Thomko Petro Chemical Blog

Renewable Energy Property Tax Exemption

Last DSIRE Review: 10/02/2008

Federal Agencies Move to Ease Development of Geothermal Energy and Increase Power Generation

Potential for ten-fold increase in geothermal power-generation capacity on federal lands

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management today published the record of decision and approved resource management plan amendments for geothermal leasing in the western United States to make more than 190 million acres of federal lands available for leasing and potential development of geothermal energy resources.

The final programmatic environmental impact statement is online at http://www.blm.gov/Geothermal_EIS

Just maybe our new President will make the Land Management Bureau start moving faster.

Thanks to all who sent e-mail from our last post about soaring oil prices. From analysts, politicians and just about everybody weighing in, there are many opinions about the cause and ways to solve our dependency on oil. Here's my personal thoughts on some of the major causes of why oil has risen to all time highs
 . . . CT

For the past 20-25 years, this country has obviously neglected to find other sources of energy and fuel, and instead opted to stay dependent on foreign oil. Now we come to a time when as Thomas Friedman's book title "The World Is Flat" hits us squarely in the face.

This is a global economy - and the rest of the world wants what we have. We are no longer the driving force on the oil & gasoline prices worldwide. Even if we cut back on gasoline consumption - drivers in the rest of the world (China, India, etc) will continue to consume more gasoline. So the answer lies not just in finding more oil, the big pill to swallow is a real alternative energy policy.

While we have been living the "American Dream", much of the rest of the global world is catching up. They want the cars, homes and a lot of the technology we have become accustomed to. There are just not enough resources to supply the demand. Actually from my point of view they are falling into the same trap we now find ourselves - but that's another story . . .  

The facts are crude oil production has remained rather flat - while the need for oil continues to rise - especially from developing countries. The American dollar is at an all time low, and let me state once again that oil is priced worldwide in dollars.

Terrorist activity around the world can send oil souring at any time as we have seen in Nigeria, and threats remain throughout the Middle East. 

Oil speculators also have to be figured into the equation of the rising oil prices. Many institutions playing the market for their investors own far too many oil contracts - and when they announce oil price expectations - prices continue to rise. It's easy to control the price when you own most of the contracts!

And the war in Iraq has dramatically cut their pre-war production of approximately 4 million barrels per day to less than 2 million barrels per day. So in reality this war has also added to the reduction of the global oil supply - and I won't even go into what the threat of war with Iran will do to the world oil market prices.

But there's more bad news . . . Russia, the world's second largest oil exporter is having production problems. Russia's lack of investment in their infrastructure and many aging oil fields has led to their first production decline in 10 years.   

At the end of the day, it's all of us who pull up to the gas pump each week who are the losers. Obviously the elected politicians for the past two decades have not had the country or our best interests at heart. So, it's up to us to make changes in our lives, and try to ride out this economic chaos.

I certainly don't have all the answers, but I do know that we are facing a very bad economic time in this country. It's going to take sacrifice, and hopefully this time we will come out this with a new outlook on alternative energy - but it's not going to happen overnight. 

That's my take . . .

It seems like yesterday when many of us could not believe oil at $100 a barrel, but those days are long gone . . . CT

Oil surged past $140 a barrel after OPEC's president stated that prices could go well above $150!!

Just when we thought gas prices were at their highest . . . but oh no, it's gonna get worse

There are serious economic trouble ahead in the key financial markets, along with the automotive and housing industry. Today's oil surge has the Dow at the lowest point in almost two years. And we still don't know the fall-out from the mortgage crisis.

Then came the news that Libya will consider cutting oil production - and there's speculation that the Fed may not raise interest rates until later this year.

Many analysts are now in agreement that the rate cuts during the past year have further weakened the dollar - which have sent oil prices soaring since oil is priced in dollars.

We are in for a very bumpy ride folks - so we all need to try and get as much cushion as we can

Relocating for work . . . 

