TURNING TRAGEDY INTO HOPE: cancer coverup newsletter

[Guest guest]

http://www.cancercoverup.com/newsletter/11-2005/

 

TURNING TRAGEDY INTO HOPE

Part Two

By Kathleen Deoul

 

(read Part One here)

http://www.cancercoverup.com/newsletter/print-version/turning-tragedy-into-hope-\

01.asp

 

 

Monthly Newsletter | www.CancerCoverup.com | November 2005

 

 

Two months have passed since Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc with the

Southeastern United States, and the clean-up process is just getting

underway. To make matters worse, just a month after Katrina's

devastating blow - almost to the day -- Hurricane Rita hit the

nation's oil refining center near Port Arthur, TX with nearly equal

force. This double-barreled catastrophe was clearly the most

destructive natural disaster in U.S. history.

 

Over 600,000 homes have been destroyed. Over one million people have

been displaced, and hundreds of thousands may never be able to return

to their homes. According to the latest figures nearly 500,000 have

lost their jobs. Estimates of just the government's share of

reconstruction costs now stands at $200 BILLION and is rising.

 

But the immediate costs may be the least part of the hurricane's

economic consequences.

 

In the wake of the storm, New Orleans and much of the nearby Gulf

Coast was soaked in a toxic sludge so dangerous that in some instances

rescue workers had to wear " hazmat " suits and anyone accidentally

exposed to the floodwaters was rushed to decontamination stations.

Although the bulk of the water has now been eliminated, the toxins

left behind may pose a threat for months or even years to come.

 

What is most disturbing is that while this devil's brew was highly

concentrated in the New Orleans floodwaters, its components are

present throughout our environment in more dilute form. The

contamination of New Orleans, therefore, is a warning signal - a

signal that we are fouling our own nest. If we fail to heed that

warning there could be a terrible price to pay. In fact, we are

already suffering consequences from our haphazard environmental

stewardship.

THE NEGLECTED EPIDEMIC

 

Chronic disease now afflicts 40 percent of the U.S. population and was

recently proclaimed " The Neglected Epidemic " by the editors of Lancet,

the prestigious British Medical Journal. Indeed, according to Lancet,

chronic diseases are responsible for 30% OF ALL WORLDWIDE DEATHS!!!

 

Moreover, the top two chronic diseases, cancer and chronic respiratory

illness, which account for 20 percent of the total, are both linked to

environmental causes!

 

In a series of articles, Lancet examined the issue of chronic disease,

but one statistic was truly stunning: If we could reduce chronic

illness by just 2 percent, 36 million lives would be saved!

 

Reducing environmental pollution would make a major contribution to

achieving this goal.

 

Of course, like most things, accomplishing this task is easier said

than done - or is it?

 

There is a way to dramatically reduce the amount of pollution we are

subjected to every day, and what's even more amazing is the fact that

in so doing, we will enhance our nation's economic and military

security and save consumers money to boot!

 

It almost sounds too good to be true, but it isn't.

OIL POLLUTION AND CHRONIC ILLNESS

 

The answer lies in addressing another of the nation's critical

problems - our dependence on oil and particularly imported oil.

 

What, you might ask does that have to do with reducing

pollution-related disease?

 

The answer is simple: much of the pollution that contributes to the

rise in diseases like asthma, chronic bronchitis, cardiac illness and

cancer is directly related to the use of energy and the pollution that

use creates. Therefore, if we could find some way to reduce our use of

polluting forms of energy we could also reduce the chronic illness

that use fosters.

 

This assertion is not a matter of speculation. Literally thousands of

studies over several decades have established a clear link between

pollution and many chronic diseases. In one particularly important

study, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention examined

emergency room admissions for asthma and cardiac problems during the

1996 Atlanta Olympics. The city had placed restrictions on vehicle

traffic during the games and as a result, automotive pollution was

sharply reduced.

