No Fossil Fuels: Will We Find New Alternatives?

[Manraj singh]

My teacher says in a couple of hundred years we are going to run out of fossil fuels. What then? I am pretty sure we will manage to make artificial fuels, won't we? Is that possible? The main Concern is plains, they won't be able to run on electricity. I am pretty sure we will have electricity. So, even if we do run out of them and can't make them again, we will still be able to function well as we have electricity, right?

 

[Astronuc]

My teacher says in a couple of hundred years we are going to run out of fossil fuels. What then? I am pretty sure we will manage to make artificial fuels, won't we? Is that possible? The main Concern is plains, they won't be able to run on electricity. I am pretty sure we will have electricity. So, even if we do run out of them and can't make them again, we will still be able to function well as we have electricity, right?

It is being addressed: https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=749219

Search for Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis.

 

[SteamKing]

If you mean planes, yeah, they could be a problem. If you mean plains, they'll still be just sitting there.

 

[nsaspook]

In a couple of hundred years we could get all we want from Titan.
http://www.universetoday.com/12800/titan-has-hundreds-of-times-more-liquid-hydrocarbons-than-earth/

 

[DrDu]

My teacher says in a couple of hundred years we are going to run out of fossil fuels. What then?

If you are optimistic, this might lead to the disappearance of cars.

 

[Romulo Binuya]

Fossil fuels are oil, gas, and coal. The Worldometers says world oil reserve will run out in about 40 years.

Scientists and technicians are making progress in developing and harnessing renewable energy sources especially solar energy which are literally falling on our heads. I've seen on tv that France is using molten salt that enable their solar power plant to still operate when the sun is out.

And most of all, I wish Allen J. Bard succeed in his endeavor about harnessing solar power. ”Bard’s current research focuses on harnessing the power of natural sunlight to produce sustainable energy. His lab at the University of Texas tests different chemical compounds in the hopes of discovering a material that will carry out artificial photosynthesis. Bard feels strongly that such discoveries must be sought and made because otherwise humanity will be in deep trouble as fossil fuels run out.” http://bard.cm.utexas.edu/

 

[Manraj singh]

We can only wait and see for what future holds for us. Let's hope its good!

 

[Romulo Binuya]

We must stay in school and participate in the research whenever possible. Fossil fuels are technically ancient sunlight that was stored through photosynthesis. And plant leaves are harnessing solar energy more than scientists can explain the process. Achieving synthetic photosynthesis will require more than chemistry... I guess the endeavor will require quantum mechanics and nanotechnology among other branch of science.

edit addendum: fascinating, I found this link a while ago through my email
http://www.isgtw.org/feature/nature’s-subway-quantum-tunneling-enzymes

 

[DHF]

In a couple of hundred years we could get all we want from Titan.
http://www.universetoday.com/12800/titan-has-hundreds-of-times-more-liquid-hydrocarbons-than-earth/

I don't know if that will ever be practical. Even with advances in space flight. it would still take more energy getting the fuel then we would get from the fuel itself.

 

[mheslep]

... The main Concern is plains, they won't be able to run on electricity...

Don't be so sure. The only transportation that absolutely can not be pure electric is rocketry outside the atmosphere.

EADS/Rolls-Royce distributed electric propulsion concept
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5t8VdLpsOA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIHBDaySH6U

 

[DrDu]

And plant leaves are harnessing solar energy more than scientists can explain the process.

Note that Michel, who won the Nobel prize for his research on photosynthesis calls biofuels nonsense due to the low overall efficiency of biofuels:
http://climatesanity.wordpress.com/...ng-biochemist-says-all-biofuels-are-nonsense/

 

[mheslep]

Note that Michel, who won the Nobel prize for his research on photosynthesis calls biofuels nonsense due to the low overall efficiency of biofuels:
http://climatesanity.wordpress.com/...ng-biochemist-says-all-biofuels-are-nonsense/

Some good points but this argument sounds weak:

“Microalgae have been advertised as the ideal candidates for biofuel production. There are many unsupported claims about their efficiency, some even exceeding the theoretical limits of photosynthetic efficiency…the existence of photoinhibition and a poor RuBisCO will limit the advantages of microalgae together with the demands for growing and harvesting them.”

The criticism is that biofuel is hyped? So what? The photosynthetic efficiency, by itself, is really irrelevant. What matters is, given a particular efficiency, is the particular biofuel process economic? I don't see Michel stating that it is impossible for biofuel to ever cost less than, say, $100/gallon.

