Trump is skimming money like the mob in the movie Casino. Hopefully some sharp investigative journalists will be able to “follow the money” and bust his ass so the incoming congress can impeach him.
Billions and billions of barrels of oil from Venezuela? At the August peak of 1,145 bpd [ barrels per day] it would take almost 30 MONTHS to reach a single billion barrels.
Add to that your own figure of $13 BILLION and that's right at $100/bbl over a 100 day period.
Yes, I like math, and no, while I use Anthropic to gather information, and even draft prose, all my math is my own and I read every cited article and edit - before approval - all draft text.
Thank you. At the end of the day, the "transfer" of Venezuela's oil (how it occurred and continues) is a heist. At the end of the day, it might matter what the specifics are, but for now, it is corrupt and illegal (a violation of international law at the very least)!
Thank you for the citations. The ability to get the closer perspective was informative and I noticed an interesting relationship to the naptha from Russia and the United States in context to the Ukraine War, our current conflict in the Middle East and Venezuela needing that critical diluent for transport of their crudes. I think there's a case to be made that the critical components of oil for worldwide energy usage are seeing a lot of shifting back and forth as the warring nations interfere with global supplies. It too, gives a bit of weird credence to Trump's begging Ukraine to quit hitting Russian ships because of the diesel fuel supply, seriously noting that harvest season in the northern hemisphere is in price crunch as diesel continues to climb in direct conflict with the added cost needed to be factored in to wheat, corn and soybean futures. I can see a food crisis in the poorer nations dependent on importation of these commodities worsening.
War. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!
China and their reductions of oil imports being more Canadian focused now that their oil pipeline to the west Coastal export terminals and less in need of the Iranian crude and finished products, too. Naptha being the key to the movement of all heavy and extra heavy crudes.
Thanks for reading that closely. You've put your finger on something I was working on years before any of the current fighting started.
In 2009 I filed a patent application, published in 2010, for a plant that turns waste into the same products you're describing as chokepoints. It takes in municipal trash, industrial and hospital waste, sewage, storm water, and farm slurries. Pulping splits that into plastics, organics, and metals. The organics go to anaerobic digesters for methane. What's left that carries carbon goes to a gasifier, and the syngas runs through Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, the process Germany developed in the 1920s and South Africa still runs on coal. The output is mostly diesel, with naphtha as the main secondary cut and a little LPG. Those are drop-in fuels with no sulfur and no engine changes needed.
The loop feeds itself. Hydrogen sulfide pulled from the biogas becomes sulfuric acid, and FT gives you methanol, so the biodiesel line doesn't have to buy either one. CO2 from the engines feeds algae, which become more fuel. Digester solids become slow-release soil amendment, and the nutrient-rich water can go onto fields. Waste heat runs a second power cycle.
The examiner rejected it as obvious, and I'll take that. It means every piece is commercially proven. What's missing isn't technology. It's the decision to build.
I'll be straight about scale. A waste-fed plant won't replace Russian naphtha or carry a harvest by itself. What it does is put diesel and diluent production next to every city that makes garbage, which is every city, and a long way from any shipping lane somebody can close.
As a side benefit every computer, television, cell phone, and more are recoverable for rare earth's and precious metals in addition to fuel retail price stability.
Martin A. Ginsburg, Systems and Methods for Generating Resources Using Wastes, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0105127 A1 (filed Oct. 9, 2009), https://patents.google.com/patent/US20100105127
I am aware of this " full cycle " system ecosystem. The waste side continues to grow in volume and isn't considered a product (yet). It has to become a product that can be recycled!
Thank you for more fully explaining your patent application. I believe we cooresponded a few years back on the CleanTechnica site and you were in the middle of your patent process then. It certainly seems practical from this layman's perspective as I have some observational working knowledge of reduction processes. The question of power extraction from process heat. Is this from a solid state method used in Formula One racing to use engine exhaust and crankcase heat removal to retrieve electricity/ electric current for battery storage, thereby closing another loop to achieve greater efficiency overall? I noticed you related the examiner in your application process to this.
The naptha needs for fracturing as well as transportation in the heavy crudes are essential, of course, just to get it thinned enough to move as seen in both Venezuela and the Canadian Tar Sands so I was seeing why this is a very big driver one way or the other as WTI and North Sea Brent oils rise and fall in the supply and demand curves as always becomes impacted by shocks in the availability as to price points. Steam production to further the diluent factor for optimal flow makes an added producer cost that has to be factored in, too. I'm surmising that the variation of the individual fields in Venezuela having differing dilution factors are why most producers have chosen to stay away from extraction. Too, noting in the Oxford charts that the production spikes were more seemingly related to political factors and the government greed in the revenue amounts that varied.
