But that hasn't stopped Steorn from making some big claims over much of the past year: The invention could end global warming, wean the world economy from its dependence on oil from war-torn regions and power some of the world's poorest communities.
To add complication to this issue, Iraq is ramping up oil production after war and conflict left the country unable to produce significant levels of oil.
LONDON, England (CNN) -- While the war in Iraq may not have been about oil, post-war Iraq will almost certainly be shaped by it.
So Iraq has yet to export any oil produced since the war, a state of affairs that has buoyed the oil price.
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Back in the 1940s people began installing gas bladders on their cars to deal with the oil embargoes of World War II.
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But even if there is no sabotage and there is no injury from combat operations, some repair work will likely be necessary to allow the safe resumption of operations at oil facilities after any war-related stoppage.
Even in the face of a Great Depression, a World War, a Cold War, recessions, oil shocks, inflation and unemployment, Congress never sought to require the purchase of wheat or war bonds, force a higher savings rate or greater consumption of American goods, or require every American to purchase a more fuel efficient vehicle.
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With the largest oil reserves in Africa, it produced 1.6 million barrels of oil a day before the war and accounted for 95% of the country's export earnings.
The war and the oil development were explicitly linked in a the February 14th report by John Harker, which was petitioned by the Canadian government to review this nexus.
Is it structured to fend off the asset-eroding potential of triggers such as so-called Black Swan events, Black Monday-level market implosions, interest and inflation rate swings, war or an oil supply disruption?
That's a far cry from the 25% figure for 1973, when the Saudis, piqued by Israel's victory in that year's war, embargoed oil sales to the U.S. and prompted a 70% rise in crude prices.
The U.N. created the oil-for-food program as a loophole in post-Gulf War sanctions, allowing Iraq to sell oil so Baghdad could purchase food, medicine and other humanitarian needs.
That war shut down most oil output in the country, but much of the missing supply has since come back online.
Oil exports have stopped since the war and uncertainty remains over who in Iraq has legal authority to sign new export deals.
If you know the history of global oil in the years before World War Two, then you realize there is nothing new about America enjoying energy independence as Asia worries about its own needs.
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But oil bulls are watching the wrong war.
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The two Sudans went to the brink of war earlier this year over oil.
At the time of the Middle East war of 1973, Arab oil producers imposed a ban on exports to those countries they regarded as too supportive of Israel.
If its results affirmed GM as the healthiest of the wounded Big Three domestic manufacturers, they will probably not please environmental groups concerned about oil consumption as the country fights a war in Central Asia.
Its exports of 1.2 million barrels a day to the U.S. trail those of Saudi Arabia, Canada and Mexico today, but that could change if war disrupts the flow of oil from the Middle East.
Since South Sudan's independence, tension between the new neighbours has been strained, with rebellions breaking out on either side of the border and a dispute over oil which escalated to the brink of war last April.
In exchange, Iraq is being offered what amounts to a timetable for an expanded and improved version of the oil-for-food agreement (the deal under which Iraq sells a set amount of oil to pay for humanitarian relief and war reparations).
The causes of 1990-91 and 2007-09 were similar: Real estate collapse, stock market turbulence, financial engineering turkeys come home to roost, loan failures, taxes going up, a Middle Eastern war, a spike in oil prices and everybody de-leveraging at once.
With lower oil prices, Chad can ill afford the war against its Sudanese-backed rebels.
But just as the industrial revolution was built on coal, the post-second-world-war economy was built on cheap oil.
But after the war ended, world demand for oil surged while America gradually exhausted most of its easily-tapped domestic reserves.
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Obviously the news has been dominated lately by the oil spill, but our nation is at war and all of you have stepped forward.
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