American Ingenuity on Oil’s Replacement

I’ve said it before on many posts on this site. The end of the strangle hold on America’s energy needs is nearing the end of the beginning. All of those back yard inventors of a better mouse trap when it comes to our fuel needs are coming out of the woodwork and the ones serious enough to believe in it will be successful.

One of the things I find interesting is that many of these backyard chemist, biologist, and guys that know how to work a mean wrench have on thing in common, not one of them thinks they will replace the Exxon’s of this world but they sure as hell will put a dent in their billion dollar profits year by year. And as these combined technologies all grow over time then the likes of Exxon will be the mega giant corporations that dared to think it was irreplaceable. Read more on this great article from Popular Science and Amanda Schaffer in the latest issue…

I’m watching this image on a computer screen at Amyris Biotechnologies in Emeryville, California, where one of the founders, biologist Jack Newman, is giving me a tour. The genetically manipulated E. coli before me are highly crafted units of industrial production, which Amyris is using to turn sugar into novel versions of gasoline, jet fuel and diesel—in other words, the fuels on which the world already runs. Amyris is one of a handful of young biofuel companies putting a brilliant and weird twist on the future of green. It’s betting that, with the help of bacteria, the long-term answer to our gasoline woes will actually be . . . gasoline.

Because as it stands, the main alternative to petroleum, ethanol (a type of alcohol), is fraught with problems. It can’t be pumped through current infrastructure because it tends to corrode pipelines. And according to University of Minnesota economist Jason Hill, even if all the corn grown in the U.S. were converted to ethanol, it would replace only some 12 percent of the 146 billion gallons of gasoline we use every year. Cellulosic ethanol—fuel produced from the cellulosic matter contained in plant stalks and stems rather than from seeds—would solve that problem, but the technology to produce it on a large scale is still a way off. Plus, ethanol simply isn’t as energy dense as petroleum-based fuels. - Popular Science

One of the things I find very warming to the spirit is that this research isn’t coming from the United States Government or sponsored by XYZ oil company. It’s coming from American’s with an attitude, American’s with a spirit and sense of what is right and what is wrong. It’s coming from a displaced sense of the American way of life. For the last eight years we as a people have been jerked around by circumstances beyond our control and if you know anything about Americans, we hate being told that the price of our greatest energy resource is beyond our control. That’s a tough pill to swallow and we American’s tend to hate having anything shoved down our throats. Even when it comes from within our own nation with the people we allow a free market to dictate prices.

This is an Energy Revolution and it is starting in garages, chemistry labs, brain storming sessions, and with individuals sick and tired of having the money they earned spent on fuels to run our vehicles or buying a gallon of milk for their families. That is an argument that will never be won when it comes to the hundreds of thousands of brilliant minds working today all across America to pretty much chuck the Middle East and all OPEC nations the bird.

This countries energy needs will pretty much be self reliant in twenty to thirty years. It’s not going to be easy and it isn’t something that can happen overnight or from any one technology. It will happen with one advancement at a time. Think of it as a slow strangling end to imported oil much like the horse and buggy day.

One last quote from the same Popular Science piece…

Before I leave, though, he shows me a painting he keeps in his office. It’s of a little boy leaping from one cliff to another across a chasm. The boy’s arms are stretched out. His head juts forward. “He isn’t even looking at the edge. He’s looking beyond the edge,” Reiling says. “He’s 100 percent committed to that jump. That’s what you’ve got to do when you’re going after something.”

You have my best wishes on success Amyris!

Papamoka

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It’s called a Recession

While all the politicians including the Hack in Chief of the United States are finally noticing that the economy is in a free fall the latest news everywhere is not enlightening on how to fix it. While one political party is calling for more tax cuts for the middle and upper classes the other is presenting tax cuts for the middle and lower classes. Stimulus tax cuts they call them. In a realistic world they would be called one layer of gauze tape to stop the bleeding of a lost limb.