 

The study found that there had been a corresponding reduction in

emergency room admissions for both asthma and heart attacks - a

reduction that directly corresponded to the times when vehicle traffic

was reduced.

 

But health effects are not the only price we pay.

 

There is an economic as well as an environmental imperative to reduce

our dependence on imported oil.

 

Although few people realize it, because of our heavy dependence on

imported oil, the price you pay for a gallon of gasoline at the pump

actually represents just a fraction of the real cost.

 

How could this be?

 

The reason is what economists call " externalities. " These are costs or

benefits that the society as a whole incurs from an economic or public

activity that are not reflected in the nominal price paid for that

activity. For example, if a city builds a sports arena, there will be

increased traffic on the adjacent neighborhood that creates

inconvenience for its residents, but they are not compensated for that

inconvenience, nor is the cost normally included in the price of

construction. On the other hand, there would likely be an " external

economic benefit from building a stadium such as the creation of jobs

and increase tax revenues from workers wages which also would not be

reflected in the price.

 

So what then are the external costs of imported oil?

THE HIGH PRICE OF IMPORTED OIL

 

First among the external costs is the effect of sending hundreds of

billions abroad to purchase foreign oil. When you spend money at home,

it goes into the economy and creates jobs, income and investment. In

fact, each dollar we keep at home rather than sending it abroad to

purchase foreign oil actually creates several dollars of economic

activity, passing from hand to hand in successive transactions.

Economists call this the " multiplier effect. " But when that money is

sent overseas, it has a negative effect on domestic income.

 

A second component is the cost of the various " oil shocks " we've

experienced over the past several decades. In the post World War II

era, there have only been a handful of years in which the U.S. economy

experienced negative growth - a decline in Gross National Product, and

all of them coincided with oil supply disruptions.

 

A third factor is the loss of tax revenues to local, state and federal

governments. When money is sent abroad, there is no domestic income to

tax, and no royalties are earned by government on oil from overseas.

 

A fourth, and perhaps most troubling factor, is what we must spend on

military capability to assure the flow of oil from insecure areas such

as the Persian Gulf. This is not, mind you, what is currently being

spent on the war in Iraq, but rather what we must spend, even in times

of peace, to protect the flow of oil.

 

So, how much does this all add up to?

 

The National Defense Council Foundation, a highly respected military

think tank in Alexandria, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, has

developed what are considered the authoritative estimates of these

costs. According to their most recent estimate, the total comes to

$532.6 BILLION A YEAR!!!!!

 

Just to put that figure in perspective if it were paid at the pump, it

would add $5.55 to the price of a gallon of gasoline. At current

prices that would translate into paying $8.53 a gallon! Filling the

gas tank of a Ford Explorer at that price would cost almost $192!

 

Even this figure, however, may pale in comparison to what may come in

the years ahead. The reason is that what we are really seeing today

are only the initial effects of the growing competition for oil in the

world market. Those effects can only become more pronounced if recent

history is any indicator.

 

In just the past two years, competition over scarce oil supplies has

pushed the price through the roof, more than doubling from an average

of $27.92 a barrel in 2003 to as much as $66 a barrel this year.

Moreover, prices were skyrocketing long before hurricanes Katrina and

Rita disrupted production in the Gulf of Mexico. It was just last

year, you may recall, that everyone was complaining because gasoline

prices were approaching $2 per gallon. Today that seems like a bargain!

 

This winter, Americans will get yet another energy shock when they

open their heating bills. Those heating with oil can expect increases

of 40 percent or more, and for natural gas, the increase is expected

to top 60 percent!

ADDRESSING THE PROBLEM

 

But in a way, oil imports are like the weather: Everyone talks about

them, but no one seems to DO anything about them.

 

Yet there are things that can be done, if we could only find the

political will to do them.

 

In fact, it would be possible to reduce our oil imports by up to 40

PERCENT within the next five years using proven, existing technologies!