That's what is bothering me about our reasons as a nation to invade and use Venezuela as the new Monroe Doctrine patsy.
Chevron obviously sees the opportunity costs as being in line with their own future in the heavy crude market. I seem to think that there is some realization that even with all the fracking of poor fields underperforming there is some concern that oil is beginning to be seen as a steady incline in effort to reasonably extract whatever is really left in the global supply of the " easy to get oil ". Going forward regardless of wars and conflicts there maybe a greater effort for less cost effective extraction, thus higher cost fossil fuel.
This is where your patenting of what I've been saying since the 70s about 'mining the landfillss' comes into play as a very viable method to do just that.
One local city is going with a bio char system to reduce landfill volume. Another locality went away from a co-op with the federal government for a long existing trash to steam plant. Highly inefficient from the start and a major air pollution problem to boot... So, there's another set of signs that the concerns are weighing in on public policy.
Your closed looping sets of individual processes seemingly has more merit than what we're seeing around here. I hope your studies exceed the standards anticipated and your vision sets off a wave of landfills being remediated .
So, in short, total corruption and basically laundering money and causing confusion so there is no accountability. Easy to skim money and enrich themselves.
Mitch, unrelated question, but here goes. As I was reading about the SCOTUS decision on the mail-in voting and seeing that 7 of the 9 justices voted to deny the government's application what struck me was that Alito and Thomas voted the other way. As a layman I understand the court's role in interpreting the law, particularly as it pertains to constitutionality. In this case, we have the law that assigns no role for the postal service in the conduct of elections. Evidently, it's there in black and white. My question is what is there to interpret? And, as much as I'd like not to assign naked political motives to what the justices do, it seems to me that these two in particular routinely take positions that even a layman reading a statute would find at odds with the plain language. Finally, is the law so fluid that there is always room for "interpretation" despite what the plain language is? John Eastman lost his law license in California for suggesting something like that. Thanks for your work. Very illuminating.
I have been wondering about this money from day one. This is incredibly helpful, thank you. Am I alone in not believing one word from the Trump regime related to their handling of this money? I will call my reps. Again. And again.
If I could navigate AI, I would produce a video of the mango menace at the helm of the Black Pearl, with a hook for one hand, an eye patch, and a tricorner hat.
Executive order 14373, read first was surprising in that it hits on every excuse the administration gives for killing fishermen, kidnapping leaders, starting wars, etc. but following the money(my phone wants to suggest laundering as the next word I need) is not going to be outlined there and that seems to be intentional. Story to be continued, I guess. Following the money, the oil, and subsequent legal actions.
I saw the same and it made me wonder if, as written then viewed from today, if Congress is using the oversight mechanism implied and is fully able to address where exactly all the money is, from the reporting and accounting practices that are supposedly in place and operating in exactly what accounts the Treasury has established?
If they are following the complex (complex to me, but certainly under GAAP, generally accepted accounting practices, normal order) expectations of the Order, what exactly is in their oversight responsibilities in all this that we expect as it seems we are now in a nationalized oil business whether we like it or not?
Mexico had Pemex for decades before they allowed privatization. We're doing the reverse. Except we're doing it by nothing more than military takeover. Ostensibly, for financing in part, a war with Iran.
I was confused as to how much was actually derived from actual sales of these millions of barrels?? And exactly where is all that oil? Is and where... So where is it being processed into fuels, shipping manifests, receipts from oil refineries, replenishment of the strategic oil reserves, and other known accounts handled by the Treasury and any other transfers of funds back to the Venezuelan government.
I hold Valero stock and the recent stock price has advanced. I know that they have handled Venezuelan crude previously, (during the Chavez era) but in their recent filings and reporting there is no mention of their resumed processing since our hostile take over.
( sidebar: I'd like to know who actually wrote the Executive Order as the complexity is certainly above the saw tooth Sharpie signer's pay grade).
KPMGs name has been inserted to add credibility. You’re right, there is no evidence KPMG has done anything, if KPMG is even involved or, if they are, the terms of their engagement. Having worked in that with I assume nothing has been done until I see a report and the report evidences that the money exists, who controls it and who owns it.
Shotgun diplomacy at its finest.. Who's proud to be an American?
Simple answer, it’s in trumps offshore accounts.
Indeed. Forensic auditing is needed across the board!
Trump is skimming money like the mob in the movie Casino. Hopefully some sharp investigative journalists will be able to “follow the money” and bust his ass so the incoming congress can impeach him.
