Israel to Destroy the Power of Arab Oil
Israel has come up with something that will sap the economic strength from the Arab countries and others with huge oil reserves, while improving the economies of the rest of the world. Every dollar we pay for Arab oil goes into Islamic schools to teach Muslims how to destroy the West. Our own moneys are being used to destroy us.
Now, a new process to squeeze oil out of shale may finally end that addiction.
UPI - Israel sees shale replacing oil:
HAIFA, Israel, Nov. 7 (UPI) -- The Israeli process for producing energy from oil shale will cut its oil imports by one-third, and will serve as a guide for other countries with oil shale deposits, according to one company.A.F.S.K. Hom Tov presented its oil shale processing method on Tuesday, outside Haifa and just down the street from one of the country's two oil refinery facilities.
"Because the patents for this process belong to (the company), Israel is the most advanced in the world in the effort to create energy from oil shale," Moshe Shahal, a Hom Tov legal representative and a former Israeli energy minister, told United Press International.
Shahal estimated that the company's Negev Desert facility would begin full-scale production in three to four years, while other countries with oil shale deposits will need five to six years to reach production.
Oil shale is limestone rock that contains hydrocarbons, or fossil fuels -- about 20 percent of the amount of energy found in coal. Using the rock as a raw material and coating it with bitumen, a residue of the crude oil refining process, the company can produce natural gas, fuel, electricity, or a combination of the three.
Older technologies squeezed the hydrocarbon material out of the rock, with extremely high pressure and at high temperatures.
According to Professor Ze'ev Aizenshtat, an oil shale expert, the Hom Tov process is more environmentally friendly than other methods of converting oil shale into energy. It also allows for more flexibility in the kind of fuel produced, produces less waste and operates at lower temperatures than other methods.
Though the production process may be more environmentally friendly, the end product is still a fossil fuel, similar in quality to a high-grade diesel when in liquid form.
Israel's shale is low-quality, however -- its "caloric value" is only about 15 percent, while shale in other countries yields 20 percent, according to a report in BusinessWeek earlier this year. As a result, more Israeli shale is needed to produce the same amount of fuel.
Hom Tov isn't worried, however. "This is a much lighter (substance) than what gradually comes out of an oil field," Aizenshtat told UPI, as Hom Tov company owners Israel Feldman and Shimon Kazansky posed for photographs with their fingers dipped in a plastic pitcher of the stuff.
Because fewer refining processes are necessary with oil shale than with crude oil, the final product is a higher quality fuel at a lower price, Aizenshtat said.
The company estimates it will consume 6 million tons of oil shale and 2 million tons of refinery waste each year, for an annual production of 3 million tons of product.
It would cost about $17 to produce a barrel of synthetic oil at the Hom Tov facility, meaning giant profit margins in a world of $45 to $60 per barrel crude. Yearly earnings are forecasted to be between $159 million and $350 million, Shahal said.
Israel has 15 billion tons of oil shale reserves. Jordan, on the other hand, has about 25 billion tons, and the oil shale in Jordan is of higher quality. Shahal met with Jordanian Energy Minister Azmi Khreisat earlier this year, to discuss setting up a plant there.
The United States also has a giant reserve, mostly in Colorado, and Hom Tov sees potential for its patented process there.
The process, which Feldman and Kazansky developed in the mid-1990s, has lately attracted some high-powered investors, including Ofer Glazer -- the third husband of Israel's richest resident, billionaire Carnival Cruise heiress Shari Arison.
"It's a kind of dream" to invest in Hom Tov, Glazer told UPI. "It's the type of investment where Israel needs the product, and it creates jobs."
Glazer added that it will be good for Israel not to be dependent on "external sources" for its energy needs, saying that "those countries aren't exactly friendly (to Israel.)"
Related: Christian Science Monitor - Newest hot spot for oil production: Canada, Excerpt: More expensive to process than the light crude oil of the Middle East, Alberta's oil sands have long remained a largely untapped resource. But with oil at $70 a barrel, it has become economically feasible to extract the thick, sticky bitumen that in former years was used to seal native people's canoes - not fuel a global economy.
Wiki - The United States Energy Information Administration estimates the world supply of oil shale at 2.6 trillion barrels of recoverable oil, 1.0-1.2 trillion barrels of which are in the United States.
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Comments from Old Comment System
- While the U.S. does have very large, high-quality shale oil deposits, Canada has some HUGE deposits. This could be one portion of a multi-stage plan to wean the West of Islamic oil. Actually weaning the U.S. from unecesasary use of oil as fuel (the stuff is probably better-used in manufacure of other products than just to be burned up as fuel) would take more. China's looking ahead and preparing to be THE economic powerhouse of the Pacific rim, with plans for something approaching 200 pebble bed reactors already in the works... with 20 or so projected to come online within the next three years or so. MIT has published the plans for a modular PBR that could be mass-produced. Think of it: weaning the U.S. from using fossil fuels by means of producing PBRs (for a start) that are about as safe to run as hydroelectric plants... and with less environmental impact than any other means of producing electricity currently *heh* available for mass production, save perhaps hydro plants (and even those can cause major environmental disruptions). And PBRs are just one of many technologies that are readily and economically available today. And think of the U.S. _exporting_ power to countries that are strapped by high oil prices via exporting modular PBRs, ready to set up and provide electricity. And with abundant, economical electricity, all sorts of things are possible. Hydrogen-powered cars? Cracking water to produce the stuff can be economical with modern atomic energy plants. (The safety concerns of hydrogen powered cars can be easily addressed with engineering updates of the technology already used by propane-powered cars.) And still addicted to oil-fired cars? No sweat, with abundant electricity. Already, plants that _make_ oil from organic wastes, efficiently, economically, are in operation in the U.S. Imagine, with abundant atomic-powered electricity, it'd be even more economic to run the things (they already provide some of their energy needs with waste heat and other by-products), and nearly every county in the U.S. could have a thermal polymer conversion plant integrated into its waste disposal and water treatment systems (one of the "by-products" of the process is clean water), producing enough high-grade light "crude" to pay for itself, at the very least. Then there're the possibilities of other technologies that are very nearly possible today with off-the-shelf technology, such as space-based solar electricity production. With adequate non-fossil-fuel electicity generation, shale oil production and tpc plants, among other technologies within our grasp NOW, we could easily wean ourselves from foreign oil dependence within a decade. And if this were coupled with a _rational_ tax policy (such as the Fair Tax) and a _rational_ immigration and border control policy, then the security situation here in the U.S. would be radically changed for the better, both in terms of direct physical security and economic security. We COULD... but will short-sighted politicians and businessmen get behind rational policies and Push Real Hard? Not without being shown the door for a few election cycles, I fear. *sigh*
Comment by: David ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://plancksconstant.org/nav-commenters.gif)
on November 20, 2006 12:13 PM
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