We've heard a lot about biofuels and biodiesel in the past few years. President Bush even asserted in his State of the Union address that we need to “expand the use of clean diesel vehicles and biodiesel fuel” (source). Well, here's a source of biofuels that hadn't occurred to me:
Scientists and Australian beer maker Foster's are teaming up to generate clean energy from brewery waste water — by using sugar-consuming bacteria. (source)
A 660-gallon fuel cell will produce enough power for one household. As Jurg Keller from the University of Queensland points out, “It's not going to make an enormous amount of power – its primarily a waste water treatment that has the added benefit of creating electricity.” Still, it's an intriguing thought. Reduce your country's dependence on foreign oil by drinking beer.
The United States Congress is considering an energy bill to promote “energy independence”.
The $2.56 trillion federal budget for 2006, adopted late Thursday night by the House and Senate, includes a provision that Congress can open the refuge by enacting a particular kind of legislation, called "a reconciliation," that is not vulnerable to Senate filibusters, which have been used to kill such drilling measures in the past. Majorities in both chambers have already voiced support of Arctic drilling this year. The House approved broad energy legislation last week that includes a drilling provision. In the Senate, lawmakers voted narrowly in favor of drilling last month, when the issue came up in connection with the budget. (source)
So which radical magazine do you suppose recently published the following opinion:
[Congress] is now considering an energy bill that would allow oil drilling in pristine parts of Alaska and would dole out billions in subsidies for the oil and gas business. This is mad. America has so little oil, and guzzles so much, that it will never again be energy-independent while relying on oil. America's best hopes for energy security lie in the resilience of global oil markets, in conservation and in alternative energy sources.
Sierra Magazine perhaps? Maybe a newsletter from the Natural Resources Defense Council?
I've done a little more poking around and found some more specific figures on what we can reasonably expect to see in the way of new oil production from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
In early 2000, the Energy Information Administration (EIA), in response to a Congressional request, issued a report on potential oil reserves and production from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). The report, which cited a 1998 U.S. Geological Survey study of ANWR oil resources, projected that for the mean resource case (10.3 billion barrels technically recoverable), ANWR peak production rates could range from 1.0 to 1.35 million bbl/d, with initial ANWR production possibly beginning around 2010, and peak production 20-30 years after that.
(source: United States Country Analysis Brief, Energy Information Administration, U.S. Department of Energy)
President Bush's long-stalled plan to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling cleared a major hurdle on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, when the Senate voted to include the proposal in its budget, a maneuver that smoothes the way for Congress to approve drilling later this year. -- The New York Times, 17 March 2005
Until now votes in the Senate have stopped efforts to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration and drilling. The House has consistently voted in favor of drilling. There is every reason to expect that they will do so again. And it hardly needs to be said that the President will sign any bill authorizing such drilling. It is a sad day.
