I feel pretty safe to say that all of
us are upset over the price of gasoline. I just paid $75 to fill up my
tank, which is really frustrating because the gas station I was using
only lets you put $50 at a time on your Debit card. I actually had to
stop filling up, and put the nozzle back in the holder to start a
completely new transaction just to fill the tank. I remember back in
the 70's people were predicting that the world's oil supply would run
out in 30 years. Here it is, 30 years later, and there seems to be no
end in sight to the oil supply. I think I just read somewhere that we
have about (interestingly enough) 30 years left to the world's oil
supply.
By
the way, I just want to take this opportunity to point out something
about gas prices that are really out of whack. A few years ago, when a
gallon of unleaded was 99 cents, a gallon of mid-grade was $1.09, and
premium was $1.19. Now that prices are in the mid $3 range, there is
still only 10 cents separating the different grades. Let's look at
this. For premium to go from $1.19 to say $3.59, represents a 302%
price increase. For the mid grade to go from $1.09 to $3.49 represents
a 320% price increase, and for regular to go from $.99 to $3.39
represents a 342% price increase!!! That means that the people using
the "cheap" gas are actually shouldering a 40% higher price burden.
Just one more way of "sticking it to the little guy"....
One
other thing I remember about the 70's was a very high level of optimism
that alternative sources of fuel would be developed to completely
remove our dependence on oil. Sadly, this promise has not materialized.
Now I am not totally naive. I realize that there are so many people
with so much money tied up in our use of oil, that true change won't
happen until we really are out of oil, or we are given an alternative
that is so much better, that nothing can stop the change (think
printing press vs. monk, sewing machines vs. knitting circles, etc.)
The company I am going to tell you about today has what I believe to be
a viable intermediate step which will not require us to dump the entire
infrastructure surrounding the oil industry, but that has remarkable
environmental, social and political benefits.
The company is Changing World Technologies, Inc. [CWT, Inc.] They have created a process called the Thermal Conversion Process, which can literally turn many forms of trash and bio-waste into oil. I first read about this company and their process in the May 2003 Issue of Discover Magazine.
At the time, they had just built a proof of concept plant in
Philadelphia. Their claims seemed too good to be true: "The process is
designed to handle almost any waste product imaginable, including
turkey offal, tires, plastic bottles, harbor-dredged muck, old
computers, municipal garbage, cornstalks, paper-pulp effluent,
infectious medical waste, oil-refinery residues, even biological
weapons such as anthrax spores. According to Appel [founder and CEO of
CWT, Inc.], waste goes in one end and comes out the other as three
products, all valuable and environmentally benign: high-quality oil,
clean-burning gas, and purified minerals that can be used as fuels,
fertilizers, or specialty chemicals for manufacturing."
There was a follow up article in the July, 2004 issue of Discover, and another in April, 2006.
During that time, CWT built a full-scale plant near the Butterball
plant in Carthage, MO. There, they take turkey waste (gizzards and
such) and convert it to usable crude oil. The beauty of this process is
that is solves at least two gigantic problems facing us today:
independence on foreign oil, and waste disposal. The TCP process is
also effective at converting plastic and rubber waste (think of all
those tires, computers, and old cell phones sitting in dumps right
now.) There is also an effort to build a plant near every major city to
process their Municipal Solid Waste along with the Municipal Sewage
Sludge. The process also eliminates virtually all disease vectors, such
as Mad Cow Disease, from the waste. This is making the TCP process very
attractive in Europe, where they are taking a much more proactive
stance on eradicating Mad Cow. In the United States, most rendering
factories turn the waste directly into animal feed, which is raising
health and safety concerns.
About
a year ago, the Carthage factory was having trouble being competitive
on price because of a political problem. There was a tax break given to
makers of renewable bio-diesel, but the wording of the bill was so
specific that it excluded the TCP process. I am proud to say that I
wrote all my congress people regarding the problem. Apparently, I was
not the only one, and the problem was fixed in January, 2006. CWT is
now price competitive with other fuel sources, such as bio-diesel, and
they delivered 6000 barrels of oil in April, 2006 from the Carthage
plant alone.
In
my opinion, the TCP process is so important to the near term future,
that the entire country should be screaming for this technology. We
should be pressuring the municipal waste operations in all of our
cities to build a plant. No dump or landfill should be without one.
Here is a way to clean up the environment in an economically viable
way, which also reduces or eliminates our dependence on foreign oil.
Just think, if 1% of the money spent on the Iraq war was put towards
forwarding this technology, what kind of impact that could have on our
health, wealth and well-being. This process could actually save us
from a pandemic of bird flu, mad cow, etc!!! The only negative I see
from this technology is that it could keep us using oil as an energy
source for many more years. Still, I think the benefits are worth it.
At least we could drive our cars feeling a bit less guilty knowing that
somehow, we helped clean up the trash! :) Tell me what you think.
Take a minute and write to your senators and representatives. It is free, fast and easy. That's what they are there for.
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