Biomass is now well recognized as the only source of carbon that is climate neutral in its use, as the photosynthetic cycle is in near equilibrium with respect to the carbon flux between growing biomass and its return to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide after use as a fuel. Further growth in secondary energy forms, as liquid fuels and electricity, is expected along with an increase emphasis on green chemistry in bio-refineries to produce high performance bio-products substituting for fossil derived materials.

OTHER NEWS - THE THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Over the past years we have listen to many people talking about National Security, US Energy Consumption, US Energy Independence. Since the early 1970's ANGTL believes that the dollars paid by the West to the Middle East are root causes of the problems we face today. We can do something about this however our National Energy Policy (or lack there of) has the US purchasing crude from the lowest cost supplier or producing electric power with our least abundant resource - natural gas.

We don't factor in the hidden costs of doing business with the Middle East so what is the real cost of this "cheap" crude oil. A National Energy Policy that reduces US dependence on foreign crude by 50% within the next 20 years will go a long way at least in reducing the oil dollars that funds part of the problem.

We were listening to the news reports on the Presidents request for another $87 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan and the thought occurred to us:

1) Where does the money come from to support terrorism - our guess, Western crude oil purchases from the Middle East.

2) What would happen if the US cut back 3 or 4 million bbl/d of foreign crude purchases - our guess the world price of crude would drop $2 to $3/bbl

3) What would happen if the US took $100 billion and built new coal, bio-mass and natural gas based Fischer Tropsch
(F-T) synthetic fuel plants - the US would employ several hundred thousand US citizens, build over 3 million bbl/d of new synthetic motor fuels plants in 10 to 30 different states throughout the US

4) What would that mean for America - with crude oil at $25/bbl, $30 billion /yr less money going overseas; at a $2/bbl reduction in world crude prices the American consumer would save $13 billion/yr on its crude purchases.

Imagine that- If the US applied $100 billion to build synthetic F-T fuel plants running on US natural gas, coal and bio-mass it could keep $30 billion/yr in the US, potentially save the US consumer an additional $13 billion /yr in reduced energy prices and put to work hundreds of thousands of Americans.

With a 3 to 8 year pay out. Not a bad investment.

Never heard about synthetic fuels or gas to liquids (GTL's), they have been around since the 1930's, over a 30 billion gallons produced so far. Recent advances in the technology have brought the capital costs down, improved the efficiencies and have added bio-renewable feed stock (BTL) to the supply chain. Bio-renewable F-T synthetic fuels have a neutral impact on the worlds CO2 emissions and certain coal gasification technologies can produce the feed stock for a synthetic fuels plant with little CO2 emissions. The technology is there, the US just lacks the will to make it happen today.

What is the value of F-T diesel? In the US, unkown but in Germany where the people worry about the environment, ultra clean F-T diesel sells for a premium !

Why isn't the US Government pursuing the BTL/CTL option to reduce our dependence on foreign crude?

GOOD QUESTION - IF YOU AGREE WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?