Slashdot Mirror

DOE radiation experiments on unsuspecting civilians

Three things about this:
1. If the Clinton administration hadn't opened these records, people would brand anyone who claimed that this stuff actually happened as tinfoil hat wearing paranoids.

2. If the tip of this iceberg was spotted during this administration,all evidence of it would have been "accidentally" destroyed like all records of the Bush family's skeletons - from the grandfathers registered foreign agent status for the German banker, the fact that the Bush brothers were all close with Hinckley when they lived in Lobbock. Why did the Hinckley family offer up their blacksheep for the Bushes to be able to take early control of the White House (which Bush, Sr. had wanted since he had Kennedy killed for fucking him on the Bay of Pigs)? Because the DOE was going to fine the Hinckley's oil company for illegal profit taking during 1973-1981, and for fear of the ensuing cans of worms that would be exposed as those dominos fell. I wonder if they ever were fined? - I would assume yes since Hinckley failed to do the job. All the way up to the idiot son's national Guard service record details, so that they could not be used against him in the election.

3. John Titor was correct, he said the civil war would start on "a day everyone would remember", my guess is that now that the Bush/Cheney regime realize that they are going to lose, they will say that there is going to be an attack on election day and delay the election, that will become (in hindsight) the day that catalyzed the civil war.

The DOE has some great photos of the various test shots available, at very low cost.

--jc

I'd make a rough guess that $500 billion (in current dollars) has been spent on finding and extracting oil from the ground (no royalties or other wealth transfers just the economic costs). That same $500 billion would no doubt have improved our automotive technologies considerably, however I firmly doubt that alternate energy sources would be competitive with pulling the stored energy from the ground. Batteries are nowhere near the same energy density, and it requires considerable land, energy, and effort to grow corn or soybeans (or eventually algae) to replace the oil. Also if you go electric, would $500 billion pay for enough dams, solar power grids (and technology improvments), and wind farms to completely replace our transportation system? $500 million sounds like an awful lot of money, but on that scale it's pretty small. The world uses roughly 70 million barrels of oil per day. Each barrel contains roughly 5.8 million BTUs of energy, other than vegetable oil and ethanol, there isn't much that comes close, and I will put dollars to doughnuts (you gotta send krispy kremes if you have one) that it would take well more than $500 million to produce enough corn or soybeans to make the same 400 trillion BTUs of energy we get from the ground.
Assuming Hibbert (and Hoteling) are right (I have almost no doubt either are) we will begin using alternate energy when the extraction costs are similar probably in the next two decades (that is a SWAG). That said you are considerably more long term in mindset than most American's or /.ers. My potential errors are grossly underestimating the productivity of R&D in alternate energy sources.

1990 US population: 230,445,777 US Census
1990 US Oil consumption: about 17 Million BPD (Barrels Per Day) DOE overview

2000 US Oil consumption: about 20 Million BPD href="http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/eh/frame.htm l">DOE overview

The US consumes ~20Mbbl/day of oil, less than half of which is for gasoline:

Petroleum Consumption from the DOE

Since we're importing ~50% of the oil we use (both for gas and other uses) I'm assuming the page you linked to thinks 8MPG is the average fuel efficiency of all vehicles on the road (including trucks), which seems low. Even so eliminating ~4Mbbls/day of gasoline usage would in no way eliminate our foreign dependence, we'd still be importing ~6Mbbls/day (rather than ~10Mbbls/day).

Did you ever consider their might be a valid reason for purchasing an SUV? No, probably not.

And, what exactly is your experience with foreigners? As someone who has traveled the world and can say that - yes - we Americans have our excesses, but so do other countries. And, yes some people hate us - but not for the reasons you state. And yes, we are a wealthy country, but because we work hard.

None of this will probably make any sense to you, because you have a closed (and obviously) uneducated mind.

Lots of people are saying that Cassini uses a nuclear reactor... this is not the case as Cassini actually uses 3 Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTG). RTGs are different from reactors in that they are much simpler devices which produce electricity directly from the decay of radioactive material, in this case PU-238. Reactors on the other hand produce power from heat generated by a controlled nuclear chain-reaction.