From Filipino electricians in western Australia and Indian petrochemical engineers working in the Persian Gulf, to Latvian stone masons in Northern Ireland, the world’s labor force is on the move.

Globalization means that not only are companies are moving operations offshore to where there is cheaper labour – but workers are increasingly prepared to cross borders to find where the best jobs are.

Popular images of migrant workers are of the of the poor, the oppressed and unskilled. Yet according to Manpower, one of the world’s largest recruitment companies, they are more likely to be young, under 30 years of age, well-educated with university or vocational qualifications, and female as much as male.

This matters to employers who, according to Manpower, will increasingly be competing for workers, such as the managers at Irish meat processing plants “whose skilled Slovak butchers are being lured away by competitors in Norway”.

Unlike earlier migrations, today’s migrant workers are not on a one-way trip. Flights home are readily available. Irish emigrants began returning a decade ago as the economy of the “Celtic Tiger” boomed. Now, it is Indian professionals and Polish construction workers who are returning to seek new opportunities.

Competition for such workers is increasing. Even oil-rich Gulf states can no longer rely on a seemingly endless flow of cheap engineers and construction workers from the Asian sub-continent.

One Gulf company, for example, told Manpower it was “starting to miss crucial project deadlines” because it could not “import the skilled expatriate engineers and project managers it used to be able to get easily.”

Propelling labour mobility over the next few decades will be huge demographic changes, in particular the ageing and stagnating populations in developed countries. According to the United Nations, Italy’s population is expected to decline from 57 million to 41 million by 2050 while Japan’s is projected to fall 17% to 105 million by 2080.

Workers are also becoming more aware of their worth, with the internet providing much greater information on job opportunities at home and abroad, says Manpower.

Workers will also move within national boundaries to find work. China is currently struggling to accommodate “the rush of individuals leaving its poor western provinces in search of better jobs in the glittering commercial hubs of the country’s east coast,” it says.

Japan has also seen a huge population shift to its cities, imperilling its agricultural sector, while Norway must deal with the emptying of its rural north - and Mexico’s southern states contend with…a massive talent drain to the industrialised northern border states.

Employers who have moved offshore in search of cheap labour can get caught out, however, as local economies develop and other multinationals move in, competing for a limited number of skilled workers. According to Manpower, it is not unusual for workers at call centres in Bangladesh to attend an interview, accept a new job and start straight away at a higher salary all in the same lunch hour, says Manpower.

Read full article at FT.com

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2ff92332-3ed2-11dd-8fd9-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1

Chavez Says E.U. Countries That Back Migrant Law Won't Get Oil   

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he'll prohibit sales of oil to European Union countries that apply a new law approved by the E.U. parliament that allows undocumented workers to be detained. Chavez has also stated that Venezuela also won't accept foreign investment from those European countries.

Venezuela won't attend a meeting of oil producers and consumers this weekend in Saudi Arabia, and sees no need to increase crude output, the country's oil and energy.

Venezuela has no plans to increase its oil output, Minister Rafael Ramirez told reporters today in Maracaibo.  The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries doesn't need to meet again before its next scheduled event in September, and says that oil production levels aren't behind the increase in prices.

More news out of Venezuela . . .  

Chavez isn't content with nationalizing the countries oil - today he has formally taken control of the cement industry by decree, and has given three foreign companies 60 days to negotiate a fair price for their assets. Should they fail to reach an agreement, he stated Venezuela will start expropriating shares.

According to the decree, the government will take at least a 60% stake in the Venezuelan subsidiaries of Mexico-based Cemex SAB, Switzerland- based Holcim Ltd. and France-based Lafarge SA.

Chavez is using a windfall from oil exports to increase state control of the economy. Since the beginning of 2007, he has nationalized four crude oil ventures as well as the country's biggest telephone company and electricity provider.

Source: Bloomberg

Consumer Energy Alliance Efforts

The Air Transport Association of America (ATA), the industry trade organization for the major U.S. airlines, is echoing the call of the Consumer Energy Alliance to secure a balanced and comprehensive U.S. energy policy that increases U.S. energy independence and results in a more stable energy supply and predictable costs.

