The Nazi's made their oil from coal. The technology to do this has been around for 75 years or so. The problem is that it costs about $45 a barrel to make it so for years no one did because oil was below $30 a barrel. However now that oil has stayed above $50 a barrel for a while more and more investors are building factories to start making oil from coal. However this is mostly happening in the USA because we have more coal here than anywhere else in the world. Canada on the other hand has HUGE tar pits that they are converting to oil. This process too was deemed unprofitable when oil was cheap but is now very profitable. It is estimated that Canada has almost 10 times the amount of oil in their tar pits as exists in the Middle East. People would be wise to remember that we are not so much running out of oil as we are running out of cheap oil. A BIG difference because once these tar and coal factories are built and paid for after a few years this oil too will be cheap. It's only a matter of time. The Arabs shot themselves in the foot making oil so expensive. They just don't understand that yet.
2007-05-10 21:43:34 UTC
coal gasification
Canada has huge reserves of "oil sands" as well. American refineries aren't currently geared to process this thick muck, but more are converting because it's becoming ecomonically viable. I just read about a refinery in the midwest somewhere that signed a deal with a Canadian company. There are other refiners looking to strike deals where they swap refining capacity for equity interest in the oil sands fields. It's coming, the era of the Canadian Sheik!!
And it's true, we are running out of cheap oil only. There are vast reserves of oil around the world that are untapped. The only reason they're untapped is because you can virtually scoop oil off the ground in OPEC countries right now. Once these countries run out, our appetites will turn to other sources. We will likely pay more, but pay is what we do best! We will also develop new technologies to decrease the costs of extracting the petroleum out of the ground, which will reduce the overall cost of this product.
Russia also has insane amounts of oil reserves, and that's just what we've found so far, who knows what else is out there. There are fields in Alaska that haven't been touched, because environmentalists fight to stop it. What I find ironic is that they fly around the country, using the very material they're trying to stop others from being able to use.
irene k
2007-05-11 23:15:48 UTC
in answer to one of your answers< I'm sure that if an alternative power source in planes were found, the environmentalists would use it. And wouldn't coal put more pollution into the atmosphere? By the way, the earth is greater than any of us, and the day will probably come that even you would come to respect it. It has a way of telling you things. If there were too many people like you around, that day might come sooner than you think. Some people can only see here and now. And some people will use any excuse, for anything they choose to do, becase it's the easy way out for the time being. Don't wait till it's too late.
2007-05-10 16:07:17 UTC
what needs to be done is making all farmers grow hemp.
this well make fuel 4 cars and clothes and food and 55 million other things.john Quincy Adams grew hemp,Washington and jefferson both grew hemp.to save the world all farmers must grow hemp
mar m
2007-05-10 18:29:32 UTC
No, but Germany did that in the 1930s
2007-05-11 23:54:27 UTC
NO
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