Posted by
reasonmclucus on Wednesday, August 27, 2008 4:13:06 PM
We need to tell our Representatives and our Senators who are running
for reelection this year we won't vote for them unless they vote to
authorize drilling for oil in Alaska, off shore, in national parks and
in my back yard. I doubt that anyone would want to drill for oil
in my backyard, but Congress shouldn't prevent oil companies from
drilling for oil where ever it may be.
Drilling for new oil is part of the solution for the emerging fuel
shortage. Another part is development of alternative
biofuels.
Backward Democrats oppose drilling for new oil because it
might take 10 years for new wells to produce oil. The amount of
time required to produce oil is the reason Congress must authorize
drilling now. If Democrats had authorized drilling the last time
they controlled the White House and Congress in the early 90's,
oil prices wouldn't have gone up so fast this year.
Drilling new wells might take 10 years, but replacing technology that
relies on oil would take 20 to 30 years. Wealthy members of
Congress who can buy any new technology that comes out don't understand
that most of us cannot do so.
Americans
own
197 million motor vehicles (including motorcycles). New
vehicle sales are only
projected
to be grow to about 18 million per year in 2017. Many of
those sales are to first time owners (especially youth) or
to buyers who are purchasing an extra vehicle for specialized use such
as an RV for weekends.
Motor vehicles aren't the only users of petroleum products.
Residents of northeastern states use fuel oil to heat their
homes. Petroleum is used for plastics, asphalt pavement and
other purposes including lubricants.
Increased production of biofuels will eventually reduce the need for
petroleum, but not eliminate it within the next few decades.
Congress should encourage production of biofuels by funding research or
encouraging use of developed technology.
For example, Congress can prohibit states from blocking construction of
new clean coal electric generating plants that include algae
reactors. Congress should consider requiring new coal
plants to have algae reactors.
Algae can provide a much more productive source of biofuels than food
crops.
Glen Kertz
president and CEO of Valcent Products says that algae can produce
100,000 gallons of oil per acre compared to 30 gallons of oil from corn
and 50 gallons per acre from soybeans.
Processes such as thermal depolymerization can convert biowastes
(including paper) and plastics to a synthetic oil.
Companies such as
Changing
World Technologies are already converting biowastes to oil.
Congress should consider eventually requiring companies that produce
biowastes to have those wastes converted to oil or other
purposes. Once the technology is sufficiently developed, Congress
could prohibit cities, especially larger cities, from disposing
of material in landfills that can be converted to usable oil.