We Could Build a Coal-to-Gasoline Conversion Plant

As long as drivers will go to the station that had the lowest price, evn if
it a penny a gallon, alternates will not sell without government incentives.
Look at the hybrids, buyers prefer the conventionally powered twins, because
they cost thousands less to drive home even with incentives. Smart buyers
do not want to reduce the amount of oil we import by prepaying for three
years fuel consumption in the purchase price. The ultimate consumer product
is the one that suits your personal needs and costs less. When I was in
retail the most important question a buyer asked before signing on the
bottom line was 'How much is my monthly payment?' LOL


mike hunt

 

What's wrong with that? No private industry will touch this and energy
turns out to be a strategic asset. Free markets are great for allocating
resources but do not do strategic planning. Building something as a nation
can make a lot of sense.

I noticed a guy at a store the other day. He was wearing a t-shirt
commemorating the Rutan project's ascent into space. The usual "Capitalism
1, NASA 0" sort of message.

Except - that's not the score. Getting 100km off the ground is a fairly
notable achievement. One that NASA managed in 1962 or so. I remember
watching it on a black-and-white TV.

And 100km off the ground and then straight back down is not near as
impressive - or dangerous - as re-entry from a 160km orbit at 30K km/sec.

Nor has Rutan made it to the Moon. A small matter of getting up out of TWO
gravity wells and completely escaping both.

The score is more like "Capitalism 0.1, NASA 32." Rutan took a baby-step
towards useful space travel.

Oh, and the capacity of SpaceShip 1 or whatever it's called is a pilot and
three passengers. No luggage. No supplies for a few days in space. The
Shuttle can lift tons into orbit and stay there for days. An EDO Shuttle
can stay up for a couple of weeks.

So, while I think a coal-to-liquid fuel conversion plant is a bad idea, I
don't think a project owned by the people for the people will necessarily be
a bad idea.

Hilarious. Say, did you watch "Great Presidential Speeches" on Letterman
last week?


*** ***

 

According the DOE, almost half of the crude oil is refined into gasoline,
hardly "only a small part."

http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/brochure/gas04/gasoline.htm

In several European countries, they use half the energy, per capita, than we
do in the US.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/ene_usa_per_per

Please give us evidence that excess gasoline would just be burned off.

I mean, before it became a motor fuel? That was when? In 1896?

Jeff

 

No, I live about 30 km from school. I take a diesel-electric train to the
train terminal, then two electric subway trains. Most of my students either
walk, take a diesel bus or the subway there.

jeff

 

But when one has selected a car, he might be able to get a lower monthly
payment at another dealer, but he won't get another car of the same model
that gets better gas milage.

Jeff

 

I think allot of states with the coal would Love to have it in their
backyard. Those states have been depressed for a long time now.

Gerald

 

So right Jeff. I live in No California and I know people on limited
incomes will drive 8 or 10 miles each way to by 6 gallons of gasoline
to save a couple of cents/gallon.

Until it really hurts to buy gasoline, no one will conserve nor will
anyone even consider proper alternatives.

Hurt level probably double today's price, IMHO. Till then we'll keep
sucking oil from non-home sources.

Ron

 

I'm with you on the mass transit idea, the only problem being is that
ours sucks! We are just to plain greedy to invest in a good idea. I was
born in New York City where they did have the brains to invest in it
and it works great! They did have their hard time in NYC but recovered
nicely and it's one of the best transit systems in the world.

Gerald

 

That is like 0.1% of the price of gasoline. Gasoline is now around 300 c
($3.00), and the total taxes are 0.445c or less than 1/2 a cent. I would
have thought they would be more.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/04/22/BUG41CD7OK1.DTL&type=businessEthanol is made for less money than gasoline in Brasil. Quantities arelimited, of course.It took something like 20 years for Brasil to get to the point where it wasable to begin replace gasoline with ethanol. It will take a long time in theUS, too. One of the big problems is that corn and some other crops depletethe soil of nutrients and water.So ethanol is far from a perfect solution.> Search "The Bud Angst Report » Blog Archive » PA Leads With Coal-to-OilSolution To Address Energy Needs">>> mike hunt>>>> "Backyard Mechanic" <> wrote in messageNomen Nescio <> wrote:>>>>> The People of the United States could build a people-owned coal-to-oil>>> conversion plant>>>>> I'm waiting, Mr. President. >>> But you would still be an idiot!>> I think 'people-owned' is significant... Aint no crooks in them communes,>> no-sir!>>>> Life is so simple for the simple minded...>>>>>> -->> Yeh, I'm a Krusty old Geezer, putting up with my 'smartass' is the price>> you pay..DEAL with it!>>>

 

Nomen?

First off I'm not sure why you would not want your post archived... ?
Secondly I do think that People Owned had anything to do with the
U.S.S.R.
That was a dictatorship. The People owned nothing... My wife is from
Russia... She is wonderful...

Gerald

 

Hurt level depends on wealth and income. If gas double in price, I would
still go where i want to go. But there are people who can't afford to go
where they want to go now. What I think we will see happening is that the
economy will slow down because poor people can't afford to buy as much and
the price of plastics and other petroleum-based goods will go up. In
addition, people will start buying more fuel-efficent cars in the next few
years, if the gas prices don't fall back to less than $2.00 per gallon. Very
few people will rush to trade in their SUVs for small cars, but when the
time comes, more people will buy small cars (and some will even buy
hybrids).

