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Politician Pacquiao's battle against coal-fired plant (part 2)
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Courtesy ESPN
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. . . continued from page 1
The Philippine archipelago has over 3.9 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of proven natural gas reserves, most of which are located in the Malampaya gas field, according to Oil and Gas Journal. However, this widely available resource constitutes only about 10% of the nation's energy consumption. A 312-mile subsea pipeline connects the natural gas processing facility to three (cleaner) power plants in Batangas with a combined generating capacity of 2,700 megawatts (MW). However, a second gas field, the Sampaguita field, could hold up to 5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves. That would make a liquefied natural gas (LNG) project feasible - with matching cohesive political will.
The ancient Egyptians built the Great Pyramids several thousand years ago which reached the heavens. Their contemporaries cannot build a LNG or gas conversion plant to utilize trillions of cubic feet of natural gas right in their own backyards - with commercially viable and proven technologies.
With resolute leadership and proper execution, it is possible to generate mass quantities of electricity in the country - that is, if planned and done the right way, not the "easy and dirty" way. Gas-to-liquids (GTL), gas-to-ethylene (GTE), coal-to-liquids (CTL) advancements, among numerous others, are drastically changing economic feasibilities and energy operational capabilities in various regions.
Liquefied natural gas (LNG), compressed natural gas (CNG), floating liquefaction, medium-scale LNG, and related liquefying technologies are converting natural gas into premium fuels that can more than compete with every expensive conventional petroleum-based premium fuels and diesel. Such technologies can provide gasoline as low as $30 a barrel. Emerging start-up ventures are contending their gas conversion technologies can provide gasoline as low as at $25 a barrel. Currently, major oil companies and countries are wasting over 100 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually, according to World Bank estimates. Other estimates peg this figure at over 150 million cubic meters (or approximately 5.3 trillion cubic feet) of natural gas wasted annually. Worth over $30 billion of natural gas per year, adding as much as 400 million tons of climate warming CO2 emissions into the Earth's atmosphere, per year.
Nigeria is the world's biggest gas flare offender, followed by Russia. These are either vented into the atmosphere or flared (burned off). Gas flaring is a common practice because operators want to get to the oil, so the gas is burned off. It is viewed as a highly available resource that is too cheap to save. It is more convenient to vent or flare (burn) it so more expensive petroleum resources can be harvested. In Alaska, gas is simply discarded and re-injected beneath the Earth's surface. There has traditionally been an emphasis on recovering petroleum by way of a large oil pipeline. By leveraging gas conversion technologies, the natural gas can instead be transformed to liquid fuel which can add as much as 200,000,000 barrels of gasoline-grade fuel each year for the U.S. market. Theory. No such initiative is taking place. Such volume in gas will continue to be dumped into the Alaskan ground, vented, or flared each year for the foreseeable future.
This view is becoming archaic. And unsustainable.
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore on "An Inconvenient Truth"
Waste to Profits
GE Energy recently partnered with a large Chinese food company (with an inventory of millions of chickens) to convert chicken waste into electricity. GE's Jenbacher biogas engine is unlocking the value of waste and is feeding a local Chinese power grid. Residual material can be used as fertilizer.
Investors and industrialists can earn extra income in the process of helping to save the Earth. The additional revenue stream can help to cover operating expenses. The public gains by having cleaner air. The government collects taxes. When people make money, all boats rise. It is also the right, ethical, and moral thing to do. It only takes one human generation to make mankind permanently extinct. We should not be that generation. The Jenbacher biogas engine will also be used to convert methane gas found in mines in Australia into electricity.
A philosophy of resourcefulness, and respect for nature, is converting waste into profits; waste into cleaner environment. And that is why Manny Pacquiao is on the right side of history: renewable, clean, efficient, and resourceful. Respect, nature, higher standards, discipline, morality.
There are two root causes to the issue. Over-population. And the separation of divinity from nature. That the higher power / the Creator is separate from Earth, unlike the Native American paradigm.
Humility allows us to recognize the threats surrounding us. Because when you are egoistic, you believe you are invincible. The receding polar ice caps betray man's vulnerability to his surroundings. When you unplug nature's connection, man dies. Figuratively, and physically.
More information:
Pacquiao Fight Delaying Constitutional Changes Mike Tyson's Toughest Fight is with Life
On Boxing Styles and Kung Fu Inflections Boxing's Art of War: Destroy Your Enemy's Enemy
Mosley Betraying Boxing's Promotional Flaws
The Hero and His Eternal Struggle
Joseph Campbell once remarked that if you really want to help the world, show people how to live. The Hero, therefore, fights an eternal struggle. The wearer of the mask changes a thousand times. But he, the Hero, has to show his brethren how to live and adjust as appropriate to changing times. General Douglas MacArthur would declare that there is no lasting security; only opportunity. The Hero's symmetric mission and function, and asymmetric symbolism, remains transfixed - a constancy in purpose. Or the tribe cannot exist. Life is too harsh. So are man's surroundings brute.
Pacquiao showed his people to fight for a worthy struggle. The "People's Champ" wore the nation's colors and undertook the impossible. The fistic representation manifested in the ring. His symbolism grew to encompass his nation's battles. The Hero's childhood desperation magnified the plight of so many under the same circumstances. Who can fathom only eating rice once a day? Manny, by the sheer power of hands and heart, overcame the abyss. In his new role, the mind seeks to improve the lot of his people. The road of the Eternal Struggle is a path of the unknown. But there is a unifying cause that only prayer towards a mysterious and invisible force can bring. History will accord Manny Pacquiao as the Filipino who taught his country there is honor in service, sacrifice, and the pursuit of worthy struggles. Man's worth is proportionate to the worth of his ideals and what he strives for. In the ancient saying: emulate not your master; pursue what the masters tried to attain.
In that spirit the writer wrote his book. The jeepney driver continued to fight to feed and care for his family. The forgotten maid held her head high in pride. The remote soldier became valiant. The average citizen stopped being angry - and became inspired.
Chief Seattle's letter to the American President on December 1854.
The President in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. But how can you buy or sell the sky? the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?
Every part of the earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect. All are holy in the memory and experience of my people.
We know the sap which courses through the trees as we know the blood that courses through our veins. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters. The bear, the deer, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the dew in the meadow, the body heat of the pony, and man all belong to the same family.
The shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water, but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you our land, you must remember that it is sacred. Each glossy reflection in the clear waters of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water's murmur is the voice of my father's father.
The rivers are our brothers. They quench our thirst. They carry our canoes and feed our children. So you must give the rivers the kindness that you would give any brother.
If we sell you our land, remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life that it supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also received his last sigh. The wind also gives our children the spirit of life. So if we sell our land, you must keep it apart and sacred, as a place where man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow flowers.
Will you teach your children what we have taught our children? That the earth is our mother? What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth.
This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.
One thing we know: our God is also your God. The earth is precious to him and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator.
Your destiny is a mystery to us. What will happen when the buffalo are all slaughtered? The wild horses tamed? What will happen when the secret corners of the forest are heavy with the scent of many men and the view of the ripe hills is blotted with talking wires? Where will the thicket be? Gone! Where will the eagle be? Gone! And what is to say goodbye to the swift pony and then hunt? The end of living and the beginning of survival . . . .
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