 

To understand how this can be accomplished, it is first necessary to

dispel some of the myths that have permeated the debate on energy.

THE MYTH OF ENERGY SCARCITY

 

First is the notion that the world is running out of oil. That is

simply untrue. What is true, however, is that we are running out of

CHEAP oil, which is an entirely different matter. Vast amounts of oil

can be obtained from sources such as tar sands and oil shale and from

remote deposits like that on Alaska's Arctic Coastal Plain. It's just

that they are expensive to develop and produce.

 

Second is the notion that the United States lacks energy resources.

Again, it is true that most of America's cheap, readily accessible oil

has been discovered and developed, but that is not the same as saying

that we have no resources. Consider the following:

 

America is the Saudi Arabia of coal, with 25 PERCENT of the world's

total coal resources. At 275 BILLION TONS of recoverable reserves U.S.

coal supplies are enough to last 250 YEARS at current consumption rates.

 

U.S. oil shale reserves hold between 500 BILLION AND 1.5 TRILLION

BARRELS OF OIL, AT LEAST THREE TIMES THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF OIL IN SAUDI

ARABIA!!!

 

The U.S. also has 320,220 TRILLION CUBIC FEET of Natural gas in what

are called methane hydrates. These are deposits of natural gas trapped

in an ice matrix. This is equal to over 51.1 TRILLION BARRELS OF OIL!!!!

 

But our energy resources are not limited to just unconventional sources.

 

The U.S. has 1,190 TRILLION CUBIC FEET of conventional natural gas

reserves.

 

The U.S. has 21.8 BILLON BARRELS of " proved " oil reserves - oil that

has been discovered and can be readily produced at current prices -

but that is only part of the total. There are an additional 105.5

BILLION BARRELS of undiscovered oil in the United States. Further,

there are an additional 377 BILLION BARRELS of oil that were left

behind in oil wells that were shut down because contemporary recovery

techniques had pumped as much as they could. Research is being

conducted to develop ways to recover this " left-behind " oil.

 

So why are we starving for energy in the midst of such plenty?

 

A variety of factors have contributed to the problem.

 

First and foremost has been the availability of cheap oil from

overseas producers. Because the United States was the first nation to

produce oil in substantial volumes - we were the world's leading OIL

EXPORTER for the first half of the 20th Century - we were also the

first to exhaust our supplies of " easy oil. "

 

Second, the evolution of an international cartel of oil producing

nations - the Organization of Oil Producing Nations, or OPEC - allowed

those countries to establish an oligopoly that exercises a significant

amount of control over oil prices and supplies.

 

Third, public concern over the environment has largely prohibited

domestic oil and natural gas development in many of the most promising

areas.

 

But more than anything else, the real reason for our current dilemma

is complacency - complacency in the halls of Congress, complacency in

the Executive agencies, and, yes, complacency on the part of the

American public. While there was a public outcry for Congress to DO

SOMETHING about our energy dependency on the two occasions when oil

supply disruptions caused gasoline lines, as soon as supplies again

became plentiful, interest in finding a long-term solution quickly

evaporated. Indeed, on August 17, 1995, the headline on the lead

editorial in the Wall Street Journal read " Oil's Well, Big Energy

Imports are Less a Threat Than They Appear. " It would be interesting

to ask its author what they thought about oil imports today!

 

The question is what can we do? To answer this question, we must first

understand what our energy needs are, because just as there is the

myth of energy scarcity, there is also the myth of the energy " silver

bullet. "

NO SILVER BULLET

 

One of the greatest obstacles to solving our energy import problem has

been the tendency - encouraged by partisans of various energy

technologies - to look for a " silver bullet, " a single technology or

fuel that will solve all of our energy problems. Some argue we can do

it all by simply increasing automobile mileage. Others say that some

alternative fuel holds the key. Some even argue that we should

restructure our economy and revert to a pastoral society emulating the

19th Century so that energy does not play such a critical role.

