Who is Making the Oil Fume ?

Nkg,

There is nothing worng. But society will have to pay a price for it. Which is:

Denudation of rain forests.
Increased food prices.

As long as we are willing to pay the price voluntarily there should be no issue. And states should not have any fiscal discrimination between biofuels or fossil fuels

Regards

In support of opec

http://www.inflationdata.com/inflation/images/charts/Oil/Inflation_Adj_O il_Prices_Chart.htm

The poor arabs, did not get a price increase for teh last fifteen years, see link above, and at least now for a few years they can have some windfall.

The present price rise and the resurgence of opec is due to bad deal they got for so long.

The sad part is that they will get used to this money, they have so many projects started, and in two years time the demenad will drop. Then the opec will become weak, each will try to pump as mush as possible and the price will collapse. That is what happened in the 70s.

Hopefully, that will not happen this time due to cooperation to stabilise teh price so taht new technologies can em,erge.

Re: # 46
Majumder...
Coming to bio-fuel...
If we can use coconut or mustard seed to extract oil for frying vegerables etc... and applying on body, why not to use in vehicles? We have to use bio-fuel sooner or later...

Couple of advanced technologies evovelved to be used for common purpose vehicle engines - MPFI/CRDI with high precision fuel injection system (electronically controlled), high pressure fuel compressor and usage of turbo-chargers to make vehicle very fuel efficient.

The situation is such, we need to use bio-fuel sooner or later...

Jayp,

Re: 50

Fair point. Decentralised generation using biomass, biofuels and mini hydel has a lot of potential which must be exploited but cannot substitute fully for fossil fuels, as yet.

Regards

Re: # 49

At present crude oil and its distillates are used primarily for transportation fuel. Hence the total energy basket is inappropriate. Among the transport fuels, electricity and bio fules and human energy ( bikes) can make an impact, along with mass transport.

The advantage of jatrapha is that it is a hardy drought resistant plant, can grow here food crops cannot. hence the yield is not an issue. Further the plant stops soil erosion. Hence it is a multi-beneficial crop. Hopefully many small extractions palnts will come up and the local level use of jatropha will increase.
In India of course using alcohol as a fuel is total waste, so many mouths to drink and with a strong pharmasuitical industry, the feedstock use is the most economical.

By teh way, edible oil use, at least import to india has stabilised due to all the hype about heart decease and oil.

Jayp,

Biofuel will account for only a small part of the world's energy basket.

The problem with Jatropha is that if you cultivate it in wastelands, the yields will not be high enuff to produce enuff of oil.

Re: Sugar

Bagasse is used in power generation but less than 50% of cogen capacity is being tapped currently in India. Molasses are used for making alcohol which apart from used as booze and industrial alcohol (for chemicals) is used as ethanol for fuel doping as well.

While it is a good crop it must be remembered that this is a water guzzler and with water scarcity being an issue we cannot rely on it too much.

Coco and palm oil are good biodiesels but again acreage can be increased only by detroying rainforests in Amazon or Malay or Indonesia. And by diverting use from edible oil.

Unfortunatley there are no easy solutions in sight.

Regards

Re: # 46

Bio fuel is a good option if it is used wisely. In India, there increasingly there is a bio diesel industry coming up using jatrpha oil. This shrub can grow in marginal lands, and teh railways are planning to use the land along the rail lines for jatropha cultivation. Nearly 40 percent of the diesel consumption in India is by the railways and bio fuel already account for 5 percent and will be boosted to 20 pecenbt in five years. Many small jatrophs oil extraction companies are coming.

It is all a question of fuel pricing. Another good example is sugar mills. In india, most sugar mills are energy surplus, they burn bagasse, ferment teh molasses and use the excess nagasse to make alcohol, or else it burnt to produce electricity to feed into teh grid. While in australia for example, natural gas is use to crystalise sugar while the bagasse is a waste dumped or used as soil conditioner.

Coconut oil is by far the best substitute for diesel, it can be used directly without processing, but cocomut oil has better use as feedstock for high performane lube oils. Most of teh aircraft lube oils are made out of coconut oil. The so called fully sysnthtic oils for cars are actually from vegetable oil base, and is not a petroleum product.

African countries depend on petro money for basic necessaties for the current level of export. So, India, China and european countries can exploit that situation to keep suplier and consumer both happy keeping the price stable. Where as old oil producing countries in Arab like Saudi, Iran, Kuwait... are already rich enough and can sustain with lower sales volume for long period. So, they can easily play with the oil price...

