The Politics of Oil and a Butterball Turkey

The U.S. government's forecast for average nationwide retail regular gasoline prices of $1.69 a gallon will be increased, the head of the Energy Information Administration said Thursday, but wouldn't say how much higher gasoline prices could go.

"This administration is extremely concerned," U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham told reporters after testifying before a Senate appropriations subcommittee on the department's proposed budget for fiscal 2005.

According to the government, tight global supplies of crude oil, the US economic recovery and the summer driving season are responsible for climbing gasoline prices.

And because U.S. gasoline inventories are below normal levels, any problems at a refinery or pipeline may cause supply disruptions and an additional spike in prices.

If all this sounds familiar, its because it is. We hear the same drivel every year at about this time. The National Association of Convenience Stores compared the gasoline markets to the Bill Murray movie "Groundhog Day" in which his character relives the same day.

"Like the character in 'Groundhog Day,' the petroleum markets experience similar conditions over and over--except on a seasonal, rather than daily, basis," said NACS Director of Motor Fuels John Eichberger. "While the factors contributing to the price volatility change somewhat, springtime supply/demand imbalances have led to price increases of 26-36 cents each of the last four years."

About three quarters of all gasoline in America is sold by convenience stores. These guys ought to know.

The politics of oil dictates to all facets of American life. The Saudi oilfields play the extraordinary role as guarantor of world oil security. Saudi Arabia has maintained spare capacity whenever there were supply disruptions. It acted as OPEC’s swing producer during the Iran-Iraq war, the 1991 Gulf War and more recently during the war in Iraq of 2003.

Saudi Arabia is able to do this because it has developed wellhead capacity of 10 million barrels per day (mbd) and an even larger surface infrastructure to handle this kind of volume.

Depending on OPEC output, Saudi Arabia has accounted for anywhere from 50 to 70 percent of global spare capacity. While the Saudis certainly benefit, so does the world economy.

Kind of gives you an idea of why Washington is so willing to ignore the connection between Saudi Wahhabism and global terror, doesn't it?

It is said that 'he who has the gold makes the rules' and, like most old sayings, it became one because it is true. By and large, the global political agenda is set by the West, which has the yellow gold to buy the might to enforce its edicts.

But Western leaders all pay homage to the House of Saud, which has the BLACK gold. It is a symbiotic relationship; while the West needs oil to maintain its power and wealth, the Saudis need customers with power and wealth to sell it to. It is also entirely unnecessary.

A new, proven technology called Thermal Depolymerization, could remove the global oil market from the global economic equation overnight.

That would mean the oil-rich nations of the Middle East would lose their strategic value, the oil they pumped would be next to worthless, and the global economic system would be turned on its head.

The Thermal Depolymerization process is not only proven, it is a working process today -- although few people have ever heard of it. The fact that it is so unknown is more than a little curious. Here's why.

The first industrial-scale Thermal Depolymerization plant was built in Carthage, Missouri, adjacent to a Butterball Turkey processing plant. Each day, two hundred tons of turkey remains are hauled to the newly-finished plant and transformed into assorted functional products.

This light crude oil is chemically almost identical to a number two fuel oil used to heat homes.

According to Brian Appel, chairman and CEO of Changing World Technologies, "This process can deal with the world's waste. It can supplement our dwindling supplies of oil. And it can slow down global warming."

Is this guy on the level? It would appear so. One of the advisors to Changing World Technologies is James Woolsey, former director of the CIA. And Woolsey says the it offers a way out of US dependence of foreign oil.

Phase one of the process is to superhydrate any carbon-based material. Turkey guts are just one possible source. Another is ground up computer parts. So are animal waste parts, like cattle bones. So is most household garbage. The garbage is reduced to a kind of an organic 'soup' called 'slurry'.

Phase two involves dropping the slurry to a lower pressure, which releases about ninety percent of the slurry's free water. Dehydration via depressurization is far cheaper in terms of energy consumed than is heating and boiling off the water, particularly because no heat is wasted.

At this stage, the water is sent back up to heat the next incoming stream. The minerals settle out and are forced to storage tanks. Rich in calcium and magnesium, this dry brown powder is a perfect balanced fertilizer. But that is only the beginning.

The remaining organic soup is flushed into the second stage reactor, similar to the coke ovens used to refine oil into gasoline. This reactor heats up the soup to about nine hundred degrees Fahrenheit — to further break apart long molecular chains.