And these microbe approaches don't necessarily require arable land, pesticides, etc.

 

[Algr]

Electric airplanes do exist - they are a niche market currently, (trainers) but slowly gaining ground.
There are several solutions for air travel in a post-fossil fuel world:
- Better electric planes. A solution to the battery problem will change the world.
- Beamed energy from the ground. A plane could be charged in flight, using batteries only for takeoff, landing, and gaps between beams.
- Biofuels: As others have mentioned.
- Genetically modified giant ducks.

 

[czelaya]

There will always be fossil fuels. There will be a point were the cost to extract fossil fuels will exceed some economic and energy cost that will not be viable to extract and process the fuel.

 

[thankz]

the answer is population management but nobody likes that answer, 15 billion people and no food will force change.

 

[DHF]

Electric airplanes do exist - they are a niche market currently, (trainers) but slowly gaining ground.
There are several solutions for air travel in a post-fossil fuel world:
- Better electric planes. A solution to the battery problem will change the world.
- Beamed energy from the ground. A plane could be charged in flight, using batteries only for takeoff, landing, and gaps between beams.
- Biofuels: As others have mentioned.
- Genetically modified giant ducks.

Sci Fi writers love to scare us with visions of a post singularity world whee AI rules the planet, but personally the future I fear is the post fosil fuel era in which desperate genetic experiments have run amok and we all live in fear of our giant Avian Overlords.

 

[Algr]

There will always be fossil fuels. There will be a point were the cost to extract fossil fuels will exceed some economic and energy cost that will not be viable to extract and process the fuel.

True, but it comes down to the same thing - fossil fuels will become a niche restricted to applications where they can't be replaced. Oil at too high a price will become worthless - it isn't like gold where it is prized for it's beauty.

 

[phinds]

the answer is population management but nobody likes that answer, 15 billion people and no food will force change.

And what is it that makes you think there will be no food? This sounds like an unsupportable personal theory.

 

[russ_watters]

Yes, lack of enough food is pretty far down on the list of our problems.

 

[thankz]

well if you have a sizable garden you'll have something to eat, mostly the coasts where most people live will go without. I'm sure their will be land grabs before people go completely hungry still if your not used to living like the amish. I just ordered this book https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0865715653/?tag=pfamazon01-20

I'm sure people will stretch out biofuels as long as they can but all the things petroleum creates will be rationed until the military takes over. I give it 300 years but really it will be much sooner than that. I don't know why anyone alive right now should care unless you have kids.

 

[thankz]

Yes, lack of enough food is pretty far down on the list of our problems.

what are the problems? I'd like to know.

 

[mheslep]

Population management? To prevent decrease? Even China's working age population is now decreasing.

 

[thankz]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population_estimates

the worlds population is only increasing, even at 2.3 children per couple in the us we're only growing. what will happen is that first world country's like japan will see a decrease in population growth and second and third world country's will have an increase.

an inconvenient truth indeed

 

[Tanelorn]

How much farming can still be done without oil? Enough to support 8B people?

 

[mheslep]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population_estimates

the worlds population is only increasing, even at 2.3 children per couple in the us we're only growing. what will happen is that first world country's like japan will see a decrease in population growth and second and third world country's will have an increase.

an inconvenient truth indeed

The US fertility rate has been below replacement since 2007. US population currently grows only due to immigration.
http://money.cnn.com/2013/09/06/news/economy/birth-rate-low/
And, if not for the larger family size of recent US immigrants, US fert rates would be far lower.

As for the rest of the world, for most of it the peak is already built in, esp China, so that population is not "only increasing" without end. There are really only two nations left now with conditions that could drive large increases in future global population: Pakistan and Nigeria. Both still have large fertility rates and large populations.

 

[russ_watters]

what are the problems? I'd like to know.

Well this thread is about fossil fuel depletion. The larger issue is where we will keep getting our energy. Then there's the pollution that comes with it.

 

[Manraj singh]

About the population, its going to increase till 2050. It will strike 9.2 billion, when India will be the most populated country. It will then start to decrease.

 

[Algr]

And what is it that makes you think there will be no food? This sounds like an unsupportable personal theory.

When has this ever NOT happened? From microbes to animals to humans (Ex. Easter Island, Dark ages) whenever you have a population boom, resources get depleted and then you have a crash. It is simply what life does.

