Oil Reserves Are Increasing

educateyourself.org ^ | April 6, 2005 | George Crispin

[katana]

Me too.

The idea that the thin smear of biotic activity which has coated this planet for the past couple billion years was the origin for vastly deep reservoirs of oil and gas just never made sense in the first place. Dr. Gold's theories ring true. Recent discoveries that organic molecules seem to be everywhere in the observable universe also seem to support them.

For whatever reason, people usually seem eager to defend the theories their professional educations were based on. Frequently they are quite nasty about any challenge to "conventional wisdom.

Geologists are one example, although the paleontologists still searching for human origins among chimpanzeee bones in East Africa are perhaps a better one. I'm still waiting for a diploma-ed biologist to explain why all the other furless large (really large) brain mammals with webbed appendages and subcutaneous fat layers are aquatic (dolphins, whales, seals, etc.) and how that fits with evolution in a dry grassy savannah.

[ckilmer]

Changing World Technologies Calls for Expanded Biomass Energy Tax Credit
Cannot Meet Demand for Technology Without Level Playing Field 4.7.2005
Contact:
Julie Gross Gelfand
HLD/Blankman Public Relations
(516) 536-6811 or (212) 896-3926
jgelfand@hldbnow.com
http://www.changingworldtech.com/information_center/press_releases.asp?id=21

West Hempstead, NY - After a decade of intensive development, the first commercial-scale waste-to-oil plant based on the Thermal Conversion Process (TCP) of Changing World Technologies is successfully processing up to 270 tons of poultry offal into 300 barrels of oil daily in Carthage, Missouri. “Unfortunately, while the science works, political technicalities are preventing our company from meeting the demand to expand our U.S. operations,” says CWT Chairman & CEO Brian Appel.

About the Biodiesel Tax Credit CWT is unable to expand its U.S. operations due to limitations on the tax credit definition created by the Jobs Bill of 2004 (PL 108-357), which promotes the development of biodiesel fuel from specific feedstocks, to the exclusion of other renewable energy sources such as the high-quality oil produced by TCP, Mr. Appel explains.

The Jobs Bill grants a tax credit of 50 cents to $1.00 per gallon to biodiesel defined as “mono-alkyl esters of a long chain fatty acid,” specifically derived from virgin soybeans and used cooking oils. CWT’s TCP-derived fuel, which meets the universal definition of biodiesel as a liquid fuel produced from biomass, and which utilizes animal waste from nearby poultry processing facilities as its feedstock, is excluded from the tax credit.

“The exclusion is unfortunate because our fuel is superior in several ways,” says Mr. Appel. “It can be derived from a broad mix of waste products that are often difficult to dispose of otherwise, and it can be used as a gallon-for-gallon substitute for traditional diesel, rather than merely as an additive. Our process also destroys prions, the cause of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, and along with oil creates a fertilizer shown in tests by Auburn University to be one of the most effective natural fertilizers ever made. Because TCP utilizes above-ground waste streams, it also has the potential to arrest global warming by reducing the use of fossil fuels.

“All of these benefits should provide motivation for the U.S. government to support further development and expansion of TCP and other bio-mass energy technologies,” says Mr. Appel.

The Iowa Egg Board is just one of the commercial enterprises supportive of an expanded tax credit to permit additional TCP plants to be built. “We are in need of facilities that can provide solutions to the increasingly problematic waste disposal issue surrounding spent hens,” the board recently wrote. “One of the new opportunities for processing these hens is the TCP renewable fuels plant in Carthage, MO. This plant currently takes approximately 20 tons of material daily from nearby egg laying operations and turns that problematic waste stream into usable fuel… Encouraging such alternatives will help the Iowa egg industry continue to add value to the state’s and the nation’s economy.”

The Need for a Level Playing Field “Not extending the tax credit to other liquid bio-fuels causes the non-included fuels such as ours to face very significant disadvantages,” Mr. Appel says. “The credit acts to subsidize the purchase of feedstocks such as animal fats used in the production of biodiesel, which not only creates a competitive disadvantage for other biomass-derived fuels, but also simultaneously dries up the market for feedstocks by making them economically unavailable to non-covered processes. This dual negative impact drives the non-included fuels out of the market in the United States. Action must be taken to allow additional bio-fuel technologies to compete and produce quality alternative energy sources for this emerging market.”

Worldwide media coverage of CWT’s TCP technology from scientific quarters such as Scientific American, MIT’s Technology Review and Discover magazine, to general news media including the New York Times, CNN, Fortune, BusinessWeek, Fast Company and others has driven global interest in the company’s plans. CWT has fielded over 50,000 inquiries in the past two years, including many from public sector and private business enterprises interested in establishing TCP plants in their markets.

