Does South Africa Have The Answer To Peak Oil?

While oil prices rise above $115/barrel industry companies are looking to alternatives. But some of the alternatives burn dirtier than oil. One of these is coal-to-oil technology. . Sasol officials acknowledge their facilities emit greenhouse gases and that building more coal-to-liquids facilities around the world "could have potentially significant implications, in the long run, for our commitment to reducing carbon intensity," according to a recent company report on its social and environmental programs.
To be fair, Sasol does have future plans with newer technologies which they claim will trap carbon dioxide instead of emitting it but their projection is only a 10% decrease in pollutants by 2015.
Sasol's share price has more than tripled over the past three years. Analysts estimate it earned about $2 billion in the year ended June 30, about 35 percent higher than the year before -- such a sharp rise that South African authorities are contemplating a "windfall tax" on the company.
Coal-to-oil’s technology is tainted. It started in Germany in the 1920’s ad it was used to fuel the Nazi war machine in the 1930s and 1940s. International oil companies also experimented with the process but put it aside because oil was cheaper.
South Africa took a different view. The country lacked oil, but had enormous deposits of coal, much of which had limited market value because of its poor quality. In 1950, the government set up Sasol as a state-owned company and authorized funding for its first project, a coal-to-liquids facility called Sasolburg in the South African countryside.
By the time the facilities were completed in the early 1980s, international oil prices were collapsing. The project was nonetheless a success for the white-dominated apartheid government because international sanctions were restricting South Africa's ability to buy foreign oil. Sasol had become 75% privatized by 1979 and their plants managed to stay profitable by continually boosting efficiency and expanding their end products to include plastics, fertilizers and explosives.
Today, Secunda is a buzzing industrial hub with 16,000 employees, miles of interlocking pipes and cables, and eight colossal silos. The silos, each big enough to contain a football field, cool steam involved in the conversion process. Fuel trucks wait along the edge of the facility to fill up with gasoline. Nearby mines produce more than 40 million metric tons of coal a year -- as much as all of Illinois.Outside the plant gates, Secunda has a boomtown feel. It has some 35,000 people, a BMW dealership and a multistory casino hotel called Graceland designed to evoke the "grand old age of Colonial America."
As oil prices began to perk up, Sasol drew interest on the coal front from China, with its big coal reserves and energy needs.
By 2004, Chinese energy planners began meeting with Sasol executives in Beijing to discuss the coal-to-oil process. That was followed by a series of meetings with policy makers and Chinese companies, capped by a gathering in Cape Town in June attended by visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.
Sasol officials say they're interested in Montana and other potential sites in the U.S., provided they can find a suitable partner and receive tax or other incentives. Coal-to-oil "is coming to the United States," Gov. Schweitzer proclaims. When it does, he says, other countries "will be scrambling to protect their oil supplies -- and we'll be energy independent."
So, while Sasol is making a killing what does the average South African citizen do in order to fight back against inflation and rapidly rising gas prices? There is a solution.
WATER4GAS is offering information for a nominal fee which folks can use in their garage or wherever to create a small device which instills hydrogen into the gas/air mixture that their car or truck runs on.
Using Water4Gas you can reasonably expect to increase your MPG by 30-50% or significantly more. With W4G gasoline is made usable so you can increase your MPG.
It also helps make emissions significantly cleaner.Happy members number about 99%! Isn't it your turn now?

Article Source: http://www.rightarticle.com

Water4Gas is an easy, inexpensive discovery that anyone can construct with or without skills to increase your MPG up to 50% and more while cleaning the engine - it will even reduce pollution. Find out how easy this is! A water powered car is now reality and is one of the best alternative fuel solutions

Please Rate this Article

5 out of 54 out of 53 out of 52 out of 51 out of 5 

Not yet Rated