Trump is so full of crap 💩
Billions and billions of barrels of oil from Venezuela? At the August peak of 1,145 bpd [ barrels per day] it would take almost 30 MONTHS to reach a single billion barrels.
Add to that your own figure of $13 BILLION and that's right at $100/bbl over a 100 day period.
Yes, I like math, and no, while I use Anthropic to gather information, and even draft prose, all my math is my own and I read every cited article and edit - before approval - all draft text.
Theses figures, at any rate, come from:
https://www.oxfordenergy.org/wpcms/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/SP37-Venezuelas-Oil-and-Gas-Industry.pdf
https://www.oxfordenergy.org/wpcms/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/OIES-PPT-Rewiring-Venezuelan-Crude-Oil-12Jan25.pdf
https://energy-analytics-institute.org/2025/05/14/venezuelas-production-averaged-888-mb-d-in-apr-2025-according-to-opec/
https://energy-analytics-institute.org/2025/03/02/chevron-jvs-in-venezuela-producing-around-242000-b-d-or-27-of-venezuelas-production/
Thank you. At the end of the day, the "transfer" of Venezuela's oil (how it occurred and continues) is a heist. At the end of the day, it might matter what the specifics are, but for now, it is corrupt and illegal (a violation of international law at the very least)!
Thank you for the citations. The ability to get the closer perspective was informative and I noticed an interesting relationship to the naptha from Russia and the United States in context to the Ukraine War, our current conflict in the Middle East and Venezuela needing that critical diluent for transport of their crudes. I think there's a case to be made that the critical components of oil for worldwide energy usage are seeing a lot of shifting back and forth as the warring nations interfere with global supplies. It too, gives a bit of weird credence to Trump's begging Ukraine to quit hitting Russian ships because of the diesel fuel supply, seriously noting that harvest season in the northern hemisphere is in price crunch as diesel continues to climb in direct conflict with the added cost needed to be factored in to wheat, corn and soybean futures. I can see a food crisis in the poorer nations dependent on importation of these commodities worsening.
War. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!
China and their reductions of oil imports being more Canadian focused now that their oil pipeline to the west Coastal export terminals and less in need of the Iranian crude and finished products, too. Naptha being the key to the movement of all heavy and extra heavy crudes.
Thanks for reading that closely. You've put your finger on something I was working on years before any of the current fighting started.
In 2009 I filed a patent application, published in 2010, for a plant that turns waste into the same products you're describing as chokepoints. It takes in municipal trash, industrial and hospital waste, sewage, storm water, and farm slurries. Pulping splits that into plastics, organics, and metals. The organics go to anaerobic digesters for methane. What's left that carries carbon goes to a gasifier, and the syngas runs through Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, the process Germany developed in the 1920s and South Africa still runs on coal. The output is mostly diesel, with naphtha as the main secondary cut and a little LPG. Those are drop-in fuels with no sulfur and no engine changes needed.
The loop feeds itself. Hydrogen sulfide pulled from the biogas becomes sulfuric acid, and FT gives you methanol, so the biodiesel line doesn't have to buy either one. CO2 from the engines feeds algae, which become more fuel. Digester solids become slow-release soil amendment, and the nutrient-rich water can go onto fields. Waste heat runs a second power cycle.
The examiner rejected it as obvious, and I'll take that. It means every piece is commercially proven. What's missing isn't technology. It's the decision to build.
I'll be straight about scale. A waste-fed plant won't replace Russian naphtha or carry a harvest by itself. What it does is put diesel and diluent production next to every city that makes garbage, which is every city, and a long way from any shipping lane somebody can close.
As a side benefit every computer, television, cell phone, and more are recoverable for rare earth's and precious metals in addition to fuel retail price stability.
Martin A. Ginsburg, Systems and Methods for Generating Resources Using Wastes, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0105127 A1 (filed Oct. 9, 2009), https://patents.google.com/patent/US20100105127
I am aware of this " full cycle " system ecosystem. The waste side continues to grow in volume and isn't considered a product (yet). It has to become a product that can be recycled!
Thank you for more fully explaining your patent application. I believe we cooresponded a few years back on the CleanTechnica site and you were in the middle of your patent process then. It certainly seems practical from this layman's perspective as I have some observational working knowledge of reduction processes. The question of power extraction from process heat. Is this from a solid state method used in Formula One racing to use engine exhaust and crankcase heat removal to retrieve electricity/ electric current for battery storage, thereby closing another loop to achieve greater efficiency overall? I noticed you related the examiner in your application process to this.