“Energy costs are now the single most important factor affecting the cost of agricultural production in this country, as reported this week in USA Today,” Mr. Appel said. “At a time when the United States is dependent upon foreign sources for more than 50 percent of our energy supply, the playing field must be leveled to encourage the growth of new renewable liquid fuels by broadening the definition of eligible technologies. Parity for bio-fuels must be achieved by extending the biodiesel credit or providing a similar credit to other sustainable fuel sources.”

A Competitive Marketplace CWT asserts that:

·Governmental policy should encourage and support economic competition. The current tax incentive drives those who do not qualify for the credit from the market.

·The stability of the nation’s energy supply is dependent on policy makers to create mechanisms that will decrease U.S. dependency on foreign sources of energy. Meaningful action to foster the development of additional domestic sources of quality fuels is necessary to support economic growth and energy independence.

·To maximize the return on the expenditure of public funds, government policies should work synergistically to result in the development of viable products and technologies that can be part of the solution to the national energy crisis.

·Encouraging alternative fuel production via a level playing field will hasten the development of high quality products to assure that a national market for these alternative fuels truly is developed.

·Turning waste materials into valuable, marketable fuel alternatives ameliorates U.S. waste disposal and animal disease control problems.

“We should be looking to Europe to see how other developed nations are addressing the bio-fuel issue. In contrast to the United States, the European Union is very progressive in encouraging development and production of all bio-mass derived energy,” Mr. Appel states. In a 2003 directive, the EU set forth a policy to encourage the development and availability of alternative fuels derived from a wide range of biomass sources.

The directive defines biofuels simply as “liquid or gaseous fuels…produced from biomass” and lists 10 products that it “at least” considers biofuels. The oil produced from CWT’s TCP process is covered by the synthetic biofuels category, which is defined as “synthetic hydrocarbons or mixtures of synthetic hydrocarbons, which have been produced from biomass.”

“In as much as we occupy the same planet and are dealing with the same economic and environmental issues as Europe, the United States should be playing a leadership role in the discovery of new technologies and resources to solve our energy problem,” Mr. Appel states. “A level playing field that encourages R&D and creates economic incentives to spur a vital market in clean, easily accessible new energy sources is absolutely critical.”

About TCP CWT's Thermal Conversion Process reforms organic waste into a high-value energy resource, without combustion or incineration. TCP breaks down waste into its smallest chemical units and reforms them into new combinations to produce alternative fuels and specialty chemicals. The process emulates the earth’s natural geothermal activity, whereby organic material is converted into fossil fuel under conditions of extreme heat and pressure over millions of years. TCP uses pipes and controls temperature and pressure to reduce the bio-remediation process from millions of years to mere hours. TCP is also more than 80% energy efficient.

For more information, visit Changing World Technologies online at www.changingworldtech.com

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

Come and listen to a story about a man named Jed
A poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed,
Then one day he was shootin at some food,
And up through the ground came a bubblin crude.

Oil that is, black gold, Texas tea.

[ckilmer]

Weld site studied for thermal plant
http://www.greeleytrib.com/article/20050414/BUSINESS/104140090
Bill Jackson, (Bio) jackson@greeleytrib.com
April 14, 2005


A southern Weld County site is being studied, along with sites in five other states, for a plant that would convert agricultural waste into energy products.

The plant is a collaboration between ConAgra Foods of Omaha, Neb., and Changing World Technologies of Hempstead, N.Y. That collaboration, Renewable Environment Solutions LLC, has an operational plant in Carthage, Mo., which is producing crude oil with byproducts from a turkey processing plant.

The Weld proposal would do much the same with byproducts from ConAgra's Longmont Foods turkey plant.

Julie DeYoung, a ConAgra spokeswoman, confirmed that an 80-acre site ConAgra owns about halfway between Fort Lupton and Platteville six miles east of U.S. 85 is one of several sites under consideration.

"That is a site we've been looking at in that area for some time, but no definitive decision has been made," DeYoung said Wednesday,

RES is a joint venture for processing agricultural waste material using a thermal conversion process. That process breaks down long chains of organic polymers into their smallest units and reforms them into new combinations to produce clean solid, liquid and gaseous alternative fuels and specialty chemicals.

Officials say that process mimics the earth's natural geothermal activity, which converts organic material to fossil fuel in a process requires conditions of extreme heat and pressure. By using pipes and controlling temperature and pressure, it reduces that process to a few hours.

