Given all you have seen, Do you have any energy sources that can break the world of its fossil fuel addiction?

Question

We have some promising canadates..

1. Nuclear (Although there is controversy this one has been used by many countries almost exclusivly)
2. Wind
3. Solar
4. Hydroelectric
5. Biomass

Any thoughts on the above will be apreciated, and any alternatives that are offered will also be noted =)

*So called "Zero-point" energy scams need not apply and take up space in the answer list.

Oh yes, I did forget geothermal =) TY

Right now its impractical for anywhere except maybe yellowstone national park, but if somehow we were able to drill a shaft 7 miles down it might be an awesome source of energy.

Alcohol is really not an energy source. Its simply converted biomass. And currently it takes alot of energy to complete that conversion. but it is a good thought, especialy for transportation fuels.

Thank you for your answer ang.

Currently your answer is what a waste to energy incinerator does, it burns trash and produces energy as a byproduct. They currently are not enviromentaly sound, and the ash thats left over is a toxic mix of heavy metals and chemicals, but they are currently in existance and are one way of dealing with our waste =) Atleast we get some energy from it rather than making it into a big mound.

Excellent Article korngoddess1027.

I have heard quite a bit about brazil's natural fuels it has been producing. They are technicly biomass fuels but Very important because they stand to help offset oil use in transportation. I hear that almost all gas stations there sell a blend of fuel thats mostly alcohol from sugar cane as well. And while geneticly modified crops sound scary the reality is we have been producing superior genetic plants for hundreds of years, we are just getting a finer control of the proccess now.

Score one for the brazilians and one for the rest of the world since thats less mid-east oil dependance. I hope it wont be long before we scale up a system like that in america.

Thanks, Giggly Giraffe for your ideas =)

The slave thing is interesting, but currently americans use oil in place of other labor. Currently according to the last number I heard, every american uses the equivelent output of 4 slaves in energy constantlyso basicly with 300 million people we have an equivelent 1.2 BILLION people as energy slaves with our current oil use. Just goes to show how much energy we really use.

The landfill gas caputure is being used already where its feasable andreasonable.

Coal does pollute but we do have litteraly millions of tons of it, so we wont be running out anytime soon. I expect this to continue to power america for sometime to come.

Caffine =) Wow never thought of that one, maybe we could soak the power grid in it to get more energy =) Hehhee

Many good ideas so far =) I Thank all the people that have participated.

Answer 1

I dont know?

Answer 2

the biggest reason is that the conglomerates that own the fossil gasoline industry have spent untold billions to maintain greater much less high priced capability from turning out to be mainstream. each and every of the classified ads approximately what they are doing to help the ambience is all bull$hit. they only placed on the environmental face on a similar time as strangling the different source that ought to compete with or get rid of using fossil fuels. the 2d reason is we've not got here upon a source which will produce efficient capability reliably. Wind, image voltaic, wave, geothermal and nuclear all have considerable drawbacks.

Answer 3

Nuclear is the near-term answer to replacing coal/nat gas fired electricity generation. A renaissance of nuclear tech is on the way.

Wind is nice but limited by region, and kills the crap out of birds. Also not currently economical without subsidies (costs will come down as tech improves).

Solar...also nice, but uneconomical and will never be more than marginal without leaps in technology. But these will likely come to, as energy from the sun is a pretty stable source and makes sense to harness.

Hydroelectric is great, but how many more potential sites exist in the developed world?

Biomass will ramp up huge in the US because it is so politically appealing and can be done economically (if we keep tariffs on Brazil's ethanol).

Here are some that haven't been touched here, and they barely pass your zero-point nonsense filter.

