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The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
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A Venezuelan oil minister once referred to his country's main export as the "devil's excrement." We’ll see how the death of Hugo Chavez affects production levels of this Faustian fuel—which influences both the global oil market and the climate.
Venezuela’s oil has problematic qualities. The thick, tar-like oil requires extra heat to flow. Once finally on the move, it's fed to refineries where the heavy oil must be what the engineers call "cracked." That chemical process removes excess carbon and readies the oil to be turned into the petroleum products we all use, from gasoline to plastics. The extra carbon, known as pet coke, is often burned and is more highly polluting than even coal.
These issues affect more than Venezuela. The Keystone XL pipeline is a bid in part to bring oil from Canada's tar sands to some refineries on the Gulf Coast that can handle it precisely because they were built to handle Venezuela's tarry mix. If more Venezuelan oil begins to flow the Keystone pipeline might prove extraneous.
But whether Canadian tar sands or Venezuelan heavy crude, more thick oil means more CO2 in the atmosphere. And that means a climate ever more hellish.
—David Biello
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
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3 Comments
Add CommentWhere's the bloody FUSION reactor?!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe have the Higgs boson but not a fusion reactor...:(
Big Oil doesn't want us to have a Fusion reactor and David Biello is an active supporter & promoter of Big Oil's plans for our Energy Supply.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYa know, linking some wild eyed conspiracy theory about the failings or lack of progress in your pet energy fantasy simply by making an inane reference to "Big Oil" is absurd.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlease, can you give some specific truths on -how- "Big Oil" is linked to obstructing the development of fusion reactors?
If you really want to improve the world's environment and energy supplies, then instead of being a whiner and a bitcher, why don't -you- become the engineer, the scientist, the businessman or the executive who is actively engaged -productive- efforts to un-leash economically viable clean energy supplies?
Talk, especially unfounded whining and bitching is cheap dood and wudda, cudda, shudda only counts in Hollywood.