Big Oil Warns Biofuels Will Not Meet U.S. Energy Needs

I trust big oil ....I mean its not like they ever lie for profits or anything right? :eyes:

http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=12236
>>
February 16, 2007 — By Erwin Seba, Reuters

HOUSTON -- Top executives in the U.S. oil and electricity industries warned U.S. lawmakers this week against relying solely on biofuels for energy security, calling instead for more domestic drilling, streamlined regulation, and access to foreign reserves.

The executives, meeting at a high-profile energy conference in Houston, voiced their concerns in the wake of a White House proposal to slash U.S. imports of foreign oil by quintupling the use of biofuels within 10 years.

"Let's start with the recognition that, given projections of a 50 percent increase in global energy use by 2030, we will need all the energy we can develop, in every potential form," said Chevron Chairman and Chief Executive Dave O'Reilly on Tuesday night.

In addresses to investors, academics, and analysts attending the annual Cambridge Energy Research Associates conference, executives from leading companies warned that there is no instant gratification for energy security.

They said securing ample energy supplies for the United States, the world's biggest energy consumer, required diverse sources of crude and natural gas as well as incentives for construction of coal and nuclear power plants.

Calls for energy independence or weaning the United States from foreign crude were rejected.

"The path to energy security .... lies in open international trade, competitive markets, diversity of supply and the strengthening of partnerships between producing and consuming nations," Exxon Mobil Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Rex Tillerson said in a Tuesday speech.

Oil company executives said the United States should open up more offshore areas to drilling -- something that has been stalled by widespread environmental concern.

>>

Another related article on Biofuels from Thinkprogress:

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/01/25/big-oil-biofuels/

fo series

its hugh!

If we switch over to other fuels while there's still oil in the ground, they'll "lose" trillions of dollars worth of potential profit. So what are we waiting for? Let's switch! And conserve!

Let them enjoy a delightful enema with their Dinosaur squeezins.

Big oil executives are underpaid as well. We've gotta fix these problems soon, or we're doomed!
:crazy:

if oil companies were granted sole title to the sun and given a solar depletion allowance, we would have viable solar energy. Same holds true for bio fuel - if they could control its distribution they would be all for it!

Not directed at the OP, just the Oil industry. ANWR contains somewhere around 300 DAYS of oil, and there are no larger reserves anywhere in the United States that are left, they have all been tapped, and all of them are being drained.

Offshore drilling off of Florida and California would be expensive, and there is no guarantee that it would meet our energy needs. In addition to this, unconventional sources, shale oil and oil sands, require more energy to extract than what you get out of it, especially when you use yet another fossil fuel, Natural Gas.

Also, "access to foreign reserves", I assume they mean military takeovers, because, there is no other way to GUARANTEE an uninterrupted flow, especially if we become hostile to oil rich countries.

What we need, in reality, unlike these guys we are "trusting" with giving us our current energy is a reindustrialization of the urban and suburban landscapes.

First thing we need to do, is get rid of cars as a means of long distance transport, its a waste of energy, to be frank about it, and inefficient. We need to rethink our cities, our towns, and our transportation infrastructure.

Urban planning should revolve around pedestrian traffic and public transportation. We also need to DIVERSIFY our energy resources, using renewable sources as often as possible, to supplement, and then, eventually, to totally replace our current, non-renewable sources.

This means we use solar power when it makes sense, like in the American Southwest, wind power in valleys and the Great Plains, geothermic near sources of heat close to the surface of the Earth, such as around the Ring of Fire, on the west coast. Hydro-electric power where possible, and try to preserve habitats at the same time, etc.

In addition to this, we would have to make some tough choices, one is to rethink the American dream, instead of every family having a large house with a two car garage, to hold the two cars. Maybe a slightly smaller house, or even a flat, in a neighborhood where you could walk, or use a small electric vehicle(range of 20-30 miles or so), to travel within town, and use electric buses, or Subway/Electric train systems for in-city travel. In addition, for long distance travel, use high speed, electric bullet trains for city to city travel.

We could recreate the old network of railroads in this country, many of which are laying fallow now, and also redesign new networks of rail to serve regions of the country, have them be independent of each other for specific purposes, and yet also allow them to interconnect in various ways.

To give an example with my own area, near to St. Louis, Missouri, let's see, we could rip up Highway 70, freeing up an enormous area for expansion, having a two way high speed rail system for passenger travel in its place. The highway takes up a LOT of room, its six to eight lanes in places, this room would be used to make sure the rail is straight with gentle curves, to handle the 200+ mph that the trains would travel. However, you would also have plenty of room, in addition to this, to build new housing for people, buildings for new businesses, etc.

There is already a light rail system in place, right now it serves St. Louis City and County, it could be expanded to let's say St. Charles, Jefferson, Franklin, Warren, and Lincoln Counties on the Missouri side, and St. Clair, Monroe, Madison and Jersey Counties on the Illinois side. It could include some switchovers, etc. to lead to almost any major destination in the Metro Area.

