[racy]

NSAP: This is a good article yet only touches the tip of the iceberg. You ought to do a few installments in a series. There is a lot of emerging technology right now, and what looked like the dominant technology/paradigm last week was supplanted by something new this week.

All the talk about a hydrogen economy went from boom to bust in less than a year when gas hit $3.00/gallon and stayed there for months on end. Suddenly, a more readily available technology, ethanol, became the talk of the town.

But while ethanol is already here, its technological and logistical hurdles prevent it from becomming a slam paradigm shift.

Enter butanol. It can be run in any modern car without any changes - thus addressing the immediate issue of 250,000,000 cars presently on the road today...which neither ethanol nor hydrogen can address.

It is a very interesting time indeed, as our energy sector is going through a major overhaul - and that affects every aspect of life as we know it in the Northwestern hemishpere.

And then there's the other wildcard in the mix: BIG OIL. We can't count them out. Many industry analysts are starting to predict that the price/barrel will drop down to the $40s within the next 18-24 months. As Ethanol/butanol catch on, BIG OIL will definately be aware of lost revenue - no matter how small the percentage it may be.

The only thing we know for sure is that the next three years will be a wild ride, and what we predict today will probably be the furthest from actuality by then.

For every million dollars of investment capital being put into ethanol, there is 10 million being put into oil sands and shale oil. Canada is expecting to be able to put out 10 million bpd within years....and remember, Canada has 175 Billion Barrels of proven reserve - second only to Saudi Arabia. Big players in the shale industry, although it is still premature (Shell, Chevron and now Raytheon) are seeing dollar signs in Utah and Colorado - especially since oil shale is indisputably a better source than oil sands for synthetic oil extraction.

Granted, we are at least three years away from any significant shale oil extraction, but the money is being sunk into the grounds as we speak.

It is a very real possibility that just as ethanol/biodiesel/butanol start to get a firm foundation in the minds of America, the oil companies will orchestrate a sustained $30/barrel price for oil - thus stopping the alternative in their tracks.

Oil companies rake in trillions per year...they'll do whatever they can to continue that revenue stream.

Keep up the good investigation and commentary. It provides a fresh break from the day-2-day GM news, which is mostly gloomy.