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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> True, hence the need for better, more efficient, technology.
> 

Ah, though, Bev, I know you to have an admirable working knowledge of 
chemistry and physics, which makes me all the more nervous of the power of 
cornucopian hype.

What do you make of all those claims that some engineer or the other came up 
with a carburator or fuel system that makes the ordinary car get 120 mpg?  
Those tales have been around for a very long time and surely anyone with some 
knowledge of physics dismisses them out of hand.  If you have a 4000lb 
vehicle 
the laws of vehicular motion tell you that to get it moving even on level 
ground 
takes a certain amount of energy. Gasoline contains a finite amount of energy 
and even if you managed to achieve 100% efficiency, a given finite quantity 
of gasoline will only go so far.  There isn't some magic that makes more 
engergy appear out of the ether and make the car go farther than it goes.

Likewise the complex organic molecules of kerogen require a certain amount of 
energy to break them, "crack" them, into the hydrocarbon components from 
which gasoline is blended.  This process has been going on below the surface 
of 
the earth for millions of years so a little heat and pressure applied for 
eons 
has done the work.

There are no mystical dilithium crystals that make light crude oil gush out 
of oil shale.  Just like the example of the car, it takes a certain amount of 
energy to convert the substance and all the technology in the universe 
doesn't 
make more energy appear out of thin air.