Which Cost More? Oil or ...

"Gordon McGrew" <RgEmMcOgVrEew RemoveThis @mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:hj9764hihcg54aj7g1asp6psc7r4lmn391@4ax.com...
> Are you guys factoring in the oil you may use to heat your homes,
> generate your electricity and manufacture and deliver the food and
> other merchandise you want and need?

Most of those things are done with natural gas or coal, except maybe in the
northeast. Natural gas prices have risen also, although not as much as crude
oil.

On Thu, 26 Jun 2008 19:41:14 "Mark A" <nobody.TakeThisOut@nowhere.com> wrote:
>"Gordon McGrew" <RgEmMcOgVrEew.TakeThisOut@mindspring.com> wrote...

>> Are you guys factoring in the oil you may use to heat your homes,
>> generate your electricity and manufacture and deliver the food and
>> other merchandise you want and need?
>
>Most of those things are done with natural gas or coal, except maybe in the
>northeast. Natural gas prices have risen also, although not as much as crude
>oil.

Okay, I have to call you on this one.

Natural gas for mobile applications is not practical, except for
fleet uses like city buses or trash trucks where they can have
refueling stations at the fleet yard - a miniscule fraction of overall
transportation fuel use.

The energy density is not there with CNG, the vehicles are literally
built around huge fuel tanks and they still have to be refueled every
night with a compressor station that takes energy to run. And LNG is
hazardous to handle without special training - and you have to expend
energy to refrigerate and liquefy the gas.

And coal is unheard of for transportation - the steam railroad
locomotive is the only practical transportation prime mover that can
burn coal, and they are long extinct.

And the EPA and State AQMD's will not let the steam locomotive come
back burning coal or wood - the survivors still operating in museums
and excursion duty are mostly converted to oil burners.

And if you add up all the various uses of crude oil to make all the
raw materials that go into the finished goods you buy or eat or use
every day, and transport them through the manufacturing chain to you,
two 42-gallon barrels a day per person is not out of the question.

Train Locomotives run on "red diesel" (plain diesel that is dyed red
to quickly show the road-use taxes were not paid if it is put in a
road car or truck), not natural gas or coal.

Almost all farm tractors and powered implements run on red diesel,
not natural gas or coal. Steam tractors and stationary engine "Steam
Jenny's" are extinct too.

Virtually all over-the-road cargo trucking is done with diesel
powered tractors, not natural gas or coal.

Much of the northeast US is not piped for natural gas for heating
and cooking energy, even though the population density is there to
support it. They use "Distillate #2" heating oil (which is basically
red diesel) or Propane, not natural gas or coal.

Much of rural America outside heavily populated cities isn't piped
for natural gas for heat, so they have to use either heating oil or
Propane - which is an oil byproduct - and not natural gas or coal.

And that fuel delivery truck is burning diesel or propane to get the
fuel to your home tank.

The only time it is practical to use coal-fired furnaces or boilers
is large industrial or educational sites or electricity generating
plants, where the wages of stationary engineer(s) can be justified to
fire and monitor the system. It can only be made semi-automatic, it
still needs a person to monitor it. And the pollution control
equipment (fluidized bed combustion, stack scrubbers) is too large and
heavy to be made mobile.

Electricity is too inefficient for resistance space heating and only
marginally better running a heat pump, so electricity is usually not
the primary choice for heating. If nuclear electric generation had
caught on and truly made electricity "too cheap to meter" as they
promised in the 1950's we wouldn't worry about efficiency. But it
didn't, so we do.

Electricity generation and stationary large boiler plants are about
the only place that coal and natural gas is still a large prime-mover
energy source.

SOLUTIONS:

If we are going to work our way out of this corner, cranking up to
mass production levels of biodiesel from canola or rapeseed, and mass
production levels of ethanol from sugar cane or switchgrass or
cornstalks (and other non-foodstuff agricultural wastes) is going to
be a critical factor.

We MUST abandon corn as a primary ethanol source - we're removing
edible food and food-growing acreage from the food supply stream,
choosing between eating or moving. And if we have floods droughts or
other crop failures, energy and food both take a hit.

There are too many mobile uses where you need the energy density and
ease of use and fueling of a diesel fuel or E-85 Gasohol. Hydrogen is
way too far out on the horizon and has severe safety problems, and
both pure ethanol and hydrogen are unsafe (invisible fires).

But Biodiesel and E-85 "Flex Fuel" Gasohol we can do with current
technology, and we need to start NOW. With a "Manhattan Project" or
"Apollo Project" level of urgency.

And we also need to start drilling and putting new oil wells into
production NOW. A postage-stamp sized plot in ANWR, deep water off
the coasts, deep water in the Gulf. We can do it, quickly, without
oil spills and disruption - but we need a unified will and shove the
NIMBY whiners off the nearest cliff....

The platforms will be at or over the horizon, so the Hollywood
Glitterati can complain that those few platforms will spoil their
million-dollar views from Malibu or Monterrey or Key West or
Hyannisport - but we all know it's a load of unexpurgated bullshit.

Make it a goal for the US to be energy self-sufficient and not
import a drop of crude oil inside 10 years unless we choose to, and
tell OPEC they can eat sand and drink crude oil if they don't like it.

--<< Bruce >>--