The process is more than 80 percent energy-efficient and it generates its own energy to power a plant. It uses steam naturally created by the process to heat incoming byproducts. The company said it produces no emissions and no secondary hazardous waste streams.

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

I'm still waiting for a diploma-ed biologist to explain why all the other furless large (really large) brain mammals with webbed appendages and subcutaneous fat layers are aquatic (dolphins, whales, seals, etc.) and how that fits with evolution in a dry grassy savannah.

It's going to be a long wait ;-).

[Rodney King]

The gougers at the oil companies will be jumping off ledges if the myth of declining supply proves a lie. That's the scam they've been using to rob us for half a century now.

That's not how the economics of the oil induistry works. Oil companies buy reserves, either directly or by spending money to find them, and then they spend money extracting and producing the reserves, then they hope that when they pull the reserves up, the price is higher than what they paid to find and develop the reserves.

There are a lot of pitfalls along the way. Ideally you want to buy cheap, and then hope by the time you develop the fields prices are higher. The oil companies are making a fortune right now because reserves that they bought and or discovered prior to this run-up are being produced. However, they face a dilemma. What happens if they pay a lot for rserves now? By the time those reserves work their way on to the market, prices could be down and they could get creamed.

All of the companies are facing this dilemma. The relatively flat nature of the futures curves has enabled a certain degree of insurance. For example, Kerr-McGee was able to buy Westport last summer and then sell forward a lot of the Westport production at a reasonable price in order to minimize the downside risk.

The long history of the industry, however, is boom and bust. Boom when low cost reserves are sold at a high price, and bust when high cost reserves are sold at a low price.

The question is, like the stock market in 1999, is this a "new era" of ever increasing prices?.

If it is, is that good for the energy industry? Theoretically it is if it means that they can be certain that they can acquire assets now that they can produce and sell at higher prices later. However, if it goes up too much more, than suddenly they will be competing with alternative energy sources.

In addition, the current high prices offer another problem: If Exxon pays to high prices now, then they lose money later. However, Exxon's main competetion is state-owned firms in places like S.A. and Venezuela where the main goal is not profits so much as it is production growth and maximizing employment. Thus Exxon faces the dilemma, do we grow at high prices now, or do we let the government frims grow faster than we do? It is a big dilemma.

If in fact oil bubbled up from deep down, perhaps Exxon would be better off. After all, it would free them from competing with bloated national governments simply because the known reserves lie under the land of those governments. Industry profitability would then be based around who has the best technology and efficiency, an area where the US private companies would theoretically do quite well.

[StoneGiant]

Anything Into Oil

By Brad Lemley
Photograph by Adam Friedberg

DISCOVER Vol. 25 No. 07 | July 2004 | Technology


In the May 2003 issue of Discover, an article titled “Anything Into Oil” drew a phenomenal reader response. The process described—transforming turkey guts, old tires, used plastic bottles, and municipal sewage into fuel oil—struck some readers as more like alchemy than chemistry and struck others as the answer to energy shortages, not to mention the solution to some of America’s worst waste problems. Readers have been asking for an update on how the idea is progressing because our article left the story before the first full-scale industrial plant had been opened. We’ve been waiting for that plant to start up before writing an update, but because it has been delayed, we asked the author of the original article to give us a midterm report. After the plant is up and running long enough to be reviewed, we’ll publish a further evaluation.

—The Editors



“This is the great hope—to be the biorefinery of the future,” says Jefferson Tester, a chemical engineering professor at MIT. “Taking in biomass of all sorts and putting out a whole range of valuable products is obviously exciting.”


But the folks at Changing World Technologies, the company behind the process of changing waste into oil, must first prove they can successfully scale up from a 7-ton-per-day pilot plant in Philadelphia to a 200-ton-per-day industrial plant in Carthage, Missouri.

Twenty tons of slaughterhouse turkey parts, freshly dumped by a truck, await processing into oil, gas, and minerals at the thermal conversion process plant in Carthage, Missouri. When the plant reaches full capacity in the fall, it will process 10 dump trucks of leftovers, one tanker truck of blood, and one tanker truck of discarded restaurant grease every 24 hours.

Early in 2003, company officials predicted that the Carthage plant, which will process guts, feathers, bones, and blood from a nearby ConAgra Foods Butterball Turkey slaughterhouse, would be cranking at full capacity that summer, making 500 barrels of high-quality fuel oil daily. Brian Appel, Changing World Technologies’ chairman and CEO, says several unique challenges have delayed the full-scale operation of the $20 million Carthage facility. The principal setback, he says, was faulty workmanship in the construction of the processing equipment, requiring X-rays of 5,000 welds and the repair of more than 1,000 of those checked. “That alone pushed us back six to nine months. We are currently involved in a legal action against that contractor,” Appel says. Other shakedown adjustments included calibrating the first-stage grinder, adding a biofilter to control odors, tweaking computerized flow controls, and building additional equipment between the first and second stages.