1) Fission from He3 (moon mining, link below)
2) frozen hydrates (huge if we can ever solve the engineering problem of extraction)
3) biological catalysts (hydrogen from genetically modified algae for example...link below)

Answer 4

i can't think of the name of it, but fuel made from corn. Willie Nelson, the singer/songwriter has jumped on this bandwagon and is promoting the fuel. (I don't know if it's ethanol, bio-diesel or what). Sounds like a great idea, though. In the US, corn is readily available, to the point that farmers are paid to NOT harvest corn. I'm sure it'll never be a total replacement, but as a supplemental fuel, it could be produced in an abundance to have a positive affect for consumers and the world economy.

Answer 5

I think biomass. I know in India in the villiages and in other poor areas they use cowdung and convert it into methane that they can use. Its pretty amazing! Imagine how much power we could get if we did that on a large scale. Solar is probably the second most reliable but it will take many years to perfect. Alcohol has also done wonders in countries like brazil but it costs a lot to make

Answer 6

Water is doing a fine job in Vegas and California.

Slave labor? .

Trash - Isn't Bush and crew looking at ways to turn trash into gas? Is that what you meant by Biomass?

Coal - China's big on this energy ... but it does cause so much pollution, and could also become a scare commodity.

Hun, just going out of the box here ... Coffee does me wonders ... I wonder if it has any other uses outside of waking us humans up!!!

Answer 7

Ever since I was little, I thought it would be awesome if we could figure out a way to use our trash as fuel. Like u would put in some trash and then drive your car, that way we are solving tow problems, fuel and and the problem of our dumps getting over filled. Awesome idea, right????

Answer 8

With the inauguration of its first refinery for biodiesel last March, Brazil is heading the move towards replacing standard diesel with this new plant-based fuel.

The take-up and promotion of biodiesel in Brazil is due, to a great extent, to economic and strategic factors. The largest South American country does not have oil fields and depends on fuel imports. Under this situation, Brazil is urged to explore alternative sources of energy with the aim of developing petroleum substitutes.

Although it is unlikely that this bio-diesel fuel will become the fuel of the future, this renewable fuel seems to offer technical and ecological advantages.

As regards the technical aspects, biodiesel fuel is obtained from a simple process based on the extraction of oil from sunflower, soybean or peanuts seeds. According to the studies carried out by the National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA) from Argentina, the performance of biodiesel fuel in tractors does not results in a substantial power loss. Actually, engine power of tractors running on biodiesel was found to be just a 3 or 4% lower than in tractors running on petroleum diesel. Besides, it has been found that engines running on diesel work better since biodiesel leaves fewer carbon deposits and produce less engine wear.

The new fuel is 100% biodegradable and produces less polluting gases such as carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Tests performed in the Brazilian city of Curitiba have demonstrated that public transport buses running on a blended B20 fuel (20% biodiesel, 80% standard diesel) produce up to a third less pollution than those running on standard diesel.

In spite of these ecological advantages, biodiesel fuel is not fully approved of by all the ecologist and environmentalist groups in the region. This is due to the fact that biodiesel production is closely linked to soy crops. In both Argentina and Brazil, biodiesel fuel is primarily obtained from soybean. The soy crops that occupy great portions of land in Argentina and the south of Brazil are being hardly criticized from different angles. The current agricultural model sparks heated debates as to its implications in terms of ecological diversity, sustainable use of natural resources and use of genetically modified seeds, among others.

As international oil prices soar, that bet has put Brazil at the forefront of a "biofuels" movement in which many countries view sugar cane, corn, soybeans, beets, cornstalks and native grasses as cleaner, money-saving substitutes for oil produced in politically unstable countries. Ethanol is higher in power-producing octane than most gasoline and can reduce tailpipe emissions of carbon monoxide and harmful particulates.


Sorry about long post I just really liked the article and wanted to share it. I really like your question though.

Answer 9

Alcohol

Answer 10

yes i had mabey the best idea ever come up by a 13 year old...

why not send BILLIONS of space probes close to the sun with solar pannels and then every year take down enough to have enough enrgy for the year and send that many back up. it would be expencive to start but still later it would be virtualy free.

Answer 11

i know a guy that runs his car on some hyydrogen tanks and water comes out the exhaust