... I see someone saying silly things like "petroleum-powered vehicles are going away".
No, ain't gonna happen.
"But... but... the OIL will RUN OUT!" you say.
Well, yes and no.
The FOSSIL oil will run out.
But in the end, we'll STILL have to generate more power. By solar, by nuclear, whatever.
And we'll have to use it for transportation -- like cars.
So what kind of cars?
Electric? We already see issues with those -- charging, etc. The amount of power you'd need to draw down to do a tolerably fast recharge on a decent-range electric auto is... well, very impressive and vastly beyond normal house current.
So you'll need to build an infrastructure -- electric-recharging stations, with special lines into them. This will be expensive.
Hydrogen? Have to redesign the engines to run on it. Hydrogen presents a number of storage and transportation problems that must be solved. MASSIVE new infrastructure designs.
Or...
Gasoline and other oil -- synthesized? Plus side: We already have vast infrastructure proven for its transport and distribution. We already have quite efficient engines designed to use it. Synthesizing the material makes it CARBON NEUTRAL; you're no longer releasing excess carbon into the air, as you're removing it to make new fuel.
Negative: Costs considerably more energy than you get out to make.
However, that's true of ANY energy transport mechanism you care to name, unless someone comes up with efficient room-temperature superconductor batteries. And that's REALLY what gasoline is; not an energy SOURCE, but an energy CARRIER.
We have a LOT of infrastructure optimized to use gas, oil, diesel, etc. I see no reason we're going to throw all that away and spend literally TRILLIONS to convert, when for considerably LESS money we could just create far better energy SOURCES and use them to MAKE the gas and oil.
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threeringedmoon) wrote2008-04-08 04:55 am
no subject
And once again...
No, ain't gonna happen.
"But... but... the OIL will RUN OUT!" you say.
Well, yes and no.
The FOSSIL oil will run out.
But in the end, we'll STILL have to generate more power. By solar, by nuclear, whatever.
And we'll have to use it for transportation -- like cars.
So what kind of cars?
Electric? We already see issues with those -- charging, etc. The amount of power you'd need to draw down to do a tolerably fast recharge on a decent-range electric auto is... well, very impressive and vastly beyond normal house current.
So you'll need to build an infrastructure -- electric-recharging stations, with special lines into them. This will be expensive.
Hydrogen? Have to redesign the engines to run on it. Hydrogen presents a number of storage and transportation problems that must be solved. MASSIVE new infrastructure designs.
Or...
Gasoline and other oil -- synthesized?
Plus side: We already have vast infrastructure proven for its transport and distribution.
We already have quite efficient engines designed to use it.
Synthesizing the material makes it CARBON NEUTRAL; you're no longer releasing excess carbon into the air, as you're removing it to make new fuel.
Negative: Costs considerably more energy than you get out to make.
However, that's true of ANY energy transport mechanism you care to name, unless someone comes up with efficient room-temperature superconductor batteries. And that's REALLY what gasoline is; not an energy SOURCE, but an energy CARRIER.
We have a LOT of infrastructure optimized to use gas, oil, diesel, etc. I see no reason we're going to throw all that away and spend literally TRILLIONS to convert, when for considerably LESS money we could just create far better energy SOURCES and use them to MAKE the gas and oil.