Nah. The reason why the new graphics cards run so hot is that they're self-powered. Each carries its own RTG.

As long as you have a lead-lined case and follow local, state, and federal ordinances regarding disposal of nuclear materials--then you should be fine.

Glad I could clear that up.

As a canadian i like to watch canadian TV. in the canadian TV they talk a lot about kyoto protocol. Alberta the biggest producer of oil in the country is 100% against kyoto because it will hurt their industry. problem is that a lot of people from the two bigger provinces, ontario and quebec, want to support kyto. if kyto pass federal government will make oil in canada not as competive as oil from other parts in the world.

anyways, if you didn't remember, i did, 2002 gas prices were so damn expensive that i couldn't afford to drive to work. i had to ride my bike :(.
opec, Saudi Arabia, that year decided to decrease output of oil and thanks to them i lost 50 pounds.

more data
you should check that out. it says the top oil producer was for 2003 saudia arabia at 9.95 million barrels a day.

i also got a blog and i did some research about some of the reasons why america would want to go to war with iraq [blog]

Okay, so we're talking about $480 billion a year and something like $200 billion for Iraq. To put this in perspective, The US has a GPD of somewhat over $9 trillion. So that $480 billion is 5.31% of our GDP and that $200 Billion is 2.21%. Seeing as the majority of taxes in the U.S. are paid by businesses small and large the net effect on individual taxes should not be excessive

Unfortunately the GDP is an inaccurate method of examining this, GDP is calculated using 1996 dollars. This is to prevent inflation from artificially increasing the curve. So in 2000 dollars the GDP would most likely be larger due to inflation. The US had until rather recently used the GNP(Gross National Product) to chart its economic success. The GNP counted money earned by US companies in other countries, the GPD does not. The other issue is that GDP/GNP is essentially a flow rate.

As a side note, the breakdown of where the US gets its oil is interesting.
16.5% from Canada
12.8% from Venezuela
12.0% from Mexico
7.5% from Nigeria
If we had invaded Iraq purely for oil we made a bad choice. We could have gone after Canada of Venezuela. Closer, better weather etc.

References
US GDP
http://encarta.msn.com/media_461520374/Gross_Domes tic_Product_United_States.html
Breakdown of oil imports & economic figures
http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20030919.html
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/usa.html
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/canada.html

Okay, so we're talking about $480 billion a year and something like $200 billion for Iraq. To put this in perspective, The US has a GPD of somewhat over $9 trillion. So that $480 billion is 5.31% of our GDP and that $200 Billion is 2.21%. Seeing as the majority of taxes in the U.S. are paid by businesses small and large the net effect on individual taxes should not be excessive

Unfortunately the GDP is an inaccurate method of examining this, GDP is calculated using 1996 dollars. This is to prevent inflation from artificially increasing the curve. So in 2000 dollars the GDP would most likely be larger due to inflation. The US had until rather recently used the GNP(Gross National Product) to chart its economic success. The GNP counted money earned by US companies in other countries, the GPD does not. The other issue is that GDP/GNP is essentially a flow rate.

As a side note, the breakdown of where the US gets its oil is interesting.
16.5% from Canada
12.8% from Venezuela
12.0% from Mexico
7.5% from Nigeria
If we had invaded Iraq purely for oil we made a bad choice. We could have gone after Canada of Venezuela. Closer, better weather etc.

References
US GDP
http://encarta.msn.com/media_461520374/Gross_Domes tic_Product_United_States.html
Breakdown of oil imports & economic figures
http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20030919.html
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/usa.html
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/canada.html

But another reason for the media silence may stem from the seemingly undramatic nature of the "finds" Hanson and others have described. The materials that constitute Saddam's chemical-weapons "stockpiles" look an awful lot like pesticides, which they indeed resemble. "Pesticides are the key elements in the chemical-agent arena," Hanson says. "In fact, the general pesticide chemical formula (organophosphate) is the 'grandfather' of modern-day nerve agents."