The ATA points out that nearly 30 cities across the country have completely lost scheduled air service in the past year, with more service cuts and job losses inevitable as airlines attempt to cope with soaring fuel prices.

Eight U.S. airlines have shut down operations since the end of 2007 and another has filed for bankruptcy protection. More than 9,000 U.S. airline employees have lost their jobs so far this year, with additional cuts being announced as the year continues.

The ATA is proposing that the government make barrels available from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and the Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve in the event of supply disruptions or price spikes; invest proceeds in energy infrastructure.

It calls for curtailing commodity index speculation and close regulatory loopholes in trading of commodity futures (e.g., crude oil, heating oil); create equal playing field across exchanges and increase transparency of activity It also calls for pressuring U.S. refiners to increase utilization, which has fallen to abnormally low levels.

ATA supports streamlining National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), permitting requirements to allow expedited siting of new and improved refining capacity to meet surging demand for middle distillates (e.g., diesel, heating oil, jet fuel).

ATA also supports facilitating environmentally responsible crude oil exploration, refinery production, nuclear energy investment, wind power or other sources of energy through changes in tax policy, regulation or fiscal incentives and increasing R&D for alternative aviation fuels and for carbon capture and sequestration technologies.

For more information, visit www.airlines.org

SAN FRANCISCO - A few years ago, drums of used French fry grease were of interest only to a small network of underground biofuel brewers, who would use the slimy oil to power their souped-up antique Mercedes.

Now, restaurants from Berkeley, California., to Sedgwick, Kansas., are reporting thefts of old cooking oil worth thousands of dollars to rustlers who refine it into barrels of biofuel in backyard stills.

Some say it's like a war going on right now over used grease. More people are stealing grease because they have converted their cars to run on grease collected from local area restaurants.

Grease is transformed into fuel through a chemical process called transesterification, which removes glycerine and adds methanol to the oil, leaving a thinner product that can power a diesel engine.

Biodiesel can also be blended with petroleum diesel, and blends of the alternative fuel are now sold at 1,400 gas stations across the country.

As the price of diesel soars ($4.79 currently in Northwest Indiana), so, too does the value of grease.

In three years, the price of soybean oil, the main feedstock for biodiesel made in the United States, has tripled. Last week, a gallon of crude soybean oil fetched 66 cents on the open market, according to the National Biodiesel Board.

Those numbers have encouraged biofuel enthusiasts to plunder restaurants' greasy waste, and have even spurred San Francisco to get into the grease-trap cleaning business.

Drivers for Blue Sky Bio-Fuels, which manufactures bio-diesel for San Francisco's municipal program, often find their 300-gallon Dumpster outside the Oakland Coliseum nearly dry, despite the dozens of concession stands that dump there. Losses there alone have cost $3,700 in lost oil revenues in the last year.

In Kansas, Healy Biodiesel reports thousands of dollars in losses from used cooking oil heists from restaurants near Sedgwick, about 20 miles north of Wichita.

Standard Biodiesel in Seattle started working with police to try to catch fly-by-night home-brewers pilfering up to 30,000 gallons of the oil they collect from restaurants every month.

To manufacture the renewable fuel legally, biodiesel producers must register with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Also, biodiesel consumers must pay the government taxes to help with road upkeep.
 

Source: Newsday

SELMA, Ind. — An Indiana man is capitalizing on high crude oil prices with his own oil well - in his back yard!

It comes from the Trenton oil field that fuelled growth in east-central Indiana more than a century ago. It costs about $100,000 to drill an oil well, but that at today's prices, it's worth it.

Losh expects to drill four more wells on his property in the town of Selma, northeast of Indianapolis. He says the oil is stored in a tank and transported to Ohio for sale. The well also produces natural gas to heat his home and several others.

