Thursday, December 13, 2012

ALTERNATIVE: NATURAL RESOURCES


The search for ‘alternatives’ has pervaded the social family fabric

Another similar example is of petroleum. For ages, countries have been fighting over this most expensive natural resource. The popular understanding is that petroleum/oil reserves are limited and would run out in this century. Going against this, many scientists are now trying to prove that oil is neither a fossil fuel nor will ever get exhausted in the near future. For example in the book, Black Gold, Strange Hold, the authors prove that oil can be easily found between granite rocks; ergo, it is not a fossil fuel and thus cannot get exhausted in the near future. Furthermore, in 2004, a few scientists of Harvard University’s Department of Chemistry synthesised methane inorganically in a diamond-anvil experiment to prove that the hydrocarbon resources of the bulk Earth may be much larger than traditionally thought. OPEC shows that because of improved technology, by 2020, oil production will cross a tremendous figure of 1,600 billion barrels annually with reserves of 3,400 billion barrels – as compared to, say, 24 billion barrels that were being produced globally in 2003.

NASA’s scientists are developing methods for turning carbon dioxide into fuel. Even conversion of natural gas to diesel fuel and petrochemical feedstock has been made possible in recent time – Exxon in Qatar, Shell in Malaysia are a few doing this. On another front, if you thought gold was valuable, scientists are trying to even develop alternative ‘artificial’ metals and jewellery too [one reason perhaps why Warren Buffett thinks gold is a useless investment]. Pearls, diamonds, you name it and De Beers accepts now how even so-called experts can’t make out which is real and which artificial. If Volkswagen is trying to use auto-engines made out of silicon carbide [and thus eliminating the use of metals], many other companies are using the much cheaper and abundant palladium instead of platinum. If agro-researchers have found out ways to genetically mutate seeds, stem cell researchers are even scampering on the ethically explosive issue of bone marrow stem cell embryo development.  


 Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

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