Jeff

 

NYC's transit system does have some short comings, like the idiots who
manage it. In addition, it would be better if trains from NJ, upstate NY and
Conn. would go to more places than just Penn Station, Grand Central Station
and a few stops on the way.

In addition, there are some areas of NYC where the subways are not convient.
And more subways are needed to go to the upper east side and harlem.

But it is an excellent system.

NYC has millions of people. That is very helpful in making a functional
system. That is one reason why other smaller cities can't make a go of mass
transit.

Jeff

 

Oils not the answer. We can drill for a long time to come. What is
needed is for the people to wake up and come up with free ideas and
more technology to make things more effiencent <Spelling, we were
warned in 1973 and we deceided to ingnore the warning COMPLETLY. We are
paying for ignorance. We the people have NOTHING to complain about. We
the people need to get our asses together<i think the fcc approved that
word for us. The energy companies are laughing their way, ALL THE WAY
TO THE BANK!

Gerald

 

Agreeed! The energy companies along with our wonderful White House that
will keep the people at bay. They do not want you to succeed. 500
million to an Exxon Mobil exec??? For what, for stealing from the
people... Incredibal!

Gerald

 

Did you really say 100 million? 100 million is only 1/5 of what that
Exxon Mobil guy will take home as a pension. FUNNY, we are talking
about the whole of the U.S., Canada, the world to be a better place to
live and work. The GOV, needs to spend a couple more bucks to put these
plants in a couple more backyards. Cleanly! The coal commericals on TV
are very good and they have come along way but at the same time I hope
they spend as much on saftey as they do on getting reserves out of the
ground. The Men and Women doing this job for our life styles need to be
backed up with our dollars for a futurist safe envirorment. They don't
have it now.

Gerald

 

Well I don't beleive that much. There was a town in Texas what during
the early 1900's that fell victim to a storm also. I wish I could
remember the name now, Agausta comes to mind. They got nuked by mother
nature also but they came back to rebuild but they build something that
could almost not be knocked down. New Orleans needs to do the same
project but with the engineers and also add to this idea would be to
get the envirorment to work as it had sice the 1700's or before. The
current system is and was a joke for many years. A better idea would
put many people to work and save history in my view. Yes they need to
deal with the wetland problem, it is because the screwed this idea up
that they had as big a problem as they did last year. Yeah.. a little
crazy tonight...

Gerald

 

I should have added that not only is a lot of the crude oil that we import
refined into gasoline, but we also import around 1,000,000 barrels a day of
gasoline:
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=businessNews&storyid=2006-04-19T151756Z_01_N19400851_RTRUKOC_0_US-ENERGY-STOCKS.xml.

This is, in part, because of lost capacity post Katrina.

jeff

 

Let's put some common sense in play:

Yes and No... we were warned in the seventies. But the greens had the
ear of the politicians.. while we went on about our lives.

So we rule out evidence that refutes them.. Check out caribou population,
check out wildlife in Prudhoe bay.

We should have HAD that site drilling done, at least one producing well-
site in every field.
We should have HAD industry consortium pulling oil from Colorado Oil
shale.

We SHOULD NOT have Power Plants burning natural gas or fuel oil because
it's cheaper than coal scrubbing.
We SHOULD have had Power plants running on coal gasification, developed
again, by industry consortium with research/dev funding supplied by tax
breaks, rather than trading pollution credits.
You think that wouldnt make much difference? What is China using all
that oil, for? What if China actually bought our technology to make coal
burn cleaner, wouldnt that actually help us in other areas?

First and foremost: We SHOULD have NEVER stopped building state of the
art nukes. As I pointed out elsewhere even the guy who started the anti-
nuke lobby NOW says it was a mistake.

Three-Mile Island was a success story, Chernobyl was the warning! But it
was demogogue politicians and the press that made them seem the same.

Do you REALLY think energy companies are at fault? Or is it 'WE THE
PEOPLE, SAYING "BUILD ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ANYWHERE NEAR ANYTHING!"

It was "You the People" that keep electing that idiot Kennedy... who
ignores or counters everything his nephew promotes because of nimby.
- - - - -- - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - -
Now... THIS is a warning, I am actually being nice here... if I read ONE
more 'the people vs big bad corp' themed simple minded opinion on here, I
am going to come out with all guns blasting. You think I'm crusty now...
you aint seen nothing!

 

It may SEEM that way... but the thing is you state that view, more clearly
and concisely than most, without a lot of other idiocy, like Nomen's,
thrown in.

Thus you seem the target but you're not. The IDEA is the target.

 

Yep, we lost a lot of time and wasted a lot of fuel listening to those
bark chewers. I doubt we still have the technical expertise to build
nuke power plants. We'd most likely have to ask France to help us.
You're right about the coal, we have much but not using it much, very
sad.

U.S. is in decline, but it didn't have to be. Had we more GWB like
administrations in the past we would still be leading the world in every
area. More Carter like administrations and we'll be a third world
country.