[Vision2020] Conserve precious Oil

[Tbertruss at aol.com]

Bill et. al.

I think you are correct about bio-fuels as an alternative to oil.  In fact, 
it will be difficult for any alternative fuel to compensate for the cheap 
abundance of energy from oil.  Gas would need to rise over $5 a gallon to... I'm 
not sure at what price for gas that alternative fuels would start to compete in 
the open marketplace, but it's very high.  And then the availability of the 
quantity of alternative fuels needed to replace the prodigious amount of energy 
from oil that we currently use is another problem, as you pointed out with 
your examination of what it would take to replace oil with canola.

We have heard a lot about fuel cell cars and the coming hydrogen economy, but 
there is no free lunch.  The hydrogen must come from hydrocarbons (propane 
or...) or some other source, and this may not be as cheap as oil is now.  Fuel 
cells do produce energy from a given amount of propane that is more efficient 
than burning the propane in an internal combustion engine.  I guess if you want 
to run your internal combustion car on propane this is not so hard to do?

But unless there are some break throughs in energy technology, the world will 
face a major economic crisis when oil starts to run out.  Using less energy 
per person seems like the only practical solution.  Just try and tell that to 
the average American!

What ever happened to fusion power?  Seems like this technology is just not 
currently practical.  If it could be made to work, this would help solve the 
oil crisis, but this is a big if.  So much for the happy face technologists who 
think science and technology will solve our energy problems!

Ted Moffett
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