what are the main things about why are people saying that the world is running out of energy?

Answer 1

The earth itself has a physical limit on what it can hold, remember the crust is very thin, and most of the earth is molten. We can't access that because we don't have a materail that can stand it, and we can't drill a hole down deep enough.

We are going into some old oil wells that were no longer economical to pump, but with the higher price of oil they have become economical once again.

The latest mine collapse disaster was done in a risking process called collapse mining where the supports that hold up the roof are minned out to get the remaining coal, this of course brings down the ceiling on the miners. The mine owner claimed a minor earthquake caused the disaster, when it truth it could have been any strong vibration. Most of Pittsburg is built over a coal mine. We can't do collapse mining there for fear of bring down the city itself.

We are burning through what took millions of years to make in only a 100 years. If you continue at that rate then you will have to run out. Coal, oil and natural gas are only made when plant matter decays underwater with a lack of oxygen. This happens easily in swamps but rarely anywhere else. We are draining our swamps for building cities like Washington DC and parts of New York, so we don't have many sources to create any new fuel sources.

Sherwood Forest the haunts of Robin Hood has been cut down to a single stand of trees since most of the wood was either burned or used for ships.

Over 90% of the people that have ever lived on the world today are now alive. All those people are demanding energy and using it at an every increasing rate. We haven't invested enough into clean renewable energy resources like wind, solar and tidal. We do have a lot of hydroelectric dams, but they are fresh water dams and we are running out of fresh water as well. Many areas in the US and thanks to Global Warming even more areas are going to suffer droughts.

The solution is to pull the water out of the ground, which we have been doing for centuries, so we are running out of water there. We can remove the salt from ocean water, but that is power intensive and not yet economical. Soon there will be a water shortage and that will change requiring even more energy.

Meanwhile a shortage of metals and the desire to make cars and airplanes has increased the used of aluminum, which requires a lot of electricity to create. It used to be so rare that the top of the Washington Monument was covered in it.

Wind power only works in some areas, solar cells are only 40% efficient and they too only work in some areas. Converting cars to use hydrogen will only require more electricity to create the hydrogen by breaking down water molecules, and we need the water to drink and water our crops. So that is a dead end technology.

There isn't enough land to feed the US and grow crops for ethanol and the US has been feeding Russia for decades, it is the grain basket of the world, but thanks to global warming that could change.

The energy crisis is acute and close. There is an ocean of oil under Iran, but we can't always be sure we will get to it or even want to; the political price could be too high. So we need alternate sources of energy. Nuclear energy is a good option except the waste. The new Deaf Smith containment station will only hold enough waste that we have currently created and we are still running our nuclear power plants. We can cut down on the waste by using breeder reactors to process the fuel further; creating weapons grade plutonium, but that is politically unpopular and if it falls into the hands of terrorists it could be very dangerous. The major hurtle for them to not create an atomic bomb is the fact that it is hard to get weapons grade material.

So this narrows our options considerably and we are using more and more energy every day.

Answer 2

Fossil fuels are a finite source of energy and bringing them to market is becoming more and more costly. It may take a couple hundred years to run out but one day they will be gone....there's only so much of it so we need to get started on alternative fuel sources and infrastructure now. Might be a moot point since some people believe the end of days is not too far away and there are some predictions that at current rates of increased genetic disorders, human beings will be extinct in another 50 years or so. Kinda gloomy but who knows for sure.

Answer 3

The world isn't running out of energy; it is running out of liquid fossil fuels (oil, gas), which store solar energy. Most FF will be exhausted before 2100, and it will become increasingly expensive before then.

There's plenty of coal (centuries worth, mostly in the US), but burning all of it would not be good for the atmosphere.

There are other forms of energy (solar, wind, tidal, hydro - which are generally all just byproducts of solar, & nuclear), they just aren't as easy to use. When the cost of FF exceeds other forms, people will switch to the other forms.

Answer 4

We (the human race) are taking more from the earth than the earth can put back. We are producing more carbon dioxide than ever, and we are also taking more trees which is really screwing everything up. All of our spray cans, cars ect. are thickening the ozone layer which is creating too much heat. That is killing very important sea life and melting polar caps. The world is dying is a more harsh way of saying it but true, and we are killing it

Answer 5

don't know