This all began when he began drilling on his ten acre property for natural gas to heat his home and found it. "Let's see if we can drill for oil. If there's gas here, there's got to be oil here," Losh said. "So, we drilled 300 feet deeper to see if we hit oil."

A camera (pics at links below) shows where Losh and his fellow investors found oil, almost 1,300 feet below the surface. While he won't say how many barrels his well pumps each day, the $100,000 start-up cost will pay for itself in one year. The oil is pumped twice a day for 30 minutes into a tank, then it's sold.

Losh says his group of investors will drill four more wells nearby, confident that one of the nation's biggest oil fields in the late 1800's still has plenty of black gold. While he concedes that he's making money, he says there's another incentive for drilling at home.

"It's mainly that we don't have to depend on foreign oil. There's oil here, let's see if we can get it again," he said. "It's time to get our homegrown oil back to Indiana."

Related Stories, and Pics -

http://www.wthr.com/Global/story.asp?S=8348967

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,356606,00.html

http://www.tampabays10.com/news/watercooler/article.aspx?storyid=80715

http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5gnCnM9N-WslQIEIrRXPoh1DdFc8g
 

Nigeria and Big Oil are engaged in a power struggle over profits.

The country is withholding nearly $1 billion from Shell, in a bid to re-negotiate existing profit-sharing agreements.

Shell states that 95% of profits from its joint venture go to the Nigerian federal government - but Nigeria believes that it has been shortchanged by the oil majors.

Shell also claims that the government is failing to come up with cash to deal with gas flaring from oil facilities.

Anger in local communities at the pollution caused by the gas flaring - along with the inability of local and national governments, as well as oil firms, to provide basic infrastructure in the Delta has prompted protesting youths to regularly invade and occupy vital facilities.

The latest invasion took place on Friday and disrupted production, which is running at well below capacity.

Source: Guardian UK - Shell's future in Nigeria in doubt

Addressing ongoing food riots around the world — in places as disparate as Haiti, Egypt, Indonesia, and Pakistan — has shot to the top of the World Bank's crisis agenda.

International leaders met last weekend to discuss spiking commodity prices — up 40% in 2008 — and to ring the alarm for international aid. Heeding the call, President Bush released $200 million in food aid on Tuesday.

The grave situation, felt most acutely in the developing world, has been fueled by several factors. The world population continues to grow while arable land mass decreases; more land is being cultivated for biofuels, not crops; and a changing climate has disrupted traditional growing patterns. (CN)

Read Fuel Choices, Food Crises and Finger-Pointing
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/15/business/worldbusiness/15food.html?ref=world

Companies that use the testing process is only growing, and it includes much more than the petro-chemical industry.

Although there is growth all over the Golden Triangle with the expansion of refineries like Motiva and Total, there's a slight bump in the road.

The Industrial Alliance says more and more potential employees are failing drug tests and can't work for the expansion projects.

Some drug screening agencies say companies are calling daily, wanting to have their employees screened.

Rob Bittle is the owner of Advantage Drug Testing in Beaumont. He says his business is booming since the announcement of several refinery expansions in South County. In fact, he says his company has grown more than 300 percent.

But with that growth, comes a problem with finding enough employees to pass the tests. Out of every fifty, eight people will fail. "We do see them and see people denied access and unfortunately they lose their jobs.

This doesn't allow us the number of people we need to build and maintain facilities, according to Mark Viator, a facilitator with the Industrial Alliance.

The Southeast Texas economy at a deficit. "With a current workforce of about 13 to 14 thousand  another 14 thousand. needed. Every employee that walks through the gates must take a drug screening.

"Delivery people, supply people, supply houses, sub contractors, special skills and services, engineers are all required to be drug screened," says Bittle. "They have a responsibility to the community, environment, their employees, their equipment, to make sure people are fit for duty. Not taking drugs. A responsibility and trust the industry is not willing to break."