Our nation is being bled dry not by outside influences but by our own behaviors as a nation. Rather than facing our worst fears we point out who is to blame and then head on over to Walmart or any other super store to save a few dollars on our household needs. It may not be fair to single out Walmart alone simply because every store you go into for any product your family needs and it has become increasingly harder to find products that are actually “Made in the U.S.A.”. Which should also mean made here and not just packaged here. All of the manufacturing jobs that used to make that tooth brush or that nail clipper or toaster are gone. Walmart is hiring part time workers though so you can make minimum wage being a greeter or cashier.

There is an enormous difference between a manufacturing wage and a retail wage. Huge difference! Our nations middle class economy is based in the manufacturing sector and when that is sold out to Wall Street and jobs shipped overseas, it tends to have a negative effect on local economies all across America.

Free markets without controls and rules are dangerous as ignored by the former majority political party and the latest reporting of the mega banks writing off hundreds of billions in foreclosed mortgages is outrageous. Without clearly written government rules, the industry of home lending is imploding on itself with bad loans for people that could not afford them to begin with and it is a self fulfilling prophecy. Greed will do that in a pyramid scheme when you leave the next guy holding the bad loan bag.

"We're facing a recession in the economy," Clinton told a predominantly black church outside of Los Angeles. "I know it's already arrived." - New York Times

"We don't know whether we are already in a technical definition of a recession, but what I know from traveling all across the country is families have been struggling for a long time -- even prior to the sub-prime lending crisis," Obama said in San Francisco. - New York Times

John Edwards… We have to strengthen and grow the middle class, which is struggling mightily in this country today. And one of the reasons that we've lost jobs, we're having trouble creating jobs, we're having trouble growing & strengthening the middle class is because corporate power and greed have literally taken over the government. - On the Issues.org

Instead of a “Stimulus Tax Cut” lets look at the highest affect of the economy and largest creator of the American recession. Oil prices. Everything in your personal life is bound to the price of oil even if you are a new born child. All of the food on your table has a transportation cost to get it to the market and then to your refrigerator. I won't even start on plastic products which are all oil based. You are not alone when you think that three bags of groceries should not cost fifty dollars when it was twenty less than six years ago. Transportation cost are passed on to the consumer in every industry product on the open market except the ones coming from China? They may now call it Black China as an accounting term rather than a political one. Government supports in China make the products the cheapest in the world and the cheapest on the shelf here in America.

Instead of a tax cut, we should urge our government leaders to propose a Legal Aid for America. awyers with a free will to go get them attitude with a government badge. How many of the best legal minds in America would sign up for a commission basis result of prosecuting market manipulation in the oil markets from any sector. We could call it the Green Beret’s of the Justice Department and just the site of any single one of them in the lobby of any Wall Street firm or Big Oil companies front office would set off the sprinklers in the CEO’s pants. Prices at the pump would drop and so would the preposterous ten and twenty billion dollar quarterly profits reported by the largest of oil companies. Not to mention the hundred million dollar bonuses for the top of the top on Wall Street every single year.

We need strong leaders and a strong legal arm of the government that is not beholding to the President no matter who it is. Our economy is being sucked down the drain because the friends of this current President are at the end of the money pipeline with his time left in office.

It was rather ironic that recently the most powerful man in the free world was forced to beg and kiss the ring of the King of Saudi Arabia to open the spigots to relieve the world oil supply needs after being rebuked by the King’s Oil Minister. Now that tells you who is really running the world doesn’t it.

Then of course there is the bleeding of our treasury to fight a war that has no end in the Middle East. Our nation is sending so much money into this endless pit that it has become an addiction of pride rather than an admission of the truth. Can’t fix it, won’t ever be fixed, and the people that live there don’t want it fixed. And yet the American people are screwed by the King of America and the King of Saudi Arabia.

I know that I personally thank our President in my own special way every time I fill up my tank. How about you? Do you feel no longer like an American and just another money chip on the political poker game table? If you do then voting now is more important than ever.

Papamoka

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Cross posted at Michael Linn Jones.com and Bring IT ON!

