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Please help this is taking to much of my DB time
spiceant:
--- Quote ---Brazil has been running on alcohol fuels for 30 years and they seem to be doing alright. My school uses biodiesel for many of their vehicles.
--- End quote ---
What do you define under brazil in this sentence? everything from power plants to cars to tractors? the way from soil to crop to biofuels is very long and dependant on a lot.
Soil needs to be worked and fertile, infertile land can be fertilized (by fertilizers derived from gas at the moment), crops need to be worked, harvested and transported to where they are processed, turned into fuel and distributed. The required crops dont grow everywhere. can the product fuel all of the above?
PurpleYouko:
There has also been a lot of research into Hydrogen powered vehicles of late.
Pretty much any regular internal combustion engine can be very slightly modified to run on Hydrogen gas.
Hydrogen one of the most abundent elements in the entire universe and when you burn it, you just get water. No polution. No green house gasses.
How do we make it?
No problem at all. Electrolysis of water will separate it into Oxygen and hydrogen. This doesn't require a particularly high voltage or current either. In fact a solar panel on the top of your car (in sunny areas of the world) will produce a significant amount of fuel per hour at a cost of absolutely nothing to the car's owner or to the environment. All you need is a tank of water and a sunny day. Even the water can be recycled and condensed from the car's exhaust system for re-use.
Obviously, if you drive a lot then the sun won't be able to keep up but while you are parked up at the mall or at work, your gas tank will be constantly recharging itself.
Plug your car into your house's electricity supply overnight to recharge too.
Where does the electricity come from? Does that mean more oil being burned?
In the USA, we are just beginning to move into a new phase of the construction of nuclear fueled power plants. The planet has enough fissionable fuel to last a couple of billion years so we sure aren't going to deplete it.
How about polution?
Nuclear power is the cleanest energy source (short of solar power) known to modern science. Contrary to popular belief it doesn't even create radiation hazards. All it does is to refine and concentrate radiation sources that already exist. Basically just bringing them all into one place. After this, reactors actually speed up the decay of radioactive nuclei by bringing a critical mass of the stuff together and thereby causing an accelerated fission process which eventually ends up with lead.
I certainly won't be losing sleep over any shortage of oil. There are bunches of alternatives and they are all cleaner and cheaper in the long run. Only development cost will drive the prices of alternative technology a little higher in the short term.
Numsgil:
--- Quote ---
--- Quote ---Brazil has been running on alcohol fuels for 30 years and they seem to be doing alright. My school uses biodiesel for many of their vehicles.
--- End quote ---
What do you define under brazil in this sentence? everything from power plants to cars to tractors? the way from soil to crop to biofuels is very long and dependant on a lot.
Soil needs to be worked and fertile, infertile land can be fertilized (by fertilizers derived from gas at the moment), crops need to be worked, harvested and transported to where they are processed, turned into fuel and distributed. The required crops dont grow everywhere. can the product fuel all of the above?
--- End quote ---
It's been a while since I looked it up, but I believe Brazil has managed to decrease its foreign dependance on oil by 70% since the 1970s. Take that as you will.
spiceant:
Hydrogen powered vehicles are certainly feasible on small scales (villages for example) but can it really produce fuel for the growing world industry? Hydrogen in itself does not appear in significant quantitys in nature, it takes about 120% of the energy to produce hydrogen out of water compared to the energy you can get from it. This means it is not a means of producing energy but rather transporting or converting it, like uranium -> fission -> hydrogen -> car.
Solar panels arent free and they dont come falling out of the sky when and where they are convenient. Solar panels are as of the moment quite cheap because they dont cost a lot to make. Solar panels use silicons
--- Quote ---How about polution?
Nuclear power is the cleanest energy source (short of solar power) known to modern science.
--- End quote ---
The process of fission certainly does not generate a significant amount of pollution. Mining and enriching uranium does produce pollution and at the moment still uses fossiel fuels. In addition nuclear power is quite risky as the involved material is vulnrable to terrorism and public opinion (public opinion is sobering up on this, though).
Nuclear fission cannot be used to power all of the vehicles in the world (both literally and practically). practically none of the cars on the world can currently use hydrogen as fuel. in addition the world does not appear to be transiting from fossil fuels to alternatives neither does it appear to be going to in time.
I find this article quite usefull (9 critical questions to ask about alternative energy)
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/..._questions.html
Numsgil:
At present oil is used in every aspect of modern life because it's cheap. Jack up the price to 500% or even 1000% and I think we'll see dependance on it drop. The free market is quite good at sorting through to find the best solution. It just so happens that at the moment the best solution is oil.
100 years ago whale oil was the solution. Obviously whale oil was not a renewable resource. As the supplies of whale oil dropped (and thus became more expensive) people found an alternate fuel source (petro oil).
The gradual decline in oil supplies shouldn't worry you. The chance of a major hiccup in the oil supply (an oil "shock") is another story. That should worry you. We are not equipeed for such an eventaulity. Oil shocks should be keeping you up at night, not oil reserves.
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