Global Dimming And Peak Oil Dusko Jocic (July 10th, 2006)

According to Wikipedia.org : Thermal depolymerization (TDP) is a process for the reduction of complex
organic materials (usually waste products of various sorts, often known as biomass) into light crude oil.
It is a proven technique of turning organic matter of all kinds into light sweet crude, natural gas,
distilled water and a mix of minerals. If a 165 pound man was inserted into one end of the machine on
the other end would come out approximately 40-45 litres of oil, a few pounds of natural gas, 120 pounds
of distilled water and a few more pounds of minerals.

Now, I don't recommend or endorse putting anyone into the machine. I could think of a few people that I'd
like to see in that machine. Hitler, Stalin, Veruka Salt from the original Chocolate Factory, come on, nobody
liked these guys and would love to turn them into oil. During the early days of rail when the French And
British were using rail transport in Egypt they would use mummies as a fuel source for their trains. I guess those poor
souls would never get to move on to eternity. There were so many people buried in the Nile Valley that Mummies
were once considered a natural resource. They burned better then wood. Armies of the future might take their
fallen enemies, shove them into the machine and keep pushing into enemy territory.

There have been many geologists that have claimed that the center of the Earth is like a creamy nugget that
replenishes oil from below. But if this were true then Thermal Depolymerization would not work. This process
takes organic matter and puts it under pressure and extreme temperature and burns it down to more basic
materials and only loses 15% of it's gross energy producing a net return of 85%. The process is currently patented
and has been used as recently as a couple of months ago at a Turkey Factory in The United States. It was
shut down due to stenches that came from the factory, but it was proven that the smell came from a plant
nearby. I smell a conspiracy. Apparantly neighbors complained and shut it down. As of December 29, 2005,
the plant was ordered by the state governor to shut down once again over allegations of foul odours as
reported by MSNBC.

The best part about this energy system is that anyone can use off the shelf parts and it doesn't require
changing the fleet of the cars that are on the road today to another source of fuel. The downside is that
large corporations might buy huge plots of land and convert them to oil. Imagine giant machines eating trees, dirt,
bugs and anything else in their strip mining operations for energy. Luckily this hasn't started and
the process is patented so they would almost instantly be sued. But if the energy is free people will use the
technique to turn their household waste and even sewage into viable oil and natural gas. And corporations and
governments will have no way to enforce this if the price of energy becomes too high. The only way to curtail
such behaviour is through government enforcement, which will surely fail.

The downside of such technology will mean that after we burn through the stored energy below the ground we will
start using the stored energy of the ecosystems above. Such a scenario might spell doom for our planet as poor
farmers all over the world have no choice but to convert their crops and other organic matter into fossil fuels.
We could see the destruction of the life support systems on this planet. If we're to use
this technology efficiently the risks need to be weighed and government legislation needs to be implemented.
Global warming may also mean that Thermal Depolymerization while practical will need to be avoided. Even if
peak oil was never destined to happen we would eventually need to stop or slow our carbon emmissions. The rant
continues...