Independent scientists familiar with the process are not surprised by the delays. “This is like any new start-up. It’s nothing unexpected,” says Tester. “They are attempting an extremely ambitious increase in size. It contains some natural risks, but the chemistry is pretty straightforward.” Joseph Michels, director for research initiatives at Princeton University’s Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials, agrees. “Given that these guys have less than a decade invested in this, they have made tremendous progress,” he says. “I remain bullish.”


The latest target date for opening the Carthage plant is now this fall. Engineers have already run the plant at capacity for as much as 12 hours at a time, and preliminary tests show the equipment works efficiently. Out of 100 Btus in a given unit of feedstock, only 15 Btus are used to power the process, with the remainder residing in oil, gas, and chemicals. Most important, the oil produced in these tests easily meets the specifications for diesel fuel. “The main process chemistry does exactly what we thought it would do,” says Appel.


Officials of ConAgra Foods, who formed a joint venture with Changing World Technologies called Renewable Energy Solutions to operate the Carthage plant, remain as upbeat as Appel. “We now know that the technology is sound and the science really works,” says Michael Walter, ConAgra Foods’ senior vice president for commodity procurement. “The front end of the plant is producing organic liquors and free fatty acids, and the back end does make a diesel fuel product.” He adds that Renewable Energy Solutions has spent “a fair amount of money” on pre-engineering a second plant, which will probably be located near Longmont, Colorado, and process both turkey and cattle slaughterhouse waste.


One major development since the original Discover article is the discovery last December of a case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, in Washington State. Since then, interest in using thermal conversion to control the disease has skyrocketed, say company officials. Although no testing has been done on the effect of the thermal conversion process on prions, the rogue proteins that are thought to cause BSE, Tester is confident that the high pressures and temperatures it uses would be more than sufficient to dismantle those pathogens. “Large molecules like that really don’t like that kind of environment,” he says.


Appel says the Colorado plant will be designed to digest whole, diseased cattle along with slaughterhouse waste. “Americans are finally realizing what the Europeans and others have figured out—there are high risks associated with intense farming practices” that involve feeding rendered animals back to animals. “We will divert proteins away from the food chain. You’ll see less disease and less bioaccumulation of toxins when animals once again start eating grass and grain, the way they were meant to eat.”

[BookaT]

Is it that we don't have the actual refining capacity or is it that we don't have the refining capacity to make 30+ different gasoline formulas to comply with silly rules?

[IamConservative]

which leads to the speculation that the world has limitless supplies of petroleum.

Scientifically, this could only be true if the world was of unlimited mass, or, if the usage of one barrel of oil produced enough byproduct of whatever type required to create another barrel of oil. Not likely once you remove the energy required to make your car go 70 MPH down the highway. One possible explanation for why some reserves refill. Fluid will settle in the lowest point of gravity and/or pressure. It is possible that one underground oil reservoir would refill from another unknown source if there is less gravity in the reservoir that is refilling. Other pressure sources which exceed the pressure or gravity could also force the fluid "up" into a cavity as well.

[Rodney King]

Is it that we don't have the actual refining capacity or is it that we don't have the refining capacity to make 30+ different gasoline formulas to comply with silly rules?

There is enough refining capacity, for now, as a general rule to meet the demands of the US market. The problem is that there is not a lot, and there are the 30 or so different formulations, so one refinery going down can have a big regional impact. That is why people in certain states often complain that their prices are higher than other states. One area where the Feds ought to step in is to basically say that there are two formulas. One normal one, and one for smoggy cities. That would not eliminate the overall problem, but it would eliminate some of the regional price spikes.

The problem with building more refineries is that nobody really wants to do it because it is a huge capital expense for a low margin business, the best approach is to make it easier for existing refineries to be able to expand production.

[Captain Rhino]

Couldn't agree with you more.

Destroying your environment is not good sense, business or otherwise.

While there is an understandable dispute over the scientific effects of modern industry on the environment, it is just good business practice to account for every product and byproduct your operations produce and to ensure you are not creating future liabilities through careless disposal of your waste. Further, some of the waste products may be recoverable/salvageable for additional utilization/revenue. This is difficult to reverse engineer into existing operations, but it is unexcusable not to incorporate it into business operations planning going forward.