Drug screening agencies say the number of companies that use the testing process is only growing, and it includes much more than the petro-chemical industry.
 
http://www.kfdm.com/news/says_25751___article.html/drug_people.html

CARACAS, Venezuela: Venezuela is rerouting oil to China that had previously been sent to a U.S. refinery co-owned by its state oil company and Exxon Mobil Corp., Venezuela's oil minister said Friday.

Rafael Ramirez said Exxon has stopped ordering crude for a refinery in the New Orleans suburb of Chalmette as legal wrangling between the Irving, Texas-based company and Petroleos de Venezuela S.A., or PDVSA, continues.

"Everything went to China," Ramirez told reporters.

PDVSA and Exxon are locked in a fierce legal battle over compensation for the 2007 nationalization of a jointly owned heavy oil project in Venezuela's Orinoco basin.

Ramirez vowed last month that PDVSA would meet its existing contracts with Exxon, including continued shipments to Chalmette. The refinery processes about 190,000 barrels a day, but does not depend exclusively on Venezuelan crude.

International Herald Tribune

In a mode that could clearly say: “I told you so”, critics of America’s involvement in Iraq are now saying that the U.S. Administration sent the troopers there for one primary reason.

To shore up a reliable source of crude oil that would keep flowing into American storage facilities, and hence into American citizens gas tanks for at least another 15 to 20 years.

With Iraqi petroleum reserves estimated to be at least 10% to total world supply, and if major American oil companies like .Exxon-Mobil and Amoco controlling the pumping of oil in most of Iraq, then it would be a win-win situation

Unfortunately,  things didn’t work out the way we wanted them to. Now that Iraqi and US forces are staging an operation against Shiite militiamen in the oil rich Iraqi city of Basra.

Maybe this explains why so many top American officials have made so many “surprise visits” to Iraq in this 2008 election year.

Ever since the invasion of March, 2003, production and exports of Iraqi crude oil have been beset by a combination of old production equipment in bad repair, as well as countless incidents of sabotage by Iraqi insurgents and foreign elements who simply do not want Iraqi oil to fall into the hands of “The Great Satan”,

Five years later and 4,000 American soldiers lay dead, this precious resource seems even more distant from American and other Western automobile gas tanks.

Israel, who once feared possible attacks from Iraq with weapons of mass destruction, called WMD’s for short, now fear another oil rich country, Iran,

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has often called for Israel to be “wiped off the face of the map”.

Oil is now fetching more than $100 a barrel, and the U.S. Dollar is even weaker than currencies like the Israeli Shekel.

It appears that the time has come for some serious stock-taking in regards to just why American forces went into Iraq in the first place, instead of simply letting Saddam Hussein and his cronies remain there as a possible buffer against the real world enemy – .

http://www.onejerusalem.com/2008/03/26/the-oil-war/

Thanks to the weakened dollar, the United States has jumped ahead of France, Britain and other European countries as a cheaper place to do business.

 In 2006, the United States ranked seventh, trailing several other G7 countries. This year, with the dollar at record lows against the euro, only Mexico and Canada are cheaper.

 Mexico, which is new to the study, was cheapest overall. It was added to incorporate a major trading country that is a party to the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Among the larger cities, the cheapest in which to operate were Puebla, Guadalajara and Monterrey, all in Mexico.

In the United States, the cheapest places were Atlanta, Tampa, Fla., and the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

The San Francisco Bay Area was the most expensive in the nation, edging out New York for that dubious distinction. London, Frankfurt, Germany, and Manchester, England, were all more expensive than San Francisco.

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

You might lose some sleep when you find out what's really inside your mattress-memory foam or not.

The place where you spend one-third of your life is chock-full of synthetic materials, some potentially toxic.

Since the mid- to late '60s, most mattresses have been made of polyurethane foam, a petroleum-based material that emits volatile organic compounds that can cause respiratory problems and skin irritation.

Formaldehyde, which is used to make one of the adhesives that hold mattresses together, has been linked to asthma, allergies, and lung, nose, and throat cancers. And then there are cotton pesticides and flame-retardant chemicals, which can cause cancer and nervous-system disorders.

