astronatus said:
Another issue is that these and other oil "alternatives" are actually oil "derivatives." How does corn get planted and harvested? Heavy oil use. There is not currently any viable alternative to oil, and unless something is found within the next few years, things are going to change dramatically...
moreover, scientists who work on ethanol projects predict if we use every grain of corn grown in the U.S., none going towards food or anything else - it will consitute only 10% of our current oil use - ethanol NOT a viable alternative, merely a marketing plow to show the consumers we are not dependent on foriegn oil
80% of our oil uses goea towards the automobile - one viable alternative would be to design cities more sustainably so that our lives are not revolved around the automobile - some experts predict that the price of crude oil in the U.S. will go from 67$/barrel (presently) to $160/barrel by 2010! that is less then 5 yrs - those euro prices will be cheap in the states by that time - unfotunately it is still a supply and demand market - some people may be able to afford 6$/ gal - some may be able to afford 10$ a gal but the demand will continue to decline as the price rises - how high will it have to reach before no one can afford to fuel up the suv's or even their hybrids?
peak oil is definantely going to happen - like someone else said its a matter of WHEN not IF - it took 100s of millions of years to produce fossil fuels and only 100s of years to use them - we are using fossil fuels 1 million times faster then they took to form
coal is definetly going to be around longer as an energy source - enough for at least 200-300yrs however coal burning power plants are very dirty and are one of the leading causes of global warming trends - there are new coal-burning pp technolgy available that greatly reduces Co2 output however they are much more costly then traditional pp - a study showed that 100-200 of our c-b pp will have to be replaced in the next ten years and most if not all will be the traditional dirty version --> economics always come before conservation
wind and solar have potential (currently less then .5% of our energy comes from these alternatives) however there are still technology issues w/ solar for example, we cannot readily store the saved energy
one of the biggest problems we will have to address is while our oil production peaks and starts to decline, we will continue to demand higher and higher amounts of energy -- a prediction done by a NYU physicist (i saw a lecture by him on sustainable energy) was that in 2049 if we have 30% of our energy coming from wind and solar, increased nuclear energy production and all clean burning coal pp - the U.S. emission levels will be equal to that of our 1995 levels - population growth will drastically effect our energy problem in the future (he also said that currently we spend around $200 million a year on alternative energy r&d when it should be more like $200 billion
sorry to go one for so long - i am currently finishing up my masters degree in Natural resource and environmental law - and have taken a few courses on sustainable development -- i am glad to see that fellow MFK'ers are fairly well informed and concerned about this ongoing issue and debate - one thing is for sure: the next 10 - 50 yrs are going to be "interesting" to say the least (one thing is for sure many of our luxury anemeties will be no more including our fish tanks, especially us reefers) - hoping that technology will come up with a solution is the old "put all of your eggs in one basket" theory - however in this case if there is no breakthrough we will be in serious trouble
