Petrochemical Economies | Green Energy News

July 3, 2005 – Vol.10 No.15

PETROCHEMICAL ECONOMIES.

Here’s the scenario for a different world.

The major industrialized nations - the G8 plus the really important nations like China, Brazil, and India - decide that burning oil for fuel is no longer such a good idea and they take real action to stop it. For instance, instead of talking about a hydrogen economy they actually start building it beginning with building enough renewable capacity to generate hydrogen.

While they’re doing this they politely encourage the oil producing nations to build industries around their remaining oil reserves that use the natural resource for everything but fuel.

Then, the G8 plus the really important guys make a profound, forward-thinking and world-changing statement to those nations: Please use the oil wisely so that it will last another 1000 years, not another 20. When it’s gone, you’re sunk, you know, they say.

Further, they say they don’t care if the price of oil goes through the roof - $100, $150, $200 a barrel - as long as the wealth it creates is used to build their respective economies and create jobs, lots of them.

And, to put money where their mouths are, the G8-plus says there are a few products they could really use and would like to buy. The U.S. says, for instance, that the nation’s bridges are rusting away and they need new ones. Can’t you build us some bridge parts made of plastic composites that will last us for the next hundred years or more? (No rust, no paint, ever.)

Most of the above is a dream, other than the availability of plastic composite bridge parts.

Martin Marietta Composites, a subsidiary of the U.S. defense contractor, has recently completed the installation of a plastic composite bridge deck on the Siuslaw Bridge crossing the Siuslaw River leading into the town of Florence, Oregon on that state’s coast.

The composite decking material Martin Marietta calls DuraSpan (tm) stretches 149 feet for an area of 4003 square feet of deck on the Oregon bridge. The bridge, built in 1936, historic and along a scenic highway, carries more than 20,000 vehicles per day.

The solid surface bridge deck panels are made of fiberglass reinforced polymer materials. (Read made from oil and glass.) The decking is one fifth the weight of concrete decking, can be installed quickly and, of course, won’t corrode.

The company has installed the material on more than 25 bridges in 13 states. Visit MMC and view their DuraSpan bridge applications at http://www.martinmarietta.com/Products/duraspan.asp