Quote:
Originally posted by marichiko
There is also the possibility of ... technologies yet undreamed of. Americans are still a clever and innovative people. Let a few of our bright young engineering grads loose in the labs at MIT and some of other major universities, along with a NSF grant or two.
|
No need to wait for tomorrow. The answers are here today.
For example, a company called "Changing World Technologies" has already figured out a process for turning industrial waste, agricultural waste, and municipal waste into light crude oil. It does it at 85% energy efficiency. They started with a small test plant in NY, which worked. So they built a $20 Million dollar plant next to a ConAgra poultry plant in Carthage MO. The plant works perfectly, and is producing light crude oil from poultry guts, feathers, etc. They process 200 tons of chicken guts a day there and turn it into oil. There are no toxic byproducts. Just water, and carbon, and oil. The carbon dosn't add to global warming, because it was already part of the biosphere. It wasn't pumped out of the ground.
Don't beleive me? Discover Magazine wrote a huge article about the process and the company back in May 2003. Discover claims that the potential is there to convert the entire US solid waste stream of 600 million tons into about 4 billion barrels of light crude annually.
The US used about 7 billion barrels of oil annually in 2000, so this technology would, when fully implemented, cover most of the US energy needs. Our dependence on foreign oil would be completely eliminated.
The big cost is implementing the technology. Retooling. Once the system is in place, it will free us.
But the answer is here today.
The following are links that directly back up my seemingly wild claims. Unfortunately, the Discover Magazine article is archived, and you need a membership to read the whole thing. The two links after the Discover article summarize that article.
Edit: Oops. Here are the links:
http://www.discover.com/issues/may-03/features/featoil/
http://www.technologyreview.com/arti...ualize0603.asp
http://butchhoward.com/weblog/2003/index.html#39
The company's web page:
http://www.changingworldtech.com/techfr.htm
U.S. government sites that talk about how much trash we generate, and how much oil we use:
http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/muncpl/facts.htm
http://www.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesa...91.shtml?print