[Gasification] US future policy

[Kevin Chisholm]

Dear Manuel

This is interesting!!

It is starting to look now like the the US acknowledgment of Global 
Warming and the need to control fossil fuel carbon emissions is two things:
1: A massive Public Relations Program for the US Nuclear Power Industry.
2: Support for Cheney's famous pronouncement, to make it self-fulfilling.
("The American Way of Life is non-negotiable")

Now, one can wonder "Why is it OK for the US to expand its Nuclear Power 
Program, and wrong for Iran to do so?" Some might say "We can't trust 
Iran." Who says we can trust the US not to proliferate nuclear weapons 
and to use them???

It must be the oil that makes Foreigners untrustworthy! :-) The US seems 
to trust Pakistan, Israel and France, who have no oil and tons of nukes, 
but they don't trust Iraq and Iran, who do have oil, but no nukes. The 
US is almost out of oil, so we can almost trust them. A concern that 
troubles me greatly is: If Israel made a move on Iran and acquired oil, 
would it then become untrustworthy, and be required to give up its 
nukes?  They probably trust France because France brought Freedom Fries 
to the World.

Now, wouldn't it be interesting if the US saw how silly Cheney's vote 
getting slogan actually was, and decided to implement widespread energy 
conservation? Imagine how quickly the US Government could make the 
American People aware of the need to conserve energy if they simply put 
a Carbon Tax of $US1 on the fossil carbon content of each gallon of 
gasoline and diesel fuels!!! The tax collected on imported oil alone 
would amount to about $US400,000,000 per day, or about $US12 billion per 
month. That is nothing that would negatively impact on the American 
Economy, in that they presently are comfortable with a $60 billion per 
month trade deficit, and don't seem at all concerned about getting it 
back into balance.

Such a Carbon Tax would be hard on us in Nova Scotia. It would 
significantly increase the cost of the Strawberries we import 2,500 
miles from Florida, or the Lettuce and Tomatoes we import 3,500 miles 
from California. :-) If this happened, it would no doubt have a 
significant negative impact on the financial performance of McDonalds.

An unintended side benefit of the Fossil Fuel Tax would be the enormous 
boost it would give to Biomass Gasification. This probably won't happen, 
because the Biomass Gasification Industry is not as well organized as 
are the Oil, Farm, Coal and Nuclear Industries. A few important changes 
would be necessary for the Biomass Gasification Industry to acquire the 
necessary Lobby support to grow:

1: Laws would have to be made requiring that all biomass would be sold 
through Brokers from New York or Chicago, and the Lumber Interests who 
were so successful in lobbying for protective tariffs against Canadian 
Lumber Imports. (In retrospect, we should have sold all our lumber 
through Walmart, in that there are no tariffs on any of the goods they 
import.) The Biomass Gasification Industry (BGI)needs good lobbyists.

2: Haliburton and its associated Companies would be given untendered 
contracts to build all biomass gasification plants bigger than a 45 
gallon drum. They are very good Lobbyists, and would be a big asset to 
the BGI

3: All water vapor in the stack plumes from Gasification Power Plants 
would be condensed and sent to Israel, so that they would not need the 
water resources located in the West Bank and Golan Heights.

4: If I can put in a plug for Canada, all such environmentally friendly 
water would be shipped to Israel in barrels made from Canadian Softwood 
Lumber. Capturing this Green Water would not aggravate the present US 
water crisis any further. Indeed, the reduction of Strawberry, Lettuce 
and Tomato exports to Canada would help ease the water problems in 
California and Florida.

5: The empty water barrels would be sun dried in Israel, and gasified to 
eliminate the Israel dependency on imported Oil. With no concerns for 
abundant water and oil, Israel could start to be nice to its neighbors.

6: As a sweetener to the deal, Canada would agree to ship oil to the US 
in softwood barrels. There is no danger of ever running out... Canada 
has mountains of softwood lumber it previously could not sell into the 
US because of the punitive Softwood Lumber Tarrif it imposed.

The above preliminary proposal might have a few rough edges, but it is 
probably more likely to bring the US closer to energy self-sufficiency 
than all present US proposals put together.

Kevin ;-)







Manuel Ferreira Santos wrote:
> Dear gasifiers:
> 
>  
> 
> Please find the opinions to US president’s Candidates below:
> 
>  
> 
> HYPERLINK
> http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/09/399/
> 
> Regards
> 
>  
> 
> MFS__,_._,___ 
>