We have plenty of fossil fuel - its called coal. Not to mention oil shale, tar sands and other sources of petroleum, which some oil companies where considering in the 1970s before it became uneconomic to extract them and the projects were abandoned.

Sorry, but I don't see liquid fuels being beat by electrics for some time due to the power to weight ratio factor or other considerations such as finding a cheap source of hydrogen for fuel cells.

Many millions of lives could be saved if nuclear power became universal, and oil became a useless pollutant best left in the ground.

Not many Americans know about our testing with Syphilis and radiation. We all have our dirty little secrets.

What's your point?

Wouldn't do much. Outside of local area, voltage is run at high levels 230 KV is listed. Think about it, it's not 120 volts, it's 230,000 volts!

Fact Sheet

Look at this info on nigeria, it's an opec member and has tremendous oil and natural gas reserves

According to this DOE fact sheet article, until recently they were flaring off almost all the natural gas, yet local villages had little electricity. I think I see the problem here. Looks like government payola, ripping off the people, various ill will, begats violence, more bad vibes, back and forth.

Just perhaps if they hadn't been ripped off for a long time maybe the people there wouldn't be so poor. Flaring off the gas for years instead of putting in generators to use the gas seems a scosh lame to me. I imagine this fact was not lost on the locals either. Who would be blamed then, the oil producers, the government doofus who gave them the contract? I have no idea, but right there you can see just one instance on how they got shafted.

I also just read a few pretty current news articles when I was looking for that reference link. Your typical back and forth warfare,massacres, people tapping into pipelines to get fuel, oil spills and fires and explosions then, etc. Chaos and anarchy mixed with huge international money and corruption and fascism. I have no idea how to help those people there, tribalism and warfare and serious government/oil industry corruption look like the major problems. I think perhaps if they just scrap the oil contracts and renotiate and require some actual infrastructure be put in instead of just arranging more cash to whatever local warlord du juor happens to be there with his hands out might work better. The actual hardware for electricity and normal communications, make the oil companies put it in. I would bet in one day some millionaire trader sitting in an office far away from nigeria, making a bundle off the nigerian oil, swapping oil futures commodites around could pay for this localised internet deal and then some, a lot of "then some". It's this whole system that causes the problems, so it's the whole system that needs to change. There's no excuse for a nation that wealthy to have such poor people and lack of the basics.

Gas prices are generally higher in Canada than in the US.

According to the DOE, as of May 31st, the average retail gas price in the US was $2.051 USD per gallon.

The gas station I drove by this morning in Toronto was selling gas for $0.85 CAD per litre. It was a lot more, around $0.95 a couple of weeks ago.

With the financial exchange rate and unit conversion rate, we are currently paying $2.38 USD per gallon for gas.

If I recon correctly, gasoline fumes contains beneze. Have we stopped using gas ?

No, but most western countries have put limits on the amount of benzene permissible in gasoline, eg: USA, Canada, etc.

Gravitational power storage is more practical than you think. First, the smallest of the great lakes (lake erie) is more than 10 times as large (volume) as lake mead (the largest hydroelectric in the US) I don't know Ontario's power use, but hoover dam's capacity is 2000 MW.

More to the point, see this Note the Pumped Storage Hydroelectric category. It is already 1/4 the size of conventional hydroelectric!

*1,000T = 1,000,000 kg = 1,000,000 liters. 1 liter = 1,000 cm^3, 1 m^3 = (100 cm)^3 = 1,000,000 cm^3 = 1,000 liters I figured I'd post my math this time so mistakes are easier to spot.

You can run a diesel car on home heating oil too, but you are evadeing the fuel tax.

The per gallon Federal Motor Fuel Excise Tax is 18.4 cents on gasoline, 13.6 cents on LPG, 24.4 cents on diesel fuel, 13.0 cents on gasohol, 19.4 cents on aviation gas, and 4.4 cents on jet fuel. These monies go to the Federal Highway Trust Fund.

The by-state fuel tax averages 22 cents a gallon for gasoline, I am too lazy to find a diesel link.

