The future replacement options for oil dependency

[Danny Dowling]

I just listened to Obama tout a new solar installation in Las Vegas as one of the great achievements we need to accomplish. Eliminating our dependency on foreign oil.

There are some options. Jatropha seed oil, Biodiesels, Natural Gas, Electric.

Jatropha Seed Oil
I know that it seems weird and unheard of, but I mention this because the others aren't suited for aerospace. The additives in jet fuel are what make it not freeze up or turn into a paste. Biodiesel suffers from turning into a paste I understand on cold days.
Natural gas is too flammable. Whereas jet fuel only really ignites based on pressure, it has nothing to do with heat.
The Jatropha nut oil seems like a clear winner here. Test flights have already been successful flying on Jatropha oil exclusively part of the way. Jatropha grows in arid dry areas.

BioDiesels
By using a catalyst, mulch and anything that contains a lot of hydrogen and carbon in long strands, can be turned into BioDiesel.
Hey, and Willie Nelsons truck stop is all BioDiesel so it's gotta be good. He knows when to walk away from something.
Supposedly Truckers get more mileage for a better price from using BioDiesels so hopefully the demand will alter the infrastructure for cars as well.

Natural Gas
Too much natural gas. That's my viewpoint. It seems like it's readily available locally.
In the 1970's, regulations limiting the use of natural gas were set in place. It produces less pollution than gasoline though and in the 1970's the major political view was anti hippie. The regulations make natural gas about 60 cents a gallon, all because demand isn't there for it yet.
The number of vehicles on the road today worldwide that use natural gas is about 10 million.
The number of those cars in the USA is about 10 thousand.

I can think of several stock symbols like AZZ and Baytex energy that both have proven natural gas reserves in the millions of cubic feet.

Electric
Electric energy. It faces a few major hurdles. Dead batteries for one, power plants that are burning coal to make the power, it is also expensive to initially purchase cars that use electricity to drive the powertrain.

Though electricity is a very measurable consumable product, it does have some drawbacks in the safety areas. You might have heard of capacitors in cellphones exploding and causing damage to people. Cars use those same capacitors only much much larger.

What I would like to see happen
My hopes are that the USA makes advances in tidal generation for our electrical power. That we use natural gas for our cars and geothermal energy for our homes. That electricity is played down to be used for electronics like televisions, but also kept in check to limit the amount of power single devices can draw.
I'm at ends to decide whether I'm for or against electric cars. There's a great benefit to not burning oil, but there's a bigger risk that the heavier capacitors and batteries hurtling down the road will explode.

[Charles A. Smith]

Biofuels are in fact NOT as efficient as fossil fuels with respect to units energy/units volume OR units energy/untits weight. And beyond this, growing them usually has catostrophic environmental consequences. And beyond that, growing biofuels on arable land that has been used to grow food has recently caused food price increases that have devastated many poorer countries.

Electricity is not a source of energy, it is just a means of transporting it. The electricity must be generated by using some sort of energy source.

Solar power has generally a low environmental impact (so far as we have been able to predict), but we will have to completely cover probably MOST of the deserts in the Southwestern US with solar farms to generate enough power to come close to meeting the current energy consumption of the US. And beyond this, steam generating solar power requires a lot of water, of which there is little in deserts (by definition).

There aren't enough useful tidal generation sites in the continental US to make a drop in the bucket of difference.

Most geothermal that is accessible at residential sites DOES reduce the cost of heating homes by about 75%, but one still needs electricity to power the heat pump.

Roof mounted electrovoltaic solar panels cost about ten dollars a watt; so they generate very expensive power. And of course the sun does not shine at night. And in many locations and at certain times of year, the sun does not shine in the day either; so one must add electrical storage systems to the cost of ANY solar power scheme; and couple it with a smart grid. These panels DO have the advantage of localizing the power generation so that power transportation costs for this scheme are low.

It would be possible (as per Pickens' suggestion) to switch all vehicles over to using compressed natural gas, but in twenty-five years when that becomes too expensive and scarce, one would have to switch them all again to electric. To me it would make more sense to switch them all over directly to electric and save half the infrastructure, education (necessary for any new technolgy), and momentum costs.

The risk inherent in whatever sort of electrical energy storage system that is devised for vehicles is so far down on the list of concerns to civilization that it isn't even worth addressing in the discussion.

The world, and particularily North America is in for a serious economic shock in the next fifty years as we struggle to reduce our energy demands, and find and adjust to the use of renewables. All options will substantially reduce our standard of living.

Not to be all negative, there IS one renewable energy resource that does have the potential to save us from our collective negligence. And that is the energy contained in the winds that blow many thousands of feet above the earth's surface across the entire westerlies.