There is no such thing as "no population control". Nature has a foolproof plan: It's called War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. We can choose a different plan, but ignoring the problem is choosing nature's way.

Technological advances have let us stretch out the game, but can we keep finding new tricks forever?

 

[gmax137]

...Technological advances have let us stretch out the game, but can we keep finding new tricks forever?

Yes, I think we can. It is what we do, and have done. It is how you can distinguish between humans and yeast.

When has the total human population decreased in the past 20,000 years (or since Noah's flood, if you prefer)?

 

[Algr]

We can... if we can convince ourselves to choose to.

"Sometime before the arrival of Europeans on Easter Island, the Rapanui experienced a tremendous upheaval in their social system brought about by a change in their island's ecology... By the time of European arrival in 1722, the island's population had dropped to 2,000–3,000 from a high of approximately 15,000 just a century earlier."

They thought the trees would never run out either.

 

[mheslep]

1918. Flu pandemic.

 

[Manraj singh]

Assuming that the population does go as high as 14 billion, we are going to have loads of skyscrapers, obviously, but loads of forests are going to be cleared. Considering that, there might be oxygen deficiency. Unless we get underground buildings with underground plantations, which we probably will.

 

[Evo]

Yes, I think we can. It is what we do, and have done. It is how you can distinguish between humans and yeast.

When has the total human population decreased in the past 20,000 years

Potato famine in Ireland.

Also

The Great Famine of 1315–1317 (occasionally dated 1315–1322) was the first of a series of large scale crises that struck Europe early in the fourteenth century. Places affected include continental Europe (extending east to Russia and south to Italy) as well as Great Britain.[1] It caused millions of deaths over an extended number of years and marks a clear end to an earlier period of growth and prosperity between the eleventh to thirteenth centuries.

The Great Famine started with bad weather in spring 1315, universal crop failures lasted through 1316 until summer harvest in 1317; Europe did not fully recover until 1322. It was a period marked by extreme levels of crime, disease, mass death and even cannibalism and infanticide. It had consequences for the Church, state, European society and future calamities to follow in the fourteenth century.

These are two in europe off the top of my head. The world has suffered many famines in just the last few hundred years. http://listverse.com/2013/04/10/10-terrible-famines-in-history/

Black plague.

World Wars.

We seem to have gone off topic.

 

[Manraj singh]

Well ,it seems like we have a decent chance of finding some by 2028. I read in the may edition of popular science that if everything goes according to plan, we will have captured an asteroid, which will probably have vast reserves of fossil fuels. There is a good chance.

 

[phinds]

Well ,it seems like we have a decent chance of finding some by 2028. I read in the may edition of popular science that if everything goes according to plan, we will have captured an asteroid, which will probably have vast reserves of fossil fuels. There is a good chance.

And what would you propose we DO with it if we do find one? You can't seriously believe that bringing fossil fuel to Earth from space would be even remotely economically viable, can you?

 

[Manraj singh]

And what would you propose we DO with it if we do find one? You can't seriously believe that bringing fossil fuel to Earth from space would be even remotely economically viable, can you?

I agree with you. Although it is a possibility, it will be expensive, and then again, so much fuel will be used in sending the rocket to space in the first place. As of now, not viable, but maybe later, considering how we are progressing.

 

[Evo]

Well ,it seems like we have a decent chance of finding some by 2028. I read in the may edition of popular science that if everything goes according to plan, we will have captured an asteroid, which will probably have vast reserves of fossil fuels. There is a good chance.

How would an asteroid have "vast reserves of fossil fuel", that would mean a lot of life was present and conditions to change that life to a substance which can be made into fuel.

Please post the peer reviewed scientific research from a qualified journal that states that, not some pop-sci magazine.

 

[SteamKing]

I once read in a tabloid newspaper that George Bush found oil on the moon. Doesn't mean any of it was true.

 

[D H]

Well ,it seems like we have a decent chance of finding some by 2028. I read in the may edition of popular science that if everything goes according to plan, we will have captured an asteroid, which will probably have vast reserves of fossil fuels. There is a good chance.

How would an asteroid have "vast reserves of fossil fuel", that would mean a lot of life was present and conditions to change that life to a substance which can be made into fuel.