Google for federal fuel tax and state fuel tax for more info.

Here is one of many links for the actual prices of fuels, before the tax.

As of May 31, 2002, there are 104 commercial nuclear generating units that are licensed to operate in the United States. (Note: the Brown's Ferry unit 1 has been shut down since 1985 but retains a license). The U.S. reactors are of two basic types: 69 units are pressurized water reactors (PWRs) totaling 65,100 net megawatts (electric) and 35 units are boiling water reactors (BWR) totaling 32,300 net megatwatts (electric). - Energy Information Administration (Department of Energy)

Sure, it'll take a number of reactors. But nuclear reactors can be scaled like coal plants. And we already have huge numbers of them...

If anything, it there's an 'effeciency' point for the nuclear plants, build that size close to the consumers. That should cut down on transmission costs. When the fuel only takes a Semi-load a year, you don't have to build next to a mine to get your fuel efficiently.

Did a lookup on some sites. From this site, a 1000 megawatt capacity seems about fair, as I see capacities running from about 800-1200 megawatts. They list their Megawatt hours at 8-9 million MWh a year. USA consumption is 3.602 trillion kWh (2001)

Doing the math, this comes out to 400-450 nuclear plants to power the USA, or 8-9 plants a state. Hardly an unsustainable number.

Forgot to add see this link for more info.

Some other posters have already disagreed with you, so I'll do the same: I like nuclear energy.

France derives almost 80% of its electricity from nuclear power. The rest of its generation doesn't depend on the burning of coal, oil, or gas, so evidently their government feels that nuclear power is a suitable green solution.

The U.S. on the other hand generates about 20% of its electricity from nuclear plants and about 40% from coal-fired plants. The damage caused by sulfurous compounds released into the atmosphere from burning coal is well known, and most environmental activists are convinced that the process of burning coal contributes to greenhouse effect. On the other hand, the pollution generated by nuclear plants is entirely containable, and when contained, does not affect the environment at all. Great efforts have gone into ensuring that nuclear waste does not escape the containment and transportation vessels it is placed in, regardless of the situation. The extra generation provided by nuclear power will be necessary if we are ever to switch to fuel cell powered automobiles - building extra coal/gas/oil generation defeats the purpose of fuel cells.

Also, nuclear plants don't take up the *enormous* amount of space that wind or solar generation would require (a factor conveniently ignored by anti-nuclear activists).

Some other posters have already disagreed with you, so I'll do the same: I like nuclear energy.

France derives almost 80% of its electricity from nuclear power. The rest of its generation doesn't depend on the burning of coal, oil, or gas, so evidently their government feels that nuclear power is a suitable green solution.

The U.S. on the other hand generates about 20% of its electricity from nuclear plants and about 40% from coal-fired plants. The damage caused by sulfurous compounds released into the atmosphere from burning coal is well known, and most environmental activists are convinced that the process of burning coal contributes to greenhouse effect. On the other hand, the pollution generated by nuclear plants is entirely containable, and when contained, does not affect the environment at all. Great efforts have gone into ensuring that nuclear waste does not escape the containment and transportation vessels it is placed in, regardless of the situation. The extra generation provided by nuclear power will be necessary if we are ever to switch to fuel cell powered automobiles - building extra coal/gas/oil generation defeats the purpose of fuel cells.

Also, nuclear plants don't take up the *enormous* amount of space that wind or solar generation would require (a factor conveniently ignored by anti-nuclear activists).

There is a bigger issue with solar and wind than simply cost: total power output. Demand for electricity is not going to drop dramatically and in all likelihood will continue to increase.

Now what about wind... Allow me to direct you to The Earth Policy Institute, an organization with a decidedly alternative/renewable energy bias. (Not a bad thing, just making it clear that it has no reason to artificially lower their numbers to make wind look bad.) Their examination of wind power is quite optimistic. Pay special attention to their expectations: gathering hydrogen for fuel in cars, halting coal usage, etc. Now let's look at the data they used for that. They cite a total U.S. potential (not current, but potential) of 1,221,191 megawatts. With that comes, I assume, the expectation that every possible free tract of land had a windmill farm stuck on it.

