Blue Collar Muse

I first read about this project several months ago. I didn’t have the time to do much research on it and so I didn’t get to posting on it then. But it sounded interesting and the fact the US Military was looking into it lent it that much more credibility. Still, like cold fusion and cars that run on water and so many other energy stories that pop up and then vanish or are debunked, this one had that “too good to be true” ring to it.

Now it appears that it may be both truer and gooder than I originally thought. World Net Daily, who carried the original story I read, posted a follow up story to the tale of J.C. Bell from Tifton, GA’s Bell Bio-Energy, Inc. Mr. Bell says he has invented a process whereby generic biological waste, down to the level of grass clippings, can be turned into commercially viable oil.

While there hasn’t been much interest by private business, the US Military has taken a keen interest in the process. So much so they’ve green lighted construction of 7 test facilities around the country to give the process a fair chance to prove itself viable. One of them is even at Fort Stewart, GA where my son is stationed. The Much Younger Trophy Wife and I already have a trip planned to see The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy so I’ll try to get to visit!

These 7 facilities will serve as the engineering models for larger commercially viable plants. According to the founder of the company, the larger plants will produce serious quantities of oil!

“In 18 months or so, we will start manufacturing oil directly from waste and we will build up to about 500,000 barrels a day within two years. In another six months, we’ll reach a million barrels a day.”

…

“We should have all of the plants running within 60 days,” he said. “This is a big step in our growth, from the engineering that we develop with these plants, we will be able to build our full-scale production facilities and be in full production in the next 12 to 18 months.

“Everyone now accepts the fact that we can make oil through bacterial action and now it is just a matter of time and money until we are turning out one million to two million barrels per day,” he said.

He told WND the first full-scale facility probably will cost $100 million to $125 million to build, and that an investment of $2.5 billion likely will be needed to reach a production level of a million barrels per day.

But he said the return – even if the oil were sold for $70 a barrel, just half of what it was going for six weeks ago and still substantially lower than the current market rate of about $110 a barrel – would be significant.

…

How big does Bell believe the process eventually could be?

“With minor changes in the agricultural and forestry products, we could create two to two and a half billion tons of biomass a year, and you’re looking at five billion barrels of oil per year,” he said.

This would be a phenomenal technological and environmental breakthrough! Not only that, the Democrats lose their stranglehold on Energy and Environmental Policy since the government would no longer control the production of oil. Watch for more here as the plants are built and begin the larger scale testing of the process. While I’ll not be holding my breath, I will have my fingers crossed. Maybe the Democrats are right on this one; maybe we can’t drill our way out. Maybe we won’t have to!

Blue Collar Muse

Popularity: 33% [?]

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 14th, 2008 at 5:00 am and is filed under Business, Economics, Energy, Environmental Issues, Politics, Stronger Defense, Tech-ucopia, The Economy, US Military. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.