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Gas Tax for Bridges a Wash for Bush

Picture courtesy of the White House

While Minneapolis is still diving for bodies our fearless pretend conservative President is threatening a veto on any gasoline tax to repair or replace many of our nations bridges. Apparently, Haliburton does not have a bridge repair or rebuilding unit and this tax will only hurt… ummm, give me a second? I’m not sure of the real answer to that question but I have a crack team of coffee shop prize winning economists working on it. As I’m sure the President does too or then again maybe not?

Every single state in this country is looking at the same problem and the problem is Bush. Our President hates bridges because it is a passing phrase for Clinton Democrats and all that hog wash of building new bridges to the new century.

So the logic of my thoughts is that President Bush blames Hillary Clinton because Bill Clinton rebuilt all the bridges just a few years ago. The bridges actually do not need to be repaired or replaced according to my Bush theory. Democrats just want to double dip into our nations treasury once more to rebuild the century again. I’m sure there are graphs and charts out there that prove his point. President Bush probably has a top notch team of graphic artist working on it as you read this post. Then again school supplies are in tight demand right now as many parents face the onslaught of the new school year coming.

Over at the New York Times they have this interesting story on why it’s the newly elected Democrats fault from the President’s perspective for our nations aging bridges not needing repairs or replacement.

Bush Opposes Raising Gas Tax for Bridge Repairs

By JIM RUTENBERG
Published: August 9, 2007

WASHINGTON, Aug. 9 — President Bush said today that he would be opposed to any steps by Congress to increasing the gasoline tax to raise revenues for national bridge repairs in the wake of last week’s bridge collapse in Minneapolis.

And at his last major news conference before his summer vacation, he lashed out at Democrats in Congress by questioning their priorities and motives on everything from taxes to their accusations of contempt against Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales.
“Before we raise taxes, which could affect economic growth, I would strongly urge the Congress to examine how they set priorities,” Mr. Bush said.

“My suggestion would be that they revisit the process by which they spend gasoline money in the first place,” he added, accusing lawmakers of focusing on their own parochial concerns — or plum projects — above such national concerns as bridge conditions.

Representative Don Young, Republican of Alaska and a member of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, has raised the possibility of increasing the gasoline tax as a way to pay for bridge repairs throughout the country in the wake of the Minneapolis bridge collapse, which raised new concerns about potential problems with a number of the nation’s bridges. A plan being considered by the House committee would index the current gasoline tax for inflation, which would result in an increase of roughly 5 cents. - New York Times

Not that I am in favor of any new taxes but if the money to rebuild our nations “Deficient” bridges has to come from somewhere then it should be from those of us that use the bridges every single day that should belly up to the bar. With every single state looking at the same crisis as Minnesota, it does not take more than two eggs with toast and a cup of coffee to figure out who should pay for the rebuilding effort. My only problem with that tax levy scenario at the gas pump is that I frankly do not trust the Feds or the States to spend the money solely on bridge repairs and replacement. You and I both know that down the road the budget for bridge repairs will be hijacked by terrorist legislators to pay for something useless to the people that will continue to pay the tax at the pump.

Living in the state with the “Big Dig” self collapsing tunnel I tend to think there just might be a little bit of corruption and thievery when it comes to any project of this magnitude. Maybe the Congress could fix it but that would not serve their purpose. Rebuilding bridges across America would funnel billions in political donations into the coffers of political campaigns where the money would serve to perpetuate the crimes that would be committed to win the contracts. Meanwhile the bridges we are all paying for at the pump are still rotting ten and fifteen or fifty years down the road.

Not to worry my friends, there is an answer that is without a doubt that will fix this troubling problem. Money will not be wasted, bridges will be repaired and replaced. As soon as Dick Cheney returns from his vacation I’m sure that a new division of Haliburton will be building no bid contract bridges in a town near you soon.

I feel better. How about you?

Papamoka

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My friend over at Specious Reasoning is talking about this issue too!