~1kW per square meter is what you have to work with in solar energy. When you have 8-12% efficient solar panels, that means you can get up to 80-120W per square meter...for six hours per day in the desert without trackers...on a cloudless day... In areas with more cloud cover, shorter days in winter, etc. the numbers drop off dramatically. Then we calculate that consumer solar cells degrade by 2-5% every year of use and have a life span of ~30 years. Then keep in mind that you have to keep all of those cells clean -- more energy used for something besides keeping the lights on. Don't forget that you have to actually manufacture those solar cells which of course means clean rooms (the real reason behind the costs) and the aquisition and refinement of requisite building materials. And to top it all off, when you cover large tracts of land with solar cells, that land gets less sunlight. So yeah, we can all put solar panels on our homes, get by on what we get, and then deal with the health problems after a year with more than average rainfall causes refridgerators to cease functioning and food to rot.

Repeat after me: large-scale power cannot be a "good enough" proposition where a 5% shortfall is acceptable.

So I want to get a pencil and paper and work out the total amount of land area needed to sustain 3,848,000,000,000 kilowatt-hours (Yes! That's 3.848 trillion!) of electricity -- of which 53% of that currently comes from coal. Now if you come up with a calculation that if you completely covered the sunny state of Arizona with solar cells, it would still not be enough to replace just coal, you're on the right track. To top it all off, it costs about $30,000 on average to fit solar panels sufficient to power a typical house. How much would it cost to cover Arizona will solar cells?

Repeat after me: It doesn't matter how much you are willing to pay. Solar and wind alone cannot do the job.

Solar and wind are excellent candidates for supplementary energy sources. They are great for providing primary electricity to many residences (provided that folks can afford the $30K price tag). However, most folks will still need the grid as a backup and supplement. Hell, I'd be bullish on solar if for no other reason than the effective elimination of large-scale blackouts. But it still remains a supplementary energy source. There is far more to electricity demand than making sure the microwaves and personal computers have power.

So what can produce that much power? Coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear. In the US, we have hundreds of years' worth of coal. Oil and natural gas reserves are far more finite and are needed for materials (plastics, vehicles, etc.). And that leaves us with nuclear. Existing models will blow through our uranium reserves in less than a century. However, models that aren't just a one-pass design can not only use existing nuclear waste, but also nuclear weapons material. AND they extend the pote

Why is this marked as funny? I stated the same thing but with an explanation and diagrams of how it would work. Nuclear batteries (actually radioisotope batteries since there's no actual nuclear fission occurring) are a very real, very useful, and very ignored technology. RTGs are the first generation technology. SRGs (Stirling Radioisotope Generators) are second generation, and promise to be smaller, lighter, and more powerful.

But since when do we power our power plants with oil?

See for yourself. Coal has been the primary source of electricity in the U.S. for at least fifty years, but oil-fired power plants still exist.

So the Arabs will find a way to still charge $100.00 a barrel.

Coal can be converted to synthetic oil at a cost of $40something/barrel, and America has enough coal reserves to meet our energy demands for about 200 years; if the price of a barrel of Mideast crude goes above $50 and stays there, the big oil companies will switch to a cheaper alternative.

Coal creates even more greenhouse gases than oil, though, so we'll still have that problem -- and, long term, we're still burning through fossil fuel reserves much more quickly than the Earth produces them. Solving the fusion problem will help, and luckily we still have a few centuries before the well runs dry.

