Oil's Importance Goes Well Beyond Fuel

In speech after speech, our all-knowing President says oil is the "fuel of the past". But, for Obama to make such a statement, only proves how myopic he is when it comes to the "broad" importance of oil in our everyday lives. That's because oil isn't just about fuel.

A refined, 42-gallon barrel of oil will produce, at best, 19 gallons of gasoline. At the same time, about 10 gallons of diesel fuel and 4 gallons of jet fuel will be extracted from that very same barrel. The remaining 9 gallons of "stuff" that is produced from the refining process are byproducts that are used in the making of asphalt, tar, kerosene, solvents, lubricants, plastics, paints, fertilizers (ammonia), Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG), synthetic rubbers, and even medicines and medicinal products like aspirin and rubbing alcohol.

While it is true that many of the byproducts from oil can be produced from other sources; typically, the cost to do so is prohibitively high. And, that's the real kicker. By reducing our dependance on oil, the prices of so many products that we absolutely need and use will necessarily skyrocket; especially those that it will cause to be in short supply.

Maybe we can "algae" our way out of our dependence on oil for fuel. But, if we don't find new ways to "economically" produce many of oil byproducts, we will find ourselves in a world of hurt in the future.

Wind, Solar, & Algae Are Not The Answer

Thanks to Mother Nature, our coal, gas, and oil reserves are neatly packed away, underground. Not so when it comes to wind, solar, and, even, algae. These technologies require massive amounts of above-ground acreages to achieve -- comparatively speaking -- small amounts of energy.

Take, for example, algae biofuel production -- the President's latest anything-but-oil fuel. First off, you need a lot of land, water and sunlight to efficiently produce algae. A typical algae plant produces about 6,000 gallons of ethanol per acre per year; and, that's only enough fuel to power 12 cars over a period of a year. To power our nation's fleet of 240 million automobiles, it would take the amount of land equivalent to the entire state of South Carolina. But, that land can't just be anywhere. Typically, you need a lot of consistent sunlight to make algae bio-fuel production reliable. For that reason, most of the algae start-up farms are being built in the deserts of Mexico and the U.S. But, then, that creates another problem: enough available water. And, our deserts aren't exactly bubbling over with good old H2O.

Then, there's wind. We all have seen pictures or driven by one of our country's wind farms. They have hundreds of turbines spread out over acres and acres of land. Usually, one acre of wind farm will produce about 13 kilowatts of power per hour at optimal wind speeds. By comparison, a typical coal-fired power plant produces about 500 megawatts of electricity per hour and does this with a relatively small footprint. To replace just one average coal plant, it would take somewhere in the neighborhood of 38,000 acres of land. That's almost 60 square miles. But, the problem with wind doesn't just sit with the amount of land it uses up for the production of electricity. It's unreliable. Electricity is only produced when the wind blows. Light winds produce very little energy and conventional gas/coal power plants must be fired back up to pickup the slack. That's why we will never be able to really eliminate any of our existing fossil-fueled power plants. Its this redundancy that makes wind power so impractical and expensive.

For solar, the problems are even worse than with wind. Solar is only effective during the day and when "our skies are not cloudy all day". At least, wind turbines are able to produce some energy during the night. Like wind, concentrating solar power systems require massive amounts of space to produce a limited amount of power. At night, and at times with limited sun, solar, like wind, must be supported by fossil-fuel power plants. Like algae, solar plants are best suited in desert locations to achieve consistent power output. Again, don't expect solar to replace conventional power plants.

What our environmentalist friends don't seem to understand is that fossil-fueled power plants are extremely reliable in comparison to wind and solar. They produce consistent electricity; with or without wind and with or without sunshine. And fossil fuels don't need acres of above ground defacement. Increasing our dependence on wind and solar while, at the same time, we try to eliminate coal/gas power plants will only result in rolling blackouts. To me, our use of wind and solar to directly produce electricity is all wrong. We need to be able to store wind/solar energy and call it into use as needed and without any dependence on the wind blowing or the sun shining. That's why I think we should be using wind/solar electricity to produce a store-able, reliable, and "green" fuel like hydrogen. Hydrogen that can then be used as fuel for our fleet of cars and trucks or in the secondary production of electricity. Hydrogen is renewable and, when consumed as energy, it simply produces water as its single byproduct. What could be more environmentally friendly!

When Green Is The Color Of Oil

In the United Kingdom, Gordon Brown's government can certainly be said to be "green" leaning. Just like Obama, Brown plans big spending on green projects as a means to economic recovery.

So, why are these two, Obama and Brown, so interested in the not-so-green participation in drilling for oil?

Just recently, the U.S. Export-Import Bank (a separate agency of the United States Government that reports directly to Obama) issued a $10 billion line of credit to the Brazilian national oil company, Petrobas, to facilitate both expanded and new off-shore drilling operations in Brazil (Click to See Full Story).

In the case of the "slithering" Brown, his government negotiated the release of the Pan Am/Lockerbie bomber so that the United Kingdom could get a piece of any new oil production in Libya (Click to See Full: "Secret documents uncover UK's interest in Libyan oil Story").

I guess oil is a "green thing" when it can be extracted by some other country and not done at home. That kind of thinking is often called NIMBY or Not In My Back Yard; but, it hardly does anything for the overall improvement of the world's environment.

Both these hypocrites talk the "green" talk but really understand that oil will be needed by us all for a very long time. They both want to make sure their countries have plenty of oil in the future because both these fools know that oil is absolutely essential to the national security of both their nations.

Does anyone think that wheeling and dealing for foreign oil production sounds like Obama is serious about getting America off imported oil?

As I have said before in this blog" 10 years from now we will be even more dependent on foreign oil than we are today. Our production is going down while our demand is rising and will continue to rise. Wind and solar are never going to counteract that reality. The only thing wind or solar will do is eat into our own natural gas and coal production and won't save a drop of imported oil.

Lastly, I find Brazil's need to drill for oil the most interesting of the above deals. Three years ago, as oil prices kept rising, Brazil was being held up as the shining example of a country that was able to get off their dependency on oil. That's because they had diverted the majority of their sugar production into the production of ethanol. Now, there is an impending shortage of sugar and the world's economic situation has forced oil to come down in price. In effect, sugar prices are going through the roof and Brazil is stuck with a very expensive option for their country's auto fuel source. Where's all the left-wing news headlines on that one?

(Click Here To See a 'Typical' News Story on Brazil's Ethanol Success from 2006: "Brazil hopes to build on its ethanol success" )