Next, in vertical distillation columns, hot vapor flows up, condenses, and flows out from different levels: gases from the top of the columns, light oils from the upper middle, heavier oils from the middle, water from the lower middle, and powdered carbon — used to manufacture tires, filters, and printer toners — from the bottom.

"It is the perfect process for destroying pathogens," said Appel. "This process will make 10 tons of gasoline per day, which will go back into the system to make heat to power the system. It will make 21,000 gallons of water clean enough to discharge into a municipal water system. Pathological vectors will be completely gone. It will make eleven tons of minerals and six hundred barrels of oil — high-quality stuff, the same specs as number two heating oil."

The test plant in Philadelphia has determined that the process is scalable; plants can cover acres or be small enough to go on the back of a flatbed truck. The technicians at this test plant have spent three years testing different kinds of affluent to formulate recipes. Experimentation revealed that different waste streams required different cooking and coking times.

The process has been sufficiently tested at Philadelphia to enable Changing World Technologies to estimate the costs associated with turning garbage into light, sweet crude oil.

Around fifteen dollars a barrel at present, dropping to ten dollars a barrel in three to five years, with the costs dropping from there, according to CEO Appel.

In the course of manufacturing oil and other products, it would solve waste management problems, alleviate the stress on municipal landfills, and even reduce global warming, says Appel.

So, how come nobody is talking about it? The full article about the process is in the public domain -- it isn't a secret. It was first published in Discovery Magazine, Vol. 24, No.5, May 2003 issue. And it is on the level. But about the only media discussing it's implications are the internet bloggers.

It is no small issue; developing a new, organic energy supply means redefining the planetary pecking order. And it would put the United States at the top all alone -- while the whole Middle East reverts to its old job as Keeper of the World's Biggest Sandbox.

Except that, if this technology were to replace Middle Eastern oil, it would go a long way toward explaining the motive for the Gog-Magog invasion, since all the invading nations mentioned by Ezekiel are oil-producing nations.

If the United States began meeting the world's oil supply needs from garbage, they would soon be unemployed oil-producing nations. It would tip the balance of power in Washington's favor -- overnight.

Why isn't the West intensely focused on this simple way out of our dependence on Saudi oil? (Not to mention defunding the bulk of global terrorism overnight.) The technology is there, and it clearly works. It doesn't seem to make sense.

I admit I don't know why it isn't a top priority. I do think it execeedingly curious that such a strategic techology remains so low-profile, given that it has so much potential.

"Except that, if this technology were to replace Middle Eastern oil, it would go a long way toward explaining the motive for the Gog-Magog invasion, since all the invading nations mentioned by Ezekiel are oil-producing nations. "

Since the process was developed in the U.S. instead of Israel and is now public domain information, I don't think it gives them a motive.

Unless they invade Israel because they ultimately see themselves going to war with the U.S. and want to eliminate Israel as a means of eliminating one of our allies.

The other possibility is that Israel runs with the process and is so successful that they single handedly undercut the other countries' markets. That seems hard to do. However if the U.S. begins producing enough for our own needs and exporting to Canada, Mexico and South America and Israel begins producing cheap oil in the Middle East, they could blame Israel for killing the entire market when in fact Israel has just hurt the regional market. Still that is a lot of turkey guts.

But where's the funky boat and the chocolate river? And the Oompa Loompas?

While I find the concept interesting, the writer of the article thinks this can happen overnight. Almost literally.

What he envisions would take years, if not decades, to implement. And he doesn't bother to give any specifics...like how much waste, or whatever was used, to get the 600 barrels. And do we have that much waste and usuable trash, etc. to really make enough to keep us from importing oil from the Middle East (which is only 26% of all our oil consumption and we get more oil from Canada and Mexico than from Saudi Arabia)?

The article doesn't give any hard numbers. They want the perception to linger that they know everyone will make, "oh sure, there is more than enough waste to make all that - trash, dead animal parts (even the bones are used in food for other animals - it's the brains and spinal cord that carries mad cow anyway)." Is there really? I don't know because he didn't tell us how many tons of trash and animal parts we produce that could be used and exactly how much it takes to make one barrel.

If this technology can fit in the back of a flatbed, then perhaps we don't need some big government program but rather just a few entrepreneurs who would produce small-scale plants that could be bought by numerous businesses (factories, small cities, universities, etc.). Sort of a grass-roots implementation.

If it is as successful as implied, then certainly larger industries with economies of scale would then result.

Can this be scaled down to even smaller sizes? I bet a lot of farmers could use a plant like this.

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