In 2005, Walter Bader, owner of the "green mattress" company Lifekind and author of the book Toxic Bedrooms, sent several mattresses to an Atlanta-based lab. A memory-foam model was found to emit 61 chemicals, including the carcinogens benzene and naphthalene.

There is no proven health risk from the substances in mattresses, however, mostly because tracking their long-term effects is virtually impossible.

Heather Stapleton, an environmental chemist at Duke University, says there's simply not enough data to determine whether low levels of these chemicals will eventually make people sick. "It's the dose that makes the poison," she says. "If they're not getting out, maybe it's not a problem-but we don't know. There are plenty of lab studies that show that these compounds are harmful. It's just a question of what levels people are exposed to."

Still, more and more consumers are seeking out mattresses made of natural latex, organic cotton batting, and organic wool. Sales of California-based Vivètique's latex mattresses have increased by 40% annually for the past five years-they now comprise 45% of the company's total sales. And they are even sold by discounter 1-800-Mattress.

Read more at ENN - Should You Ditch Your Chemical Mattress?

Continental Airlines, Boeing and GE Aviation have announced plans to conduct a biofuels demonstration flight in the first half of 2009 in an effort to identify sustainable fuel solutions for the aviation industry.

Continental is the first major U.S. carrier to announce plans to highlight technological advancements in sustainable biofuels that can help to further reduce carbon emissions.

The biofuel flight will use a Boeing Next-Generation 737 equipped with CFM International CFM56-7B engines. CFM is a 50/50 joint company of General Electric Company and Snecma (SAFRAN Group).

In the months leading up to the flight, Continental, Boeing and GE will work together and with an undisclosed fuel provider to identify sustainable fuel sources that don't impact food crops, water resources or contribute to deforestation, and which can be produced in sufficient quantities to support a pre-flight test schedule that includes laboratory and ground-based jet engine performance testing to ensure compliance with stringent aviation fuel performance and safety requirements.

As part of a broader industry effort, Boeing and other industry thought leaders, including airlines and engine manufacturers, are helping to guide the aviation sector toward sustainable biofuels produced through advanced biomass conversion technologies and processes that have the potential to reduce greenhouse gases throughout their lifecycle.

For more information, visit www.continental.com, www.boeing.com or www.ge.com

While surfing the net, I ran across this article - which is more important sex or the economy? It seems that this week sex was more important than the economy - at least according to the news media - twisted minds - CT

Americans missed the news on Monday that the cost of crude oil hit $110 a barrel, and then fell back to $109.

How is it that this news headline was missed? Well, the news media was too obsessed with soon to be ex New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's sex scandal with a 22 year old prostitute, and pushed the price of oil headline to the back pages.

Sex always sells in America, but we all need to keep our eye on what is really important. While Spitzer's sex life makes a great gossip item, how does that really impact our lives compared to the continued price of oil which is causing gas, food and the cost of products to continually rise each month? Spitzer is a wealthy man, but I doubt that he is paying any of our bills - so is this really the most important story in America right now? Of course not!  But we always seem to get preoccupied with matters and people that have no real impact in our lives, while letting the really important issues slide off our radar screen.

This next presidential election is one of the most important elections in American history, and let's face it - our economy is in the pits - and this obviously effects every American in some way or another.

So, I suggest the media get back on track to what is really important, and put the Spitzer story on the back pages while reserving front page for real news stories.  

Read full article at Daily News Tribune

By the way - A lot of people who don't live like most of us "average" Americans are out of touch about the price of oil and gasoline, because their pocketbooks are not affected. Like in a recent press conference the president showed his ignorance of gasoline prices when he was obviously caught off guard, and appeared to be somewhat shocked by $4.00 a gallon prices quoted by one journalists. Guess the president doesn't know about some people in Alaska paying far more than $4.00 a gallon right now. I bet they could care less about the governor's sex life. See previous posting Oil Rich Alaska Poor Struggle to Heat Homes