[Rodney King]

Destroying your environment is not good sense,

While I agree with your overall sentiment, I think that oil/nat gas production is quite environmentally friendly. The amount of energy that can be pulled out of a hole in the ground, that maybe covers an acre or two of activity is tremendous compared to how many trees one has to cut down for solar or wind energy.

[IronJack]

Your hedging model doesn't explain why prices are high now. Supply isn't down; in fact, now that much of Iraq's oil is flowing again, supply should actually be higher than it has been for the last two years or so. OPEC production is maxed out (if we are to believe those thieves). The explanation offered is that China is a new player in the market and that they are driving a surge in demand. I doubt it. The Chinese aren't stupid, so I can't imagine why they would suddenly develop a taste for oil at $55 a barrel. As you say, it would simply set them up for a bust if the price ever drops again.

No, I think this one can be attributed to the trans-national oil cartel that can sell every drop it produces at whatever price it demands because it alone controls the supply, processing, and distribution of an inflexible-demand product. In other words, we are victims of a monopoly, plain and simple.

[RightWhale]

at whatever price it demands

It doesn't demand any price at all. What is it going to do, refuse to pump oil? Even if it existed, the oil cartel couldn't demand--demand is on the other end of the equation.

[Rodney King]

Your hedging model doesn't explain why prices are high now.

Right, and it wasn't meant to. Prices are high because supply growth has slowed while demand in India and China has increased, while the dollar has decreased.

Supply isn't down; in fact, now that much of Iraq's oil is flowing again, supply should actually be higher than it has been for the last two years or so.

Supply growth has been slower than demand growth.

OPEC production is maxed out (if we are to believe those thieves).

It's hard to tell really.

The explanation offered is that China is a new player in the market and that they are driving a surge in demand. I doubt it. The Chinese aren't stupid, so I can't imagine why they would suddenly develop a taste for oil at $55 a barrel. As you say, it would simply set them up for a bust if the price ever drops again.

Chinese demand is a simple fact. China is now booming, which is coincidental to higher energy prices. I would point out however, that while oil is very high in terms of dollars, that is in part because the dollar is down. Oil prices are not as high around other parts of the world in terms of local currency.

No, I think this one can be attributed to the trans-national oil cartel that can sell every drop it produces at whatever price it demands because it alone controls the supply, processing, and distribution of an inflexible-demand product. In other words, we are victims of a monopoly, plain and simple.

Thats simply not the case. The oil market is extremely competitive. If it was the case that they could sell at whateve price they wanted, why did they wait until now to raise prices, why didn't they raise them 10 years ago?

[SaltyJoe]

Faith will get us through our oil ignorance. LOL! We can't even predict the weather properly, yet mankind is cared for.

(Revelations 6:5-6)

"A quart of wheat for a denarius, and 3 quarts of barley
for a denarius; and do not harm the oil and the wine."

But from a different translation:
http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/revelation/revelation6.htm

I heard what seemed to be a voice in the midst of the four living creatures. It said, "A ration of wheat costs a day's pay, 6 and three rations of barley cost a day's pay. But do not damage the olive oil or the wine."

the footnote...
6 [6] A day's pay: literally, "a denarius," a Roman silver coin that constitutes a day's wage in Matthew 20:2. Because of the famine, food was rationed and sold at an exorbitant price. A liter of flour was considered a day's ration in the Greek historians Herodotus and Diogenes Laertius. Barley: food of the poor (John 6:9, 13; cf 2 Kings 7:1, 16, 18); it was also used to feed animals; cf 1 Kings 5:8. Do not damage: the olive and the vine are to be used more sparingly in time of famine.

[mysterio]

I think it is apparent to anyone that oil will run out, be it in 50 years or 100. Considering that fact, I think it is time to devote our resources to finding an alternative that can be produced in our country with money from sales of said energy source staying in America. Our energy dollars should not be going to the middle east or any other oil producing nation.

The economic effects of a domestically produced energy source are twofold -

a. cheaper prices from domestic production saves the consumer money, which he or she spends on other goods.

b. Energy money previously going to OPEC would now stay in our economy, boosting it once again.

[IronJack]

the oil cartel couldn't demand--demand is on the other end of the equation.

The oil cartel sets the price. You're getting wrapped around the word "demand." I don't mean demand for the product; I mean the price demanded FOR the product.

[Redleg Duke]

It's Bush's fault!

[Rodney King]

The oil cartel sets the price.

Firt of all, cartels don't set prices, they influence them by influencing supply. It is true that OPEC is able to influence prices by influencing supply. However, all apperences are that everyone is producing and selling as fast as they can in order to take advantage of the high prices.