I didn't intend for an implicatin that we pay less than other countries for OPEC oil. What I meant was that our oil prices are far less than those in the rest of the world because of US refinery gain. We net more usable petruleum products, including gasoline, per barrel of crude than anyone else in the world. Combined with our national crude production and our import levels, we are the worlds largest producer of refined oil. It stands to reason that our oil would be far cheaper than everyone else in the world. Worldwide Oil Production Beyond that, I wouldn't say we've taken out the major threat to stabilization. We ARE the major threat to stabilization. Well, us and Israel. While there is no doubt that Saddam was evil, I wouldn't necessarily say that Iraq is better off, nor is the Mideast more stable. If you don't agree, just follow the news, preferably the BBC or some international news source that isn't a propaganda outlet for our government, and watch the "stability" in the region when we pass power to a regional government. If the Kurds want an autonomous state, a lot of Iran and Turkey goes with 'em, and it'll be a major war in the Gulf. Even if they don't, expect Chaos in Iraq after we leave, their opportunistic neighbors (Iran, mainly) will fill the power vacuum and destroy whatever we may have managed to create.

Broekn link. Here Information on oil

Oh, please.

The majority of our oil comes from Canada, Saudi, Mexico, and Venezuela. Expect Saudi to not be quite so friendly this year after we accused them of harboring terrorists... 2/5ths of our oil comes from OPEC, and they've been putting out some pretty low numbers for production in the past few years. However, there are certain countries in OPEC (Venezuela, Saudi) that do their best to stop OPEC from finalizing yearly production too low. OPEC did it last year, and Venezuela produced extra crude for us.

1/5th of our oil comes from sources in the Gulf. There is no conspiracy by the Arabs to jack up our oil prices. Everyone else in the world pays more than we do. It's the backbone of their economy, and they treat it as such.

Educate yourself before you post.

Correction, we are addicted to oil until such point that is becomes uneconomical to do so. At which point, it would probably be natural gas for a few years until we realize we hadn't built enough refineries for that either. And the fission people will be saying, if you had only built any plants in the last 30 years... but noone will listen. The whole time, there will be thousands of other people pointing at all the resources buried in the ground and off the coasts, untouchable due to self-imposed regulations.

By then, I wouldn't be surprised if we switch back to coal, given the advances in plant designs over the last 30 years. That's a fuel that the eastern US has an overabundance of, yet is frowned upon by the environmentalist lobby because of the tendancy of existing plants to just vent the waste products into the atmosphere. Good thing the DoE is already working on it. It's amazing what the free markets can provide, when you let them work...

True, and as of 2000 the US's power consumption is around 98,000 trillions of btu's. (From doe).
And assuming it generates 500MW, that's about 1,706,000,000 btu/h. Calling that 2 billion, that's only 2% of the annual usage of the US. But then, it will only generate that for 500 seconds. So, in btu/500 seconds, I get 14,216,666,666. Dividing the annual usage by number of seconds in a year, I get 3,105,498,932 in btu's per second, and thus 1,552,749,466,155 btus/500 seconds. In essence, this plant will generate less then 1% of the the total energy used during the 500 seconds. So, not too far along. But then again, this is a reasearch plant. It's not developed yet. I'm sure the numbers will improve.

since we are addicted to oil. Until we suck the Earth dry we won't bother looking for other things. Unless Haliburton and the like invest in something else...

You know that oil consumption in China since 1990 has more than doubled Source. India's is growing rapidly too Source. I think it's time we realized that the rapid economic development of 2 countries containing a mere 2 billion+ people has something to do with rising oil prices in the U.S and the increase in Greenhouse gas emmissions. Guess what! The Indian government doesn't care to much about what the European/U.S centric green movement says and the Chinese care even less. That's why they demanded to be exempt from the provisions of the Kyoto treaty.

You know that oil consumption in China since 1990 has more than doubled Source. India's is growing rapidly too Source. I think it's time we realized that the rapid economic development of 2 countries containing a mere 2 billion+ people has something to do with rising oil prices in the U.S and the increase in Greenhouse gas emmissions. Guess what! The Indian government doesn't care to much about what the European/U.S centric green movement says and the Chinese care even less. That's why they demanded to be exempt from the provisions of the Kyoto treaty.

Do the math. Even if there are a few other unexploited areas in the US that are as rich as the ANWR, domestic demand far outstrips any realistic estimation of domestic production. Even if we put a marginal well in everyone's backyard, we can't keep up with current consumption trends. More drilling might be part of a short term answer, but if our goal is to eliminate our dependency on foreign petroleum then we must find ways to reduce our overall consumption without wrecking the economy at the same time. That's hard.

