90 Miles From Tyranny : What if we stop producing fossil fuels?

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Sunday, March 20, 2022

What if we stop producing fossil fuels?


So many people have been wrapped around the axle about "climate change," AKA "global warming." Our kids have been brainwashed in school about the perils of greenhouse gas (G.G.) adverse effects on the environment. The target G.G. of their ire is carbon dioxide.

As the "war in Ukraine" has evolved, there is a new clamor from the leaders in Washington, D.C. to accelerate the implementation of AOC's Green New Deal. But what happens if we cease using fossil fuels in the United States? I will focus on oil and gas production in this article.

When oil is produced from wells, the fluid that arrives to the surface is usually a mixture of petroleum, gas, water, and sediments. After initial treatment to remove water and sediments, petroleum is shipped to refineries to make various products such as gasoline, diesel, and aviation fuel. The gas, which is predominantly methane, also has gas liquids such as ethylene, propylene, and butylene. The gas is often sour and contains hydrogen sulfide and maybe some nitrogen components that have to be "sweetened" prior to shipping the methane to market.

Gas liquids mentioned above are but a tiny fraction of the hydrocarbons from oil and gas production. However, they are the building blocks for plastics, synthetic fibers for clothing, synthetic rubber, paint, resins, glues, containers, insulation, packaging, home cleaning products, and a myriad of other products.

What does it mean if we do not have these hydrocarbon building blocks? We return to natural fibers for clothing. Containers will be made from paper products or glass. As a kid, I enjoyed searching for tossed soda bottles to get the deposit money from the local supermarket. Some states who charge an exorbitant fee for plastic bottle disposal might not appreciate the lost revenue. Maybe we will increase aluminum production for containers. Aluminum requires a sizeable amount of power per pound of production. I guess we will return to waxed paper wrapping for children's sandwiches for school lunches. Forget about all those plastic containers. How about tires for cars? Someone had better get those natural rubber tree plantations going again. What about diesel engine driven trains? What about airplane travel?

One of the "bottom of the barrel" products from oil is asphalt. According to the National Asphalt Pavement Association, about 350 million metric tons of asphalt is produced annually from 3,500 plants. About 94% of all roads in the U.S. are asphalt-based. This industry will be terminated and probably replaced with concrete. Have you ever watched how long it takes to construct a concrete paved road versus asphalt? What about the cost differences, let alone plant replacements?

The cost of building products will soar, or we will revert to...




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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can't tell if the guy is for or against his own argument?

JG said...

He is pointing out how much we are using Petroleum in all things, how the cut off is hurting us even more then we understand, and most people have no clue. The Biden Admin is out to destroy the USA as they either do not have people in place that know what they are doing or have people that are trying to destroy the country, but either way Congress has to remove them or we have to replace Congress with people that will.

Anonymous said...

Nothing will make us a vassal state of dictators faster than shutting down domestic petroleum production.

Exile1981

Justin_O_Guy said...

If you will add up the gazillions of barrels of oil the world has used, I believe you will be forced to agree that oil, which has different properties in different places, is just a natural element. Unless you're given to believing that oil can oooze down through layers of rock and into high pressure zones.
It's NOT the only place we've been lied to ,though, in defense of the people who originally called oil a fossil fuel, they had no way to know their wild speculation would one day be shown to be impossible.