A " REALITY CHECK "

 

Although the simplistic notion of a " silver bullet " is obviously

attractive - after all who wouldn't want to be able to wave a magic

wand have our energy problems disappear - it is just as obviously

fallacious. We use energy in myriad ways, and no single fuel or

technology can address all of our needs. Moreover, despite the torrent

of rhetoric, avalanche of legislation, and tidal wave of regulations,

virtually no progress has been made in the more than three decades

since the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo first alerted us to the problem. In

fact, if current trends continue, we will soon be importing twice as

much oil as we did in 1973. If there was a " silver bullet " the problem

would not exist.

 

For a " reality check " consider the following:

 

* There are currently 220 million privately owned vehicles (cars

and light trucks) in the United States. They have an average service

life of 16.8 years. That means that even if every new car purchased

from this point forward used an alternative fuel, we would still

require conventional fuels such as gasoline and diesel for at least

two decades.

 

* About one-third of all oil use is for things other than

transportation, including such things as home heating, and the

production of products like fertilizers, plastics and medicine.

Therefore, the high price of oil imports effects more than just

transportation costs.

 

* Despite all the hype, less than TWO TEN-THOUSANDTHS OF ONE

PERCENT of all vehicles in the United States are specifically designed

to use alternative fuels, and excluding alcohol used as an

octane-booster in gasoline, alternative fuels account for less than

THREE TEN-THOUSANDTHS OF ONE PERCENT of all motor fuel consumption!

 

* Even including alcohol used as an octane-booster, alternative

fuels only account for 1.4 PERCENT of total motor fuel use!

 

Clearly there's a long way to go!

 

But fortunately, there is a way to overcome the problem!

The answer is not to rely on some single " silver bullet, " but rather

to do EVERYTHING!

 

If we take full advantage of the resources and technologies that are

on hand today, we can reduce our oil imports by 40 PERCENT WITHIN FIVE

YEARS!!!

 

WE CAN REDUCE THEM BY 60 PERCENT TO 75 PERCENT IN FIFTEEN!!!

 

WE CAN ELIMINATE THEM ENTIRELY WITHIN TWENTY TO TWENTY-FIVE YEARS!!!

 

Here's how we can do this.

 

STEP ONE: A 40 PERCENT REDUCTION IN FIVE YEARS

 

The first goal should be to reduce oil imports by 40 percent in five

years. To accomplish this goal here's what we can do:

USE ALASKA'S " STRANDED GAS "

 

When production began at Alaska's giant Prudhoe Bay oil field there

was a problem. As is the case with virtually every oil deposit, the

Prudhoe Bay oil field also contained a large volume of natural gas.

This gas is brought to the surface along with the oil that is being

pumped from the formation. The trouble was, however, that no pipeline

to transport the gas had been built. Therefore, the only option was to

store the gas on site in underground formations until a pipeline could

be built. Today, there are some 104 Trillion Cubic feet of natural gas

" stranded " on Alaska's North Slope due to this deficiency.

 

But there is a way to get the gas to market in a usable form without

building a gas pipeline!

 

In the early 1920's a process was developed in Germany to make

synthetic motor fuels - diesel, gasoline and jet fuel - from coal. In

this process, the coal is heated and turned into a gas and then a

catalytic process is used to transform the gas into a liquid fuel. In

fact, by the end of World War II, virtually all of Germany's fuel was

manufactured this way.

 

But you don't have to start with coal. If you have natural gas, you

can use the second part of the manufacturing system, the so-called

Fischer-Tropsch process, to turn the gas directly into liquid fuel.

Moreover, while converting coal to gas is a fairly dirty process,

because sulfur and other impurities must be removed, going from gas to

a liquid has relatively little environmental impact. In addition,

because natural gas has none of the impurities that exist in coal or

for that matter crude oil, the fuel produced is considered

" ultra-clean, " and therefore environmentally superior.

 

And that's not the only advantage.