We are often told that nuclear waste is unavoidable, massively dangerous and has a very long half life. This is not strictly true.

We are quite lucky with fission products, because they all have half lives under 35 years. This site gives an overview of the common ones. Sr-90 and Cs-137 have the longest half lives, at around 30 years. The relatively small amount of genuine waste only needs containing (or recycling into nuclear batteries) for a few hundred years, instead of the tens of thousands usually quoted.

The other products should be recycled back into fuel; without reprocessing, nuclear waste does become a major problem. Breeding of fuel - which reduces the amount of uranium mining and the amount of depleted uranium you end up with - should also be used; this extends the fuel supply to over a hundred years (assuming you use it for everything and grow by 5% per year).

Nuclear plants are easiest and most economic to run on a 24/7 basis. This could be achieved by providing an alternate load, in the form of a methanol plant (or choose your favorite liquid fuel); instead of the hard task of regulating the electric grid by switching electric plants on and off, you just vary the rate of liquid fuel production. The fuel than keeps your SUV on the road. With such a set up, even more variable sources such as wind, solar and hydro could easily be plugged in to make more fuel.

lowering our price since cheap gas from OR will become a possibility

I read this, and just about fell out of my chair.

If you know where cheap gas in Oregon is, could you let the rest of the Portland Metropolitan Area know?

(Hint: Average price of regular unleaded in Calfornia last week was 2.26/gal, and Average price of regular unleaded in Oregon was 2.27/gal for the same period.)

Actually, according to this table the US daily total demand is close to 20 million barrels, with 11 million imported. Transportation uses close to 13 million barrels per day.

if you look here you can see that only 1.5% of petroleum is used for power generation.

still seems to be a lot though.

it also shows something like 67% is used for transportation.

Parent poster has NO IDEA what he's talking about.

<a href="http://www.eia.doe.gov">US DOE's Energy Information Agency</a>

http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/infocardnew.html I think this is what he was talking about.

When it is commissioned later this month, the $20 million facility in Carthage, Missouri,funded in part by a $5 million grant from the US Environmental Protection Agency,will process 200 tons per day of fats, bones, feathers, grease and oils.

I have no idea how that translates to fiscal feasibility, but Con-Agra, the other party to the joint-venture is as an old, well-established agricultural company (i.e., not a startup whose primary business is selling shares) And, they actually have generated saleable oil.

On the other hand, they're touting this more as a waste management technique more than an energy source. The pilot plant is producing 100-200 barrels/day (with a 600 theoretical limit). A quick google search shows refineries processing 10,000 - 437,000 barrels crude/day

So, it would take 100 of these plants to feed the smallest of those refineries.

We use about 19.7 million barrels of oil a day. Interestingly, thats only an increase on 2 million barrels a day since 1973. Given our massive infrastructure growth in that time, I'd say our usage is actually very controlled.

World Oil Consumption

Thanks Google

Why not just go to the Dept of Energy

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas/petroleum/info_glan ce/consumption.html

One of the first sources quoted by the reviewer is the International Energy Agency, a forum for 26 industrialized countries. For those wo want to tap deeper there are a lot more - and diverse - statistics out there. For example the IEA's statistics on world consumption vs reserves are different from those of OPEC, and even different from state-run BP's Statistical Review of World Energy, which I consider more moderate than either of the two previous sources. The US Energy Information Agency site is also very comprehensive. Check out their Country Profiles section for comprehensive info on oil operations the world over.

http://www.energyspot.org

One of the first sources quoted by the reviewer is the International Energy Agency, a forum for 26 industrialized countries. For those wo want to tap deeper there are a lot more - and diverse - statistics out there. For example the IEA's statistics on world consumption vs reserves are different from those of OPEC, and even different from state-run BP's Statistical Review of World Energy, which I consider more moderate than either of the two previous sources. The US Energy Information Agency site is also very comprehensive. Check out their Country Profiles section for comprehensive info on oil operations the world over.

http://www.energyspot.org