Dear Friends,
It seems to me, there is a new technology coming online, that will revolutionize energy and food production, and dramatically change the political equation between the oil producing countries and the rest of the World. That revolutionary technology is… methane used to produce gasoline or diesel fuels. I was listening to the radio the other day, and they mentioned that there is a company starting up, that will implement this technology on an industrial scale. The basics have been done. It has been proven on an experimental scale and the profit margin should be steep, given today’s cost of energy. The potential of this technology to improve the lot of Man is stupendous, and our lives may be far better than we ever thought possible, if this actually pans out.
I have been pondering this myself for some time. That is how synthetic lubricating oil is made after all. If it can be done industrially, to produce a heavy hydrocarbon, it can be used to produce a lighter one. This is self evident, the sticking point in my mind was, at what cost? According to the article I heard, they estimate that refining synthetic gasoline and diesel from methane will be cheaper, than refining it from crude oil! Of course gasoline and diesel refined from methane will have no heavy metals, no sulfur, and no other extraneous pollutants to damage our land and waterways, it will be almost pure hydrogen and carbon.
This cost savings is extremely significant. The input stock for this process, methane, otherwise known as natural gas, is at an all time low in price. The drillers have stopped drilling for natural gas due to the low return on the dollar because of it’s deflated price. The supply of natural gas on the market is increasing faster than demand however. When people drill for oil they often hit natural gas. That gas is then sold on the market, or the well is sealed for later sale. This combines with the huge stockpiles of natural gas, that hydro fracking has opened up, to drive down the price of natural gas.
If the refining price is lower as well, this implies that the overall cost will be far lower for high grade gasolene and diesel produced from methane than for low grade fuels made from crude oil. Since the feed stock for this new process, natural gas, is plentiful in North America, the implementation of this technology would make the US and Canada, energy independent. That energy independence would come with coincidental goods as well. You could say… positive externalities…
The World political and economic paradigm would be upended in favor of the US and Canada. As the price of oil dropped due to lower demand there would be a incidental shift in the distribution of the World’s resources. The Middle Eastern countries would get far less of the World’s capital to spend on war and oppression, the air would be taken from the nuclear programs of terrorist sponsoring nations, the economies of Europe, Russia, China and India would dramatically improve from the overall lower cost of energy and the entirety of the Third World would experience the possibility of a dramatic increase in their standard of living as well. The entire World would see an economic boom.
Farm land, that is now in production to produce corn for ethanol, would be returned to food production. The positive impact would be slightly muted because, the mash that is left over from ethanol production is a source of high protein feed for animals, like beef cattle and pigs. The land need not be put back into corn production. This highly arable land could produce almost anything the World’s population hungers for. Lower cost of food for the starving people would be another positive externality.
The phenomenal amount of labor that would be needed to produce and man the infrastructure, to be energy self sufficient via this method, would lower the unemployment rate in North America while driving up demand for products around the World. There would be demand for labor to build the infrastructure, manage the infrastructure, as well as deliver all the goods necessary and the final product. The implementation of this break through would dramatically improve the economic growth of the World in general but especially the US and Canada.
Lest anyone be concerned about running out of natural gas, it is a proven scientific fact that there is over 100 times as much natural gas off shore North America, in the form of Methane hydrates, than there is on land. This equation is magnified around the rest of the World. There are thousands of years of, off shore natural gas deposits, in our oceans.
As I said in the beginning of this article, there is a new technology coming online that will revolutionize energy production, food production and dramatically change the political equation between the oil producing countries and the rest of the World, but, this is only if our elected leaders don’t get in the way. They stood aside and let the internet revolutionize information. If they step aside and let this new technology revolutionize energy, it will improve the lot of Mankind forever.
I am not of the opinion, however, that this bunch will allow that to happen. Look at the knee jerk banning of hydro fracking, popping up around the US in progressive controlled States, it is only the first step in regulating this technology away. I hope and pray I am wrong, but, I think this technology will be aborted by regulation. Abortion being a sacrament of the progressives that run the show today. To the detriment of all Humanity… in more ways than one.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
