What fuel or form of energy will replace the fuels we use most commonly today.?

Question

What actually works-and more importantly, what is keeping people from using it? Are the costs of producing another type of fuel actually more than what crude oil costs now? Are there any serious projects you know of to use an alternative power source at any industrial plants?

Answer 1

There are a variety of ways of getting fuel oil from garbage (the Butterball Turkey plant has recently added such a facility for their waste) and a researcher in Spain has developed a variety of plankton from which oil might be extracted.

But I think neither of these are long-term solutions. Ultimately, almost all energy on our planet comes from the sun, and I think that eventually we will have to aquire it ourselves from that source. Either directly through photovoltaic cells and the like, or indirectly through hydroelectic, wave turbines, or wind farms.

We have the technology now to do this if we wished, but it is far less expensive to proceed with current equipment than to produce new things. Such a change will require strong societies who demand better alternatives, or more enclosed ones that must live conservatively or die (such as an orbital colony).

Answer 2

If you are talking about the fuels for cars and such, then I think the replacement will be hydrogren, it works better, the exaust is nothing but water, and its very easy to come by. The reason that we aren't using it widespread is that fuel companies pay car companies not to develop hydrogen based cars. There are some model however, but there are far more Petrolium stations than there are hydrogen. As for power plants, the effective power that we arent using is nuclear energy. In the current day it is very safe and efficient, and it doesn't give off harmful greenhouse gasses. The problem is there is no safe place to dump the used up nuclear waste, so the environmentalists thorw a fit. Once we develop a safe fusion process, we wont have to worry about that.

Answer 3

The cost for R&D is high but the cost for a changeover is ludicrously high. I think a fuel that burns similar to gasoline is likely the most reachable but still, it costs less to refine oil than to produce the bio-fuel everyone raves about.
Solar energy in transportation is a pipe dream, the system is heavily dependent on sunlight and does not perform well.
The problem that needs to be addressed for polutants is to remove government oversight and replace it with a public oversite, this will act in the best interest of the consumer while optimizing for performance and polution. We need more oil produced drilling has been safe for years but the enviro-terrorists fight it all the way. Another major problem is that we haven't built a refinery in over 30yrs in this country. its also a major problem that the EPA mandates formulas for seasons and regions and they have final say as to what goes where and when. Sorry for the length but thats my take.

Answer 4

Or should we ask the question, if we switch to another source of energy other then oil, what would that do to the economy not only here in the US but the world. To help you understand, for the past 20 years or so we have been exploring other fuel types(solar, salt water and fission) to name a few. If we where to switch to other energy sources it would through the middle east into turmoil, huh not a bad idea, but what would it do to our own economy, it would take a lot of years to pick up the pieces.

Answer 5

It is possible to make ethanol and methanol from organic materials. I have seen a report on one study that estimated, if the entire United States were covered in corn crops, we could not make enough fuel to replace the oil we now use.
It is possible to make hydrogen from breaking down water. Unfortunately it takes energy to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen.
We can use nuclear power for the energy, but the enviro-weenies have blocked the expansion of nuclear plants.
In the US we have oil locked up in oil shale deposits. We have coal deposits in Montana, un-tapped oil supplies in Alaska, natural gas deposits that have not been tapped, and methane nodules that accumulate at the bottom of the ocean. A safe way to mine that methane has not been developed.
We are constantly making improvements in solar energy and wind energy.
In the US we have only scratched the surface in the use of insulation. It is currently technically possible to make a building so well-insulated that it needs no energy for heating and cooling.
Everything costs money. So far, oil is cheapest and easiest to use. We do not have insurmountable energy problems in the US.

Answer 6

Eventually nuclear. We are currently using only a tiny fraction of the energy in the nuclear fuel currently being used. Reprocessing and reuse could provide far more energy than we need. Although nuclear is only directly usable at large facilities such as electric power plants and large ships, it could produce all the electricity needed for smaller scale energy needs. Once the security and environmentalist problems are solved, we will have an almost unlimited supply of clean energy.

Answer 7

Bio fuel's are really taking off right now. The real beauty is diesel can be made out of any type of oil animal or vegetable and someone will eventually figure out how to make ethanol out of cellulose . That means there will be tons of free or nearly free raw materials for ethanol. Also the carbon we put into the air will be recycled back into the plant material we will be using.

Answer 8

Once we consume all the oil, we'll be switching to different methods of using energy. Hydropower, solar power, wind energy, and nuclear energy. We would use nuclear energy now but it'll engender harm to the people around us. Biofuels cannot be an alternative, it's going to take away many of our crops and cause a dearth of corn and soy beans. Other than that, liquefied natural gas can't be used because it's too expensive and solar energy is costly as well.

Answer 9

A combination of many different fuels. Solar will play a big role, wind will play a minor role, and expect nuclear to make a major comeback. (I know, I don't like it either, but it is a necessary evil.)

Hydrogen is certainly NOT the right answer. To get hydrogen, you need other types of fuel to separate hydrogen from oxygen in the water (very inefficient!). Hydrogen is good for the politicians, but certainly a short term answer to give an extra breath to the automobile as we know it.

Answer 10

Stage 1: Coal will be replaced with gassified coal, petroleum by blends with ethanol, oils from oil shale and oil sands..
Stage 2: Increased use of solar and wind generated electricity, bio-fuels, and methyl hydrates.
Stage 3: Hydrogen economy with hydrogen generation from artificial photosynthesis.