An action thriller by Jock Miller


Fossil fuel has an ageless affinity with dinosaurs. To create oil, dinosaurs died.


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The perfect energy storm is sweeping over the United States: Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown has paralyzed nuclear expansion globally, BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill has stalled deep water drilling, Arab oil countries are in turmoil causing doubt about access to future oil, the intensity of hurricanes hitting the Gulf’s oil rigs and refineries has intensified due to global warming, and the nation’s Strategic Oil Supply is riding on empty.

As the energy storm intensifies, the nation’s access to Arab oil, once supplying over sixty percent of our fossil fuel, is being threatened causing people to panic for lack of gas at the pumps, stranding cars across the country and inciting riots.

The U.S. Military is forced to cut back air, land, and sea operations sucking up 58% of every barrel of oil to protect the nation; U.S. commercial airlines are forced to limit flights for lack of jet fuel; and businesses are challenged to power up their factories, and offices as the U.S. Department of Energy desperately tries to provide a balance of electric power from the network of aged power plants and transmission lines that power up the nation.

The United States must find new sources of domestic fossil fuel urgently or face an energy crisis that will plunge the nation into a deep depression worse than 1929.

The energy storm is very real and happening this very moment. But, at the last moment of desperation, the United States discovers the world’s largest fossil fuel deposit found in a remote inaccessible mountain range within Alaska’s Noatak National Preserve surrounding six and a half million acres.

Preventing access to the oil is a colony of living fossil dinosaurs that will protect its territory to the death.

Nobody gets out alive; nobody can identify the predator--until Dr. Kimberly Fulton, Curator of Paleontology at New York’s Museum of Natural History, is flown into the inaccessible area by Scott Chandler, the Marine veteran helicopter pilot who’s the Park’s Manager of Wildlife. All hell breaks loose when Fulton’s teenage son and his girlfriend vanish into the Park.

Will the nation’s military be paralyzed for lack of mobility fuel, and will people across America run out of gas and be stranded, or will the U.S. Military succeed in penetrating this remote mountain range in northwestern Alaska to restore fossil fuel supplies in time to save the nation from the worst energy driven catastrophe in recorded history?

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Eco-friendly Removal of Oil from Soil


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A Lithuanian company claims that their three stage process can remove oil from contaminated soil using only environmentally friendly chemicals, bacteria, and plants.

Oil contaminated soil comes from both accidents and industrial processes. The refining of oil often results in large amounts of highly contaminated sludge. But oil soaked into soil requires different cleaning techniques than oil spills on water.

The company Biocentras first uses a surfactant, a chemical which breaks down the chemically repellent barriers between substances. The surfactant, mixed with water, is used to wash the soil and can be used up to ten times, Biocentras reports. Afterward, the chemical breaks down into a “natural” compound, according to a press release by Eureka, a European business technology advocacy group.

The second stage uses microorganisms to break down the oil remaining in the soil.

"The bacteria used in the process lie dormant in negative temperatures, but then come to life as the temperature rises. However, some organisms can start to degrade oil at temperatures that are only a little more than is required to melt ice," said Monika Kavaliauske, manager at Biocentras, in a press release by the company. But, she added "it is much more effective in warmer climates."

Microorganisms break the oil down to a point where hardy plants can be used to further break down the oil. Using plants to clean up the environment is called “phytoremediation.”

Don't try this at home, only certain plants can take that kind of abuse. Moviegoers might remember the scene in Fight Club where members of Project Mayhem put up a billboard that says, “Did you know used motor oil can be used as fertilizer?”

It can't.

The whole process takes about one year, and leaves soil that can be used by other, less hardy plants. Biocentras has cleaned soils with up to .67 pounds (300 grams) of oil per kilogram (2.2 pounds) of soil.

So far more than 22,000 tons of soil have been cleaned using this process, mostly in Lithuania. But Biocentras hopes to expand into the Middle East, where warmer temperatures will make the process even more effective.

“We have no clients in the Middle East and are actively looking for them. There are potential applications for most of the world and we are keen to develop it further,” said Kavaliauske.
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