Re: Processing Oil Shale Squanders Water

In-situ is the only economical way to extract oil from shale, and it
will not be so water intensive that it cannot be done responsibly.  We
need that oil, but we have to extract the oil in the correct way.  I
do not know of anyone advocating the old fashioned dig-up and cook
method.

Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming have massive oil shale deposits that are
suitable for extraction using newly developed "in-situ" (in ground and
in place) oil recovery techniques.  Shell Oil physicist Harold Vinegar
believes that by the year 2015 oil can be extracted from shale for
about $30 per barrel.  Colorado alone has massive shale reserves
reported to contain more oil potential than the entire Middle East did
before the British began drilling in Iran in 1908.

Biofuels are the worst water hogs and they provide little real energy
gain in return.

Biofuel crop production causes water shortages because irrigation
water is taken away from our shrinking supplies of safe drinking and
agricultural water.  There is not enough salt free water in the world
to grow biofuel crops and still provide essential utility water for
our homes and to grow sufficient food for humans to survive.  It takes
9,000 gallons of water to produce just 1 gallon of biodiesel made from
soybeans, so we obviously need to save our very limited supplies of
ground water to grow food, not fuel.  In California water is now so
precious that some farmers want to sell water instead of food, and
water rationing is being considered as officials fear a long term
drought.  Even without biofuel production, we are turning vast areas
of land into desert every year through loss of topsoil due to farming
for essential food.

The hoax of biofuels may be self-destructing!

Newspaper story says 16 ethanol plants have filed for bankruptcy and
more will file next year!

"US Insane Ethanol Biofuels Policies Cause of Food Crisis" -
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=53
37

16 Ethanol Plants File Bankruptcy

The US Ethanol Industry Is In Distress. The U.S. ethanol industry is
in trouble and can expect to see a rash of bankruptcies and
dismantling of at least some production, according to a specialist who
helps companies in distress.

Alex Moglia, president of Moglia Advisors based in the Chicago area,
said he knows of at least 16 ethanol companies that are filing for
bankruptcy, and there will be at least two to three times that number
filing within the next year.

The weakness of the U.S. dollar makes it possible for foreign
investors to acquire ethanol plants "at a deep discount," he said.

"They can buy as low as 20 or 30 cents on the dollar," Moglia said.
"That should scare the hell out of anyone in the biofuels industry.
I've worked with plants that are incomplete, others that can't offer
profitably so they've all shut down. This will shake out most of
small- and mid-sized players. Larger players will survive because they
have buying power."

More ethanol producers will continue to file bankruptcy, he said,
because of high feedstock costs and a "limited upside flexibility in
terms of how much you can sell ethanol for."

"The demand for ethanol is not there," Moglia said. "The same thing
happening to ethanol is happening in the biodiesel business. It will
be the Wal-Mart-ization of the ethanol industry. It's just a mess."

Peiffer said many ethanol plants are and will be folding because "the
business model they were built on doesn't work." Farmers and their
cooperatives have either borrowed money or pledged their land as
collateral in building ethanol plants, he said.

For every 10 ethanol and/or biodiesel plants "you read about in the
media, there are probably 50 to 100 others that are in financial
difficulty and are contemplating shutdown," Moglia said.

Since ethanol production is mandated by the federal government, he
said they are already "operating outside free-market fundamentals.

Ethanol Tariffs An Economic Failure

Ethanol Producer Magazine is reporting Brazil launches campaign to
remove ethanol tariff . The Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association
is launching a public relations campaign on the Fourth of July
designed to encourage the
American public to pressure the U.S. Congress into removing the 54
cent ethanol import tariff. The 2008 farm bill extended the tariff,
designed to support an emerging U.S. ethanol industry and to prevent
foreign ethanol producers from benefiting from American subsidies,
through 2010.

The Are We There Yet? campaign, which consists of an interactive Web
site and television ads, is supported by various U.S. food and meat
processing companies. The association chose to launch its campaign on
the Fourth of July holiday because it's one of America's busiest
travel holidays.

“Americans are being denied an opportunity to save money at the
pump,”
said Joel Velasco, chief representative for UNICA. “There is a
solution that could have an immediate impact on [the] price at the
pump – lifting the tariff on imported ethanol.”


A World Bank Report suggests Biofuels behind food price hikes.
Biofuels have caused world food prices to increase by 75 percent,
according to the findings of an unpublished World Bank report
published in The Guardian newspaper on Friday.

The report's author, a senior World Bank economist, assessed that
contrary to claims by US President George W. Bush, increased demand
from India and China has not been the cause of rising food prices.
Without the increase in biofuels, global wheat and maize stocks would
not have declined appreciably and price increases due to other
factors
would have been moderate," the report said.

__________________

Barack Obama voted for turning mountains of our own precious food
into
water contaminated, low energy ethanol fuel that is a financial rip-
off and a substantial cause of food price inflation.  Barack Obama
does not have a clue about economics, science, or mathematics, and he
is irrationally is trying to vilify the very people who can give us
lower priced gasoline if we only let them.

Oil price increases have not shrunk the human food supply, but
biofuel
production has.  The more biofuels we produce, the less food we have
to eat, because we grow biofuel crops, even switchgrass, using the
same land, water, fertilizer, farm equipment, and labor we use to grow
food.  Biofuel production accelerates global warming, creates water
shortages, and erodes topsoil.  A new study says biofuels from
cellulose sources, such as switchgrass, wood chips, crop waste, etc.,
will never be cost effective.

See biofuel facts and better alternatives, see  -
http://home.att.net/~meditation/bio-fuel-hoax.html

Christopher Calder
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