The naptha needs for fracturing as well as transportation in the heavy crudes are essential, of course, just to get it thinned enough to move as seen in both Venezuela and the Canadian Tar Sands so I was seeing why this is a very big driver one way or the other as WTI and North Sea Brent oils rise and fall in the supply and demand curves as always becomes impacted by shocks in the availability as to price points. Steam production to further the diluent factor for optimal flow makes an added producer cost that has to be factored in, too. I'm surmising that the variation of the individual fields in Venezuela having differing dilution factors are why most producers have chosen to stay away from extraction. Too, noting in the Oxford charts that the production spikes were more seemingly related to political factors and the government greed in the revenue amounts that varied.
That's what is bothering me about our reasons as a nation to invade and use Venezuela as the new Monroe Doctrine patsy.
Chevron obviously sees the opportunity costs as being in line with their own future in the heavy crude market. I seem to think that there is some realization that even with all the fracking of poor fields underperforming there is some concern that oil is beginning to be seen as a steady incline in effort to reasonably extract whatever is really left in the global supply of the " easy to get oil ". Going forward regardless of wars and conflicts there maybe a greater effort for less cost effective extraction, thus higher cost fossil fuel.
This is where your patenting of what I've been saying since the 70s about 'mining the landfillss' comes into play as a very viable method to do just that.
One local city is going with a bio char system to reduce landfill volume. Another locality went away from a co-op with the federal government for a long existing trash to steam plant. Highly inefficient from the start and a major air pollution problem to boot... So, there's another set of signs that the concerns are weighing in on public policy.
Your closed looping sets of individual processes seemingly has more merit than what we're seeing around here. I hope your studies exceed the standards anticipated and your vision sets off a wave of landfills being remediated .
Best wishes on it!
So, in short, total corruption and basically laundering money and causing confusion so there is no accountability. Easy to skim money and enrich themselves.
Mitch, unrelated question, but here goes. As I was reading about the SCOTUS decision on the mail-in voting and seeing that 7 of the 9 justices voted to deny the government's application what struck me was that Alito and Thomas voted the other way. As a layman I understand the court's role in interpreting the law, particularly as it pertains to constitutionality. In this case, we have the law that assigns no role for the postal service in the conduct of elections. Evidently, it's there in black and white. My question is what is there to interpret? And, as much as I'd like not to assign naked political motives to what the justices do, it seems to me that these two in particular routinely take positions that even a layman reading a statute would find at odds with the plain language. Finally, is the law so fluid that there is always room for "interpretation" despite what the plain language is? John Eastman lost his law license in California for suggesting something like that. Thanks for your work. Very illuminating.
I have been wondering about this money from day one. This is incredibly helpful, thank you. Am I alone in not believing one word from the Trump regime related to their handling of this money? I will call my reps. Again. And again.
If I could navigate AI, I would produce a video of the mango menace at the helm of the Black Pearl, with a hook for one hand, an eye patch, and a tricorner hat.
Executive order 14373, read first was surprising in that it hits on every excuse the administration gives for killing fishermen, kidnapping leaders, starting wars, etc. but following the money(my phone wants to suggest laundering as the next word I need) is not going to be outlined there and that seems to be intentional. Story to be continued, I guess. Following the money, the oil, and subsequent legal actions.
I saw the same and it made me wonder if, as written then viewed from today, if Congress is using the oversight mechanism implied and is fully able to address where exactly all the money is, from the reporting and accounting practices that are supposedly in place and operating in exactly what accounts the Treasury has established?
If they are following the complex (complex to me, but certainly under GAAP, generally accepted accounting practices, normal order) expectations of the Order, what exactly is in their oversight responsibilities in all this that we expect as it seems we are now in a nationalized oil business whether we like it or not?
Mexico had Pemex for decades before they allowed privatization. We're doing the reverse. Except we're doing it by nothing more than military takeover. Ostensibly, for financing in part, a war with Iran.
I was confused as to how much was actually derived from actual sales of these millions of barrels?? And exactly where is all that oil? Is and where... So where is it being processed into fuels, shipping manifests, receipts from oil refineries, replenishment of the strategic oil reserves, and other known accounts handled by the Treasury and any other transfers of funds back to the Venezuelan government.
I hold Valero stock and the recent stock price has advanced. I know that they have handled Venezuelan crude previously, (during the Chavez era) but in their recent filings and reporting there is no mention of their resumed processing since our hostile take over.
( sidebar: I'd like to know who actually wrote the Executive Order as the complexity is certainly above the saw tooth Sharpie signer's pay grade).
KPMGs name has been inserted to add credibility. You’re right, there is no evidence KPMG has done anything, if KPMG is even involved or, if they are, the terms of their engagement. Having worked in that with I assume nothing has been done until I see a report and the report evidences that the money exists, who controls it and who owns it.