xcel
10-26-2006, 06:31 AM
Despite falling oil prices, observers say quest for petroleum options won't die out like it did in the 1970s. (http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061026/AUTO01/610260347/1148)
Mike Meyers - Minneapolis Star Tribune - Oct. 25, 2006
http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/Bio_ethanol_pipeline.jpg
New technologies make Ethanol and other bio fuel production attractive even as gasline prices fall.
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn . - The cost of a barrel of crude oil has fallen fast in recent weeks. Will interest in finding alternatives to petroleum tumble with the price?
It has in the past. But observers believe the quest for alternatives has more staying power this time.
In the 1970s, two oil "crises" prompted private and public investments to produce oil squeezed from shale, autos propelled by batteries and factory machinery turned by the power of the sun. All encountered technical challenges and another hurdle: Oil prices ebbed and so did any chance of profit from the alternatives with the technologies then available.
"One of the problems of investing in these technologies are big capital investments up front. How will your investment do over time when oil prices are very volatile?" said Albert Walgreen, economist at the U.S. Department of Energy.
The energy agency predicts that the price of oil will average about $50 a barrel during the next quarter-century. "To the extent that oil prices have fallen, it makes alternatives less competitive," said John Felmy, chief economist at the American Petroleum Institute, an oil-industry trade group in Washington.
Yet alternative energy advocates say forces are converging to make new technologies more attractive, even if the forecasts of $100-a-barrel oil turn out to be far off the mark.
They note that the costs of extracting oil from tar sands or refining ethanol from corn have fallen in recent years, even as oil prices have gone from about $20 a barrel to nearly three times that level now.
Government and private industry are pouring billions into alternative energy research to curb the creation of greenhouse gases and promote U.S. energy independence - two goals that have grown more prominent in the face of evidence of global warming and continued conflict in the Mideast.
Mike Meyers - Minneapolis Star Tribune - Oct. 25, 2006
http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/Bio_ethanol_pipeline.jpg
New technologies make Ethanol and other bio fuel production attractive even as gasline prices fall.
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn . - The cost of a barrel of crude oil has fallen fast in recent weeks. Will interest in finding alternatives to petroleum tumble with the price?
It has in the past. But observers believe the quest for alternatives has more staying power this time.
In the 1970s, two oil "crises" prompted private and public investments to produce oil squeezed from shale, autos propelled by batteries and factory machinery turned by the power of the sun. All encountered technical challenges and another hurdle: Oil prices ebbed and so did any chance of profit from the alternatives with the technologies then available.
"One of the problems of investing in these technologies are big capital investments up front. How will your investment do over time when oil prices are very volatile?" said Albert Walgreen, economist at the U.S. Department of Energy.
The energy agency predicts that the price of oil will average about $50 a barrel during the next quarter-century. "To the extent that oil prices have fallen, it makes alternatives less competitive," said John Felmy, chief economist at the American Petroleum Institute, an oil-industry trade group in Washington.
Yet alternative energy advocates say forces are converging to make new technologies more attractive, even if the forecasts of $100-a-barrel oil turn out to be far off the mark.
They note that the costs of extracting oil from tar sands or refining ethanol from corn have fallen in recent years, even as oil prices have gone from about $20 a barrel to nearly three times that level now.
Government and private industry are pouring billions into alternative energy research to curb the creation of greenhouse gases and promote U.S. energy independence - two goals that have grown more prominent in the face of evidence of global warming and continued conflict in the Mideast.