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Environment

Oil addiction

September 4, 2006 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 84, Issue 36

The irony of "Poison Ivy Could Get Worse" and "Making Fuels Synthetically" (C&EN, June 5, pages 9 and 57) strikes me as symbolic of the disorganization in finding a cure for our oil addiction. Some group wants to push more carbon dioxide from a fancy coal process into our environment to give us a nastier poison ivy. Let's call instead for greatly expanded use of windmills. After all, increased air and water temperatures mean more kinetic energy in the environment from past fossil-fuel burning. We can recover some of that energy by windmills converting it to clean electrical energy with no carbon dioxide being emitted.

We also have huge amounts of energy in our waste that goes to dumps that cost megabucks to maintain and that cycle carbon dioxide back to the environment over time. An article in Science (1973, 182, 1299) described a reactor for converting wood to methanol, claiming that 20% of the harvested forest wood then could provide enough methanol to generate all of our electric energy needs. I would estimate that everyday wood wastes of paper, of wood from construction and demolition of buildings, from right-of-way work for power lines and roadways, and of disposable diapers amount to 20% of the daily forest wood harvest.

An alternative process of pyrolysis also ought to be investigated for these wastes to get mainly hydrogen and some inert carbon char, meaning that some carbon has been stopped from recycling. It is time to cut our oil and coal addiction and the releasing of fresh carbon dioxide into the environment by utilizing the wind and our wastes.

James A. Singmaster
Fremont, Calif.

CORRECTION

Aug. 21, page 27:

Errors were made in C&EN's recent story on chemical company sales and earnings. Lyondell's second-quarter sales increased 15.9% to $5.07 billion and first-half sales were up 11.5% to $9.83 billion. Its profit margin for the second quarter increased to 3.9% from 2.9% in second-quarter 2005. Profitability in the first half rose to 4.6% from 4.3%. Terra Industries' second-quarter sales were up 4.9% and its second-quarter 2005 profit margin was 4.1%. Total sales for the 24 companies rose 6.6% to $50.1 billion in the second quarter and 5.5% in the first half to $98.2 billion. Second-quarter 2006 profitability declined to 7.9% from 8.3% a year earlier, while profitability for the first half fell to 8.0% from 8.5%. The article posted on C&EN Online (www.cen-online.org) has been corrected.

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