Of the renewables hydro is about the best you can get (reliable, can store energy by pumping water uphill, decent economics, good for black starting, can also do flood control and irrigation) but it’s pretty much at capacity in the developed world (well half capacity, but the rest is in national parks and can’t be dammed). Of course there is an environmental cost of hydro and if the dam breaks you’re in a bit of trouble but it’s the only renewable that actually has a decent share of the electricity generation market.
Of course it won’t help you get off oil without progress in electric vehicles (oil isn’t really used for electricity production much these days, nuclear and natural gas replaced it there).
Geothermal is pretty good where you can use it (Iceland gets a lot of power from it) but it doesn’t work in most places. Wind and Solar for electricity production are pretty much useless without decent energy storage technology (if you have to back them up with simple cycle natural gas then you’re going to emit more than just using combined cycle natural gas) and the only one we’ve got at the moment is pumped hydro which we can’t really expand much.
Biofuels have the problem of causing problems with the food supply, it also turns out that when deforestation is factored in that they contribute to global warming even more than oil from the ground.
Of the renewables there really isn’t anything that can solve the problem, not even together.
If you want to convert to electricity than any that can produce reliable power can replace oil, coal can do that (with the environmental problems that brings) although nuclear is probably a better bet.
If you want to make oil then you could convert coal into oil with a bit of heat and some water, the process is pretty nasty from an environmental point of view but it does work, it could be improved by replacing coal burned for heat with another heat source (which would also result in you getting more oil out of the coal you mine for it) and possibly even to use CO2 from the atmosphere as the source for carbon instead of coal (which is pretty much just carbon anyway) which would make it quite good from an environmental point of view.
You could also manufacture hydrogen either using electrolysis or a thermochemical reaction and use that as fuel for cars.
For manufacturing fuel like hydrogen or synthetic hydrocarbons the renewables are a bit less useless since intermittent operation could be tolerated (although economics will probably favour getting the heat needed from nuclear).
The best way to get off oil though may be not to try and just let things happen, a replacement will eventually come along (we’ve got a few ideas on what we could replace it with) and take over.
For Hydrogen is the best fuel alternative. It does not emit smoke and green house gasses. However, our present technology cannot produced hydrogen efficiently and cannot meet the present demand.
Food to power people in walking and biking. That bushel of corn that would make a gallon of fuel to move your vehicle 20 miles would move you across the country on a bicycle.
synthetic gasoline and diesel from biomass gasification or directly from CO2 and H2O via solar power.
Hydrocarbons are easily synthesized from hydrogen and carbon monoxide by Fischer Tropsch reactions. A technology from the early 1900′s that have been used to power entire countries in the past (WWII Germany and embargoed South Africa). FT synthesized fuels allows the use of existing vehicles and distribution networks instead of requiring modifications, manufacture and construction of replacements thereby avoiding the enormous carbon footprint of a replacement technology like hydrogen.
Energy densities of other technologies are hard pressed to approach that of hydrocarbon fuels so unless our expectations of our vehicles in terms of range and power are revised, the alternatives are simply insufficient.
Synthetic hydrocarbon fuels from biomass are considered fourth generation bio-fuels and bring the efficiency of converting solar energy to fuel up to a level where it may be possible to replace fossil fuels.
Synthetic fuels are already produced, FT synthesized diesel from natural gas gasification is what’s being used to dilute our high sulfur diesel to meet the new federal low sulfur requirements, the US Airforce makes jetfuel from FT synthesis of coal gasification products and Sandia Labs makes methanol from CO2, H2O and sunlight.
the new electric space age car
actually air
there are none. Electric comes from coal, biodiesel and ethanol take food out of the mouths of starving children.
Of the renewables hydro is about the best you can get (reliable, can store energy by pumping water uphill, decent economics, good for black starting, can also do flood control and irrigation) but it’s pretty much at capacity in the developed world (well half capacity, but the rest is in national parks and can’t be dammed). Of course there is an environmental cost of hydro and if the dam breaks you’re in a bit of trouble but it’s the only renewable that actually has a decent share of the electricity generation market.
Of course it won’t help you get off oil without progress in electric vehicles (oil isn’t really used for electricity production much these days, nuclear and natural gas replaced it there).
Geothermal is pretty good where you can use it (Iceland gets a lot of power from it) but it doesn’t work in most places. Wind and Solar for electricity production are pretty much useless without decent energy storage technology (if you have to back them up with simple cycle natural gas then you’re going to emit more than just using combined cycle natural gas) and the only one we’ve got at the moment is pumped hydro which we can’t really expand much.
Biofuels have the problem of causing problems with the food supply, it also turns out that when deforestation is factored in that they contribute to global warming even more than oil from the ground.
Of the renewables there really isn’t anything that can solve the problem, not even together.
If you want to convert to electricity than any that can produce reliable power can replace oil, coal can do that (with the environmental problems that brings) although nuclear is probably a better bet.
If you want to make oil then you could convert coal into oil with a bit of heat and some water, the process is pretty nasty from an environmental point of view but it does work, it could be improved by replacing coal burned for heat with another heat source (which would also result in you getting more oil out of the coal you mine for it) and possibly even to use CO2 from the atmosphere as the source for carbon instead of coal (which is pretty much just carbon anyway) which would make it quite good from an environmental point of view.
You could also manufacture hydrogen either using electrolysis or a thermochemical reaction and use that as fuel for cars.
For manufacturing fuel like hydrogen or synthetic hydrocarbons the renewables are a bit less useless since intermittent operation could be tolerated (although economics will probably favour getting the heat needed from nuclear).
The best way to get off oil though may be not to try and just let things happen, a replacement will eventually come along (we’ve got a few ideas on what we could replace it with) and take over.
For Hydrogen is the best fuel alternative. It does not emit smoke and green house gasses. However, our present technology cannot produced hydrogen efficiently and cannot meet the present demand.
Food to power people in walking and biking. That bushel of corn that would make a gallon of fuel to move your vehicle 20 miles would move you across the country on a bicycle.
synthetic gasoline and diesel from biomass gasification or directly from CO2 and H2O via solar power.
Hydrocarbons are easily synthesized from hydrogen and carbon monoxide by Fischer Tropsch reactions. A technology from the early 1900′s that have been used to power entire countries in the past (WWII Germany and embargoed South Africa). FT synthesized fuels allows the use of existing vehicles and distribution networks instead of requiring modifications, manufacture and construction of replacements thereby avoiding the enormous carbon footprint of a replacement technology like hydrogen.
Energy densities of other technologies are hard pressed to approach that of hydrocarbon fuels so unless our expectations of our vehicles in terms of range and power are revised, the alternatives are simply insufficient.
Synthetic hydrocarbon fuels from biomass are considered fourth generation bio-fuels and bring the efficiency of converting solar energy to fuel up to a level where it may be possible to replace fossil fuels.
Synthetic fuels are already produced, FT synthesized diesel from natural gas gasification is what’s being used to dilute our high sulfur diesel to meet the new federal low sulfur requirements, the US Airforce makes jetfuel from FT synthesis of coal gasification products and Sandia Labs makes methanol from CO2, H2O and sunlight.
Natural Gas is at the moment the most adaptable. The technology exists, and the infastructure exists.