using internal combustion engines - immediately. But that is not enough, we have to sequester the CO2 produced in the past.

I suppose we need solar and wind-powered CO2 sequestering machines - that's going to get the job done quickly, certainly. And these can only be effective on areas of the planet surface that have a climate warm enough to allow the operator/maintainer/manufacturer of these machines to live in homes that require no heat, and with a sufficiently large nearby supply of raw food.

To be determined is how the required machines will be manufactured in the first place if we immediately cease all industrial production.

I wish I could get paid to write BS. Nice work if you can get it. Do these fools ever think about what they have written?

Nope, no monopoly here. Move on.

Nature on PBS last night was focused on Polar bears and how climate change was threatening their very existence. Scenes of dead baby bears lying on the shore drowned by the huge expanse of open waters they must cover now as the ice disappears. The bears are starving as the Arctic ocean is ice free for much of the year. The bears that have lived peacefully, well except for eating seals, for millions of years on the ice pack are now in trouble, and its all our fault!

Question for our resident scientists; if most of the northern continents were covered with a mile thick layer of ice and we know the oceans were much lower than today with all the water locked in ice, wouldn't the current Arctic ocean be almost dry and also covered by the same mile thickness of ice? So the Polar bears would have a tough time finding seals there but we're not allowed to whisper those questions.

The BS never stops from these people.

I for one have grown extremely hostile to crass, blatant manipulation of public opinion through fear and greed.

Nice try, "Citizens for Energy Freedom". Might have worked with gas at $1.40 per l./$4.00 per G. Nice try, Man made Global Warming nuts. You came sooooo close, but hopefully this winter will put a big enough nail in your coffin.

Why haven't people become sufficiently cynical about these slick, well - financed con jobs? Pleeese people, try and follow the money! Look for hidden agendas. Don't believe everything you read. Anybody can create a web site, set up a "Center of Security Policy" or a "Set America Free Coalition". Get impressive initials to put after their name.

Get enough followers on your rolls, then go after the big bucks - the Multinational Corporations, the NGOs, the loosy goosey Gov't. agencies with money to burn for "outreach". After all, they are playing the same game - Money, Power, Influence (with massive per diem, person jets, public fame + those warm & fuzzy feelings of saving the world)*.

And the biggest con? You wanna know the biggest con? The "One": Barack H. Obama, who outspent his opponent 4 to 1 in the last weeks of the campaign, literally buying the election. Clearly a slick, young, totally unqualified Chicago machine politician, but hey! "Democratically" elected for what it's worth.

*Every decade almost like clockwork, seems like some cub reporter digs up that the American Red Cross has a massive budget for transatlantic luxury air travel, makes incredible interest free, payment deferred loans to its officers, etc. etc. The uproar subsides, the abuses continue, the fund raising goes on unscathed.

F*CK Polar Bears

Don't deal with OPEC, is the only alternative. There is enough oil to be had from non-OPEC sources if the goal is to cut OPEC out of the loop. That the U.S. has vast reserves of shale-oil that need technologies to become viable is never mentioned or implied by these propogandists. That the Alberta oil-sands have technologies, NOW, that can extact and export millions of barrels per day in an enviornmentally sustainable way is overlooked by these prophets of doom. U.S. reserves in the Bakken formation, that is now starting to be produced are estamated at between 300 to 500 billion barrels, U.S. reserves in the Green River shale oil deposites are estimated at 1.5 to 1.7 Trillion barrels. The OIL SANDS of ALBERTA have estimated reserves of 1.7 Trillion barrels with 334 billion barrels recoverable with today's technology. The propogandists and their accomplices need to be exposed. Did you know that Quebec, the province that demands that Canada(the West) give it equalization(extortion) payments imports oil from Britain and Norway(3/5) with the remainder coming from Mexico, Venuzuela and the Middle East, they do not support WESTERN CANADIAN commodities other than cash money.

My apologies Cranky, you are right, it is Indy Car (I am not a racing fan). I looked up the MSDS for gasoline and methanol, and seeing as gasoline is a carcinogen as well as a myriad of other nasty health issues, I cannot believe the argument that methanol is more dangerous that gasoline. That was the point of that post.

What are the significantly more serious incidents? Surely not fire deaths, as methanol doesn't burn as hot as gasoline, the major reason Indy switched to methanol. Are they related to accidents based on the fuels inherent nature, or on errors by the operators? If the later, it has nothing to do with methanol, and everything to do with proper handling.

Energy independance for any nation is such an absurd concept. It is wrong headed and should be dismissed outright.

I wrote a bit about the goals of this group after attending (for the first time) their conference in Chicago, last October. It's an eclectic group of people, from a variety of background, with a wide range of opinions and ideas... but they gathered to talk about energy independence in so far as stripping the strategic value from oil... as their effective hand-out described, to "turn oil into salt".

From my post about it at the time:

"Once was a time when nations went to war over salt.

Until the 19th century salt was a strategic commodity much like oil is today. Salt was required to preserve meat - and preserved meat was required to allow armies to march. Salt was required for societies to grow beyond traditional collectives, and salt was required to store, transport, and sell meat that could not be consumed immediately. Wars were indeed fought over salt, and those nations with large salt reserves had tremendous political and economic prosperity - and power over those who needed their salt - much like countries with oil do today.

So, what happened to change the world, and strip salt of it’s strategic importance?

New technologies were invented which made salt unnecessary for food preservation. The invention of electricity, refrigeration, canning, and other preservative technologies forever changed the world, and salt became just another freely traded commodity like we are accustomed to today.

You can still preserve your meats with salt if you wanted to, but most choose to refrigerate it.
Today we find ourselves in a 19th-century dilemma again, where oil has replaced salt as a global strategic commodity, and where the trade in this commodity is tightly controlled in order to weild political and economic power..."

More at this link:

http://blog.fuelclinic.com/2008/10/28/turning-oil-into-salt/

As I scrolled down through the article, I was thinking "Yeah, how about some consumer choice in municipal bus service?", as for the 3rd time in the last week, my local bus service, which supposedly offers twice an hour buses, completely missed a bus, meaning I spent 40+ minutes waiting in sub-zero conditions. Then I saw the conference was cancelled due to lack of interest, and nearly ruined my keyboard!

Haifa?

even the Gazans cant claim Haifa,

must even be further than they can shoot with a wind.

Posted by: cal2 at 8:38 AM

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me thinks bigger sewer pipe are being ordered, for longer range:-)))))