There could be highspeed rail that goes from Chicago to St. Louis, and continue on to Jefferson City and Kansas City. Let's say you went to a meeting in Chicago, but live in St. Charles, Missouri, so you take the highspeed rail from Chicago to St. Louis, which, on a standard car trip would take close to 6 hours, but instead could take a little over an hour, maybe 2 at most, on the train. You then get off the train near Downtown St. Louis, let's say near where the current I-70 junction is near the Arch. You hop off of it, cross over to a Metro Station, and take that to St. Charles. This could take about 45 minutes or so, give or take.

After that amount of time, you would save a large amount of time, practically a day, depending on road conditions and traffic. A car trip to St. Charles, from downtown St. Louis, could take well over an hour, depending on traffic, so, for a trip as I described, you could spend from 8 to 9 hours in a car, or a little under 3 hours on trains.

So you save time, and in addition to this, energy, because of the simple fact that you would be the only one using these systems. This would make them cost-efficient, both in money and energy, in addition, a large amount of people would be employed to deploy these systems, in addition to building more alternative energy systems.

The initial costs for these systems would be great, and not just in money, but also in "growing pains". We would be reconfiguring society from a car centric one to one that relies on public transportation. However, I feel that the investment would pay for itself in time, and in the long run, would be worth it to our children and grandchildren.

Other considerations would be small, efficient, short ranged, electric cars for personal transportation, mostly for local travel, like to the grocery store, electric buses could be used to reach destinations the rails can't reach, etc.

The point is that we will HAVE to reform our society to accept the simple reality that our way of life is simply unsustainable. You cannot base a society on the idea that a single person can waste as much energy as they do now, and have it be sustainable forever. We will have to sacrifice a little convenience for practicality, otherwise our society and way of life would simply collapse. I would prefer us to peacefully reform it to a more sustainable lifestyle than the one we currently use.

:applause:....

:toast:

Or Secretary of Transportation for my state. I have a shitload of ideas for all sorts of problems in the country. A couple more include a design for a geothermal plant that uses pipes made out of carbon-nanofibre composite of ceramic, so they could flex and withstand a huge amount of heat, that could be buried right above the magma chamber at Yellowstone, avoiding all the unique geologic features in the area, and the pipes would travel miles away. At the source would a gravity fed water reservoir, most likely filled with rain water, with a high pressure, one way valve to control pressure, like a heart valve, when the water flows to above the magma chamber, it becomes super heated, and the lower pressure on the other end would shoot the steam at extremely high speeds. At that end our extremely tough, high speed turbines, and beyond that condensers to reform the water back to liquid form.

The water can then either be pumped a few miles back to the reservoir, or, more likely, can be simply dumped into the nearest stream or lake, to be a part of the hydro cycle all over again. This type of design to be used at any known hotspot or near volcanoes. The great thing about it is that its a highpressure system, the pipes, nearest to the source of heat, would heat up to several hundred, maybe close to a thousand degrees, and would "flash vaporize" the water that enters the pipe, after that, it will direct itself down the lower pressure, turbine end, of the pipe at high speeds, and be an excellent source for electricity generation, pollution free as well.

The best part about the system, since it works this way, is because of the high pressure in the pipes, the turbines could be miles away, and the steam would still be hot as hell coming out that end, and fast too. The ceramic pipe, after leaving the source of heat, would act as an insulator, and be able to retain both most of the heat, to keep the steam as steam, and the pressure, ensuring the system is safe. The Carbon nanofibre would be used like straw is used in mud brick, to toughen up the pipe and make it more flexible, to reduce the risk of pipe fractures from either the water pressure or the flexing of the ground near such volatile areas.

The worst case scenario would be a pipe that breaks, most likely near the heat source, now, with multiple pipes, this wouldn't be that much of a problem, the break would consist of basically a temporary geyser, you could have an emergency shutdown valve at the reservoir end of that pipe, the others would still keep on running, and then you could send someone out to fix it, more likely this would be a job for a heat resistant robot. The point of the system would be a minimal footprint on the surrounding area, most of which is wilderness, it would be deep enough to avoid the deepest tree roots, and how its constructed would most likely be through tunneling machines, I imagine the pipes would be about a meter or so in diameter, so the tunneling machine would be about that size itself. Any soil and/or rock it digs up during the process, that would come out the reservoir to be used as building materials for it.

Just another idea. :)

biofuels won't be enough. We have to have cars with much better mileage standards. Its essential.

The real answer is to make sure their grossly high estimate for increases in world energy usage don't come true. Conservation and efficiency are the main solutions.

..Not surprised at all.

Just ignore the Exxon horde and continue to encourage automakers to invest in alternative fuel sources.