 

The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System or TAPS built to transport oil from

Prudhoe Bay south to the terminal at Valdez, Alaska is capable of

carrying up to 2.1 million barrels of oil or refined petroleum

products per day. More important, it must have a throughput of at

least 325,000 barrels per day to operate. If the throughput falls

below that level, the paraffin in crude oil could solidify, rendering

the pipeline useless. But production at Prudhoe Bay has declined to

around 900,000 barrels per day, and is steadily falling.

 

At present the pipeline has some 1.2 million barrels per day of

surplus capacity and that surplus will continue to grow. If it falls

below the critical level of 325,000 barrels per day and the pipeline

becomes inoperable, production at Prudhoe will cease, causing the

needless abandonment of billions of barrels of recoverable oil. Using

Alaska's stranded gas to produce liquid fuels could make up the

deficit extending the useful life of both the TAPS pipeline and the

Prudhoe Bay oil field by decades, while supplying vital supplies of

gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.

 

Moreover, since there already is a relatively large industrial complex

at Prudhoe Bay, adding a Fischer-Tropsch plant would entail minimal

environmental disruption. It could be in operation within three years

providing at least 1.3 MILLION BARRELS PER DAY OF " ULTRA-CLEAN " MOTOR

FUELS.

EXPAND PRODUCTION OFFSHORE

 

At present there are huge reserves of natural gas and smaller, but

still significant reserves of oil in offshore deposits along the

Atlantic Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico. These are known resources

that could be readily accessed but are foreclosed from production due

to environmental restrictions.

 

Much of the environmental concern regarding offshore production is the

result of a major oil spill that occurred 36 years ago off the coast

of California. Since that time, enormous strides in technology have

taken place, making the prospect of a recurrence at best minimal. As

with Alaska, the gas produced from these resources could also be

transformed into " ultra-clean " fuels using the Fischer-Tropsch

process. Up to 1.7 MILLION BARRELS PER DAY OF FUEL COULD BE IN

PRODUCTION USING THESE RESOURCES WITHIN THREE TO FIVE YEARS - MOST OF

IT " ULTRA-CLEAN. "

EXPAND THE USE OF ETHANOL

 

Today, as noted, about 1.1 percent of our motor fuel is provided by

alcohol in the form of ethanol blended with gasoline to boost octane.

About 40 percent of the gasoline used in the United States during

certain seasons contains this additive as a means of reducing air

pollution. Any conventional gasoline engine can use a blend containing

up to 10 percent ethanol without damaging any components or voiding

most manufacturer's warrantees. Further, with a simple modification of

the fuel lines and the computer chip that regulates the engine's air

and fuel flow, a conventional engine can use a blend containing up to

85 percent ethanol.

 

In fact, when Henry Ford built the original Model T, it was designed

to run on alcohol, and through the 1940s there were numerous filling

stations in the Midwestern United States that sold alcohol as a motor

fuel.

 

If we were to require that all gasoline sold in the United States

contained a minimum of 10 percent ethanol, we could reduce oil imports

by 630,000 BARRELS PER DAY. This could be accomplished within ONE YEAR!!!

 

If we took the additional step of requiring every new car sold in the

United States to be equipped with the modified fuel lines and computer

chip that would permit them use up to 85 percent ethanol, OIL IMPORTS

COULD BE REDUCED BY AN ADDITIONAL 1.5 MILLION BARRELS PER DAY AT A

MINIMUM!!!

USE GEOTHERMAL HEAT PUMPS

 

The transportation sector is not the only area in which we use oil.

Oil is also used to heat millions of homes, especially in the

Northeastern United States. Although heating oil use is seasonal, it

is produced year-round, with stockpiles built in advance of the

heating season each year. On average, we use around 500,000 barrels

per day for this purpose.

 

But we don't have to use any!

 

When most people think about geothermal heat, they generally envision

huge installations with giant pipes sunk deep into geysers. Although

such facilities exist, they are not the only way of harnessing the

earth's natural heat.