Nkg,

a) is a very bad option. It:

diverts land from food crops to biofuels which jacks up fuel prices.
sometimes uses up almost CO2 as it fixes.

b and c are much better.

Regards

#44
Ijaj....
Natural Oil( Petro) was major source of worry for last few years (at least from 2004/5 onwards). Brazil, US, Europe etc... initiated couple of projects to lower the usage of petro products- specialy in the following line
a) Usage of bio-fuel
b) Use better technology to improve efficiency
c) Improve mass transport system.
Saudi Oil Minister expressed unhappiness on these projects (some time around 2006)...I can not provide you the exact reference....

nkg
'The supply side disturbance is mostly due to sabotage by islamist militias in Nigera, Chad... Hand of Arab countries in these activities can not be ruled out.'

I think they had their day in 1973. No more

Re: # 41
IjaZ...

India-
Already inflation crossed double digit and industrial output slumped...All auto majors ( M & M , Tata, A L ) shares are gowing down rapidly. Indian billionares lost INR $3Tns in last couple of months...


China- Inflation is very high. They have increased fuel price more than 15%. Wait for another 1-2 months. Chinese inflation will definitely jump like other Asian Countries.

Part of Europe may be little bit insulated (consumption growth in Russia may keep European factories running)...

The supply side disturbance is mostly due to sabotage by islamist militias in Nigera, Chad... Hand of Arab countries in these activities can not be ruled out.

Re: # 35

anil sahib

Euro was not in existence in the mid nineties thus the lack of proper comparison an dmore importantly US Dollar had suffered much bigger drops starting mid-eighties all the way to the ninteies yet oil demand kept rising both in the US and Europe.

As for India,
Thanks to Long Term sound economic policies and a sustainable growth,no major effect.
Import based consumerism in India is well hedges by low prices. Moreover Indian Foreign Exchange reserves are capable of taking a shock and then growing rapidly.
BanglaDesh,
With a High poverty graph and export based on value addition, effects will be pronounced. However small industries being productive and state protected, will help out wading the crisis.
Pakistan
Import based comsumerism on the high, value addition exports on the decline, balance of payments serious, local indistries not hedges and protected, a skwed Sales Tax adding to inflation, will make the bubble burst.

Logically, European consumption should go down. France is taking large amount of steps towards that. They are enhancing public transport system and constantly upgrading their high speed trains (like TGV) (best alternative to fuel guzzler Passenger Jets). For Asian countries solar and wind power is nice alternative for electricity generation, which can be used for public transport.

Though the petro price hike is basically used for financing islam/terrorism (mosques, madressas in India and Bangladesh are increasing in rapid rate for last couple of years), the positive fallout should be very good if Govt. puts heavy duty on oil, rather than reduce it.
Petro products pollute environment. No country puts pollution realted tax on petrol, diesel or kerosene (every budget, you see Govt. hikes Tax on tobaco products). Furthermore, this resource, like coal is not recyclable. Unless we find some ways to convert wood to coal and vegetable oil to petro product, Govt.s should discourage people from using petro products. Anyhow, democracy works in different way (what people think about next 5 years matters most). Unless and until people are forced, they will still go for petro products.
Some stupid comments about bio-fuel (can not be used for defence equipment and jets). Any hydrocarbon (whether you get it from animal fat or plant fat or any other source) with proper air compression, can be burned in any rate. With recent developments in genetic engineering, it should not be very difficult to create better alternative fuel than ethanol or jatropa oil. A380 can be run on mixed fuel. Future passenger jet engines from RR or GE will be able to use all types of fules.

Anil, India and China may be increasing fuel consumption, but that is mostly due to productivity increase for some section of society (of these countries). So, it is almost inevitable. If an engineer working in GE/Motorola in USA drives Ford F-150 to reach office, an Indian engineer working in GE/Motorola should not hesitate to use Santro/Alto/Indica...

Ijaz gul sahib,

If these developing countries collapse wouldnt their energy consumption suffer as well thus affecting energy prices. Even if their total share of the basket is small even a small swing in consumption can sometimes affect prices.

Same ways, if these countries economy collapse wouldnt it turn have adverse impact on Chinese/American exports to these countries.

Where do you place India, Pak and B'desh in this matrix- in the list of developing countries, would they collapse like dominos as you suggest or they can tide over.

Regards