Reply #7: There is plenty of energy, but not the kind you can put to use [View All]

[Ezlivin]

There is no substitute for cheap oil. None. It took the earth millions of years to convert the energy that fell upon ancient trees and vegetation into crude oil. We are in essence using stored sunlight from eons past.

Alternative fuels will prove useful only in limited circumstances. The current functioning of our society cannot be maintained with alternative fuels; it is unsustainable.

Hydrogen as a fuel? Impracticable due to EROEI (energy return on energy invested) and the fact that hydrogen is only a carrier of energy, not a source. It takes more energy to make hydrogen that the hydrogen itself produces. As a replacement for the gasoline now used, hydrogen does not scale. The smallest known element in the universe makes hydrogen very hard to store and transport; it wants to seep out of the smallest pores. We would have to build a whole new network of pipes designed specifically to transport hydrogen. And what about getting hydrogen the last "mile" to the service station? One 40-ton gasoline truck can completely refuel one mid-sized filling station. It would take 21 hydrogen trucks to deliver the same amount of energy. So hydrogen will not allow us to keep the roads filled with cars.

Ethanol seems promising only when you do not factor in the use petroleum products to make the ethanol. Currently it takes more than one (1) barrel of oil to make one (1) barrel of ethanol. And that one barrel of ethanol is not nearly as useful as one barrel of crude (because the number of products that can be made from crude).

The more you examine the claims of the alternative fuel backers, the more you realize that none of them comes close to replacing our oil-based economy.