 

Geothermal heat pumps take advantage of the fact that below the frost

line the earth's temperature is a relatively constant 57 degrees. They

operate by circulating water through pipes sunk into the earth to

capture the heat in winter months, and reverse the process to provide

cooling in summer. Because they only need enough energy to circulate

the water and operate fans, they only use between 10 percent and 20

percent of the energy required by a conventional heating and

air-conditioning system - all in the form of electricity. Where solar

power is practical to provide the electricity, they can operate

without the need for any outside energy whatsoever!

 

Even though geothermal heat pumps are more expensive to install than

conventional heating and air-conditioning systems, because of their

low operating costs, they provide instant savings to users. For

example, in a new home, financed with a conventional mortgage, a

homeowner would save between $136.71 and $151.87 per month from the

time the system was installed. Over the life of the home, the savings

would total between $41,013 and $45,561 - and that's after accounting

for the higher installation cost.

 

Retrofitting a home with a geothermal system also realizes savings

from the time it is installed. Even assuming a higher cost, because of

the need to discard an existing system that was operating properly,

the lifetime savings would be almost $30,000!

 

But savings to the consumer is not the only benefit from these

devices. Heating oil actually creates far more pollution than motor

fuels. This is in part due to the fact that it is a lower-grade

product and in part due to the fact that furnace emissions are not

subjected to the same sort of emission controls that automobile

emissions are. Therefore, the switch from heating oil to geothermal

heat pumps, which produce no pollution, would make a major

contribution to cleaning up the air in the Northeast.

 

And that's not their only environmental benefit.

 

Because using geothermal heat pumps would significantly reduce the

amount of electricity used for cooling in the summer, their widespread

use would eliminate the need for from ten to twelve large power plants!

 

An aggressive program to encourage homeowners to switch to geothermal

heat pumps could eliminate the use of oil for home heating within five

years, reducing oil import requirements by an additional 500,000

BARRELS PER DAY!!

ADDING UP THE TOTAL

 

Taken together, the four simple steps would reduce America's oil

imports by OVER 5.1 MILLION BARRELS PER DAY!! And that's not the only

benefit.

 

To review, the four steps outlined above result in the following

additions to our domestic fuel supplies:

 

Stranded Gas: 1.3 million barrels per day

 

Offshore Oil and Gas: 1.7 million barrels per day

 

Ethanol: 1.5 million barrels per day

 

Geothermal Heat Pumps: 500,000 barrels per day.

 

Total: 4.8 MILLION BARRELS PER DAY, OR 40 PERCENT OF OUR CURRENT

FOREIGN OIL IMPORTS!!!!

 

But that's not all!

 

When a barrel of oil is refined, only about two-thirds of its content

ends up as usable fuels. The balance goes to such things as asphalt,

tar and paraffin. Therefore, when you replace a barrel of refined

petroleum products such as gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel or heating

oil, it is equivalent to the output of 1.5 barrels of refining

capacity. Therefore, the replacement of 4.8 million barrels per day of

refined petroleum products is equivalent to adding 7.2 million barrels

per day of new refining capacity!

 

Perhaps most important is the fact that because all of these steps

result in the wider use of either " ultra-clean " fuels, or

non-petroleum fuels, they would also dramatically reduce the amount of

dangerous pollution generated by our energy use. Further, because all

of the steps rely on domestic resources they would also spur the

creation of domestic jobs and economic activity. IN FACT, TAKEN

TOGETHER THEY WOULD ADD AT LEAST $182 BILLION TO OUR GROSS DOMESTIC

PRODUCT AND FOSTER THE CREATION OF CLOSE TO 900,000 JOBS!!! AND IT CAN

ALL HAPPEN IN JUST FIVE YEARS!!!

 

Next month in Turning Tragedy Into Hope Part Three, we'll discuss the

additional steps that can be taken to eliminate oil imports entirely!