Turkey Guts As Fuel

changing world technologies' carthage plant is now selling the oil it produces. i picked up this article via slashdot, and as usual, the naysayers are out in force.

a bunch of uninformed people hurried to erroneously claim that using the oil from the plant is just as bad as using fossil fuels. news flash people -- the carbon dioxide released from burning this oil comes from a CLOSED CARBON CYCLE. got that? it is not nearly as polluting as the use of fossil fuels.

others immediately started bitching that the 500-600 barrels of oil that the plant in question could produce at maximum capacity wouldn't 'make any difference' in our dependence on foreign oil. granted one pilot commercial facility cannot achieve this aim. however, there is enormous promise here. bigger plants attached to municipal sewage facilities, for example, could produce a *lot* more than 500-600 barrels a day.

i don't get all the negative reactions to this technology. even replacing five percent of our imported oil needs is a impressive accomplishment when you consider that we import around 4 billion barrels of oil every year. better yet, we have a great way to efficiently and even profitably cope with the enormous waste management problems that face industrial societies.

i get the sense that people think that we need a quick, 100 percent solution to our energy needs. that's just fucking stupid. why not take a diversified approach? and who said that we could replace fossil fuels overnight or even within 5-10 years. this is not a fifth grade science project for fuck's sake. we're talking about an enormous investment in both private and public infastructure.

it's an incremental process of transition and the longer we bicker over the finer points, the closer we are to hubbert's peak. it will get harder and more expensive to make this transition the longer we wait. even a goal of replacing 1 percent of our imported oil needs every year would be a step in the right direction. this doesn't necessarily have to happen through alternative energy sources. conservation is still a viable means of coping with a dwindling supply of fossil fuels. wind and solar energy are great for electricity and heating needs. they do not solve our transportation needs. one of the benefits of a diversified energy base is that a supply shortage of a single energy resource does not have to cripple our economy.

the fact that changing world technologies' process is 80 percent efficient at its pilot facility is really quite amazing. i imagine that there are a lot of out of work engineers who would be delighted to have jobs improving on their process. not to mention the job generation factor of constructing more plants like the one in carthage all over the country.

i believe that a well-designed policy that encourages both fuel efficient standards and the development of renewable energy resources could place us in the enviable position of actually *exporting* biofuel technology right now and exporting actual biofuel within 20 years, all the while lowering the costs of waste management and reducing pollution. what's not to like about that?