The article was almost certainly addressing methane, but possibly in a bad popsci way. There's lot of water and methane in them thar asteroids, at least in those from near Jupiter's orbit and beyond. Water and methane will probably be the first things mined from asteroids. Why? Because they are the easily accessible, low hanging fruit in space, and they are potentially very valuable if used in space.

There would be zero value in bringing space-mined water and methane back down to Earth. That makes absolutely no sense. Water and methane are just too abundant right here on the Earth (and contrary to the peak water and peak methane nuts, they will stay that way for some time). The reason they are valuable in space is the extremely high cost of launching anything into space. Even if the new space companies accomplish everything they have dreamt of, and then some, it will still be very expensive to launch fuel and water into space.

Picking the low hanging fruit is a good idea in any field, and in space mining, the low hanging fruit are the volatiles in icy asteroids.

 

[Evo]

I believe the Op misunderstood this paragraph in the article.

Asteroids could also make for a very big payday. According to Planetary Resources, an asteroid-mining company founded by commercial-spaceflight pioneers Peter Diamandis and Eric Anderson in 2010, a single 500-meter-wide space rock could contain 1.5 times the current world reserves of platinum-group metals like iridium and palladium. A water-rich asteroid of a similar size, meanwhile, might contain 80 times more water than a supertanker. If it were converted to hydrogen and oxygen, the company says, it could provide enough fuel to power all the rockets ever launched in human history. Attracted by the same staggering numbers, a second asteroid-mining firm, Deep Space Industries, launched in 2013.

http://www.popsci.com/article/science/how-were-finding-asteroids-they-find-us

You're right about the water and how it could be used DH.

New NASA mission to help us learn how to mine asteroids

Asteroids could one day be a vast new source of scarce material if the financial and technological obstacles can be overcome. Asteroids are lumps of metals, rock and dust, sometimes laced with ices and tar, which are the cosmic "leftovers" from the solar system's formation about 4.5 billion years ago. There are hundreds of thousands of them, ranging in size from a few yards to hundreds of miles across. Small asteroids are much more numerous than large ones, but even a little, house-sized asteroid should contain metals possibly worth millions of dollars.

There are different kinds of asteroids, and they are grouped into three classes from their spectral type -- a classification based on an analysis of the light reflected off of their surfaces. Dark, carbon-rich, "C-type" asteroids have high abundances of water bound up as hydrated clay minerals. Although these asteroids currently have little economic value since water is so abundant on Earth, they will be extremely important if we decide we want to expand the human presence throughout the solar system.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130809010232.htm

 

[DHF]

And what would you propose we DO with it if we do find one? You can't seriously believe that bringing fossil fuel to Earth from space would be even remotely economically viable, can you?

I agree with you. Although it is a possibility, it will be expensive, and then again, so much fuel will be used in sending the rocket to space in the first place. As of now, not viable, but maybe later, considering how we are progressing.

By the time we have made it cheap enough to bring down more fuel then we spent going up, it would mean we had perfected a fuel source far superior to chemical fuels we used now. That being the case we would have no use for said fossil fuels.

 

[D H]

Peter Diamandis and Eric Anderson have oversold the value of asteroids, mainly because their investors are clueless about what does and does not make sense in space. Yes, it is true that "a single 500-meter-wide space rock could contain 1.5 times the current world reserves of platinum-group metals like iridium and palladium." It's a simple calculation. It is also true that that huge reserve has zero economic value now, and that will remain the case for a long, long time. The near-term future (25-50 years) is that with the possible exception of helium-3, anything mined in space only will have value in space, and then only if there is infrastructure in space to take advantage of that space-mined material.

Biological processes are not needed to make hydrocarbons. The Horsehead Nebula galaxy is loaded with propynylidyne (C₃H). Titan is loaded with methane and ethane (CH₄ and C₂H₆). These hydrocarbon volatiles may eventually be very valuable as fuel used in space. Bringing such materials back down to Earth doesn't make sense; they're abundant and cheap on the Earth.

Splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen has a value: the oxygen. That's how the Space Station gets the breathing oxygen needed by the crew. It's much easier to haul liquid water into space than it is to haul gaseous oxygen. The hydrogen? That's a waste product that is currently dumped into space.

 

[DHF]

The hydrogen can be further processed by combining it with CO2 to make more O2, the by product would then be methane which could be stored and used as fuel or dumped into space. Originally NASA had such plans for the ISS but they were never implemented. I would imagine it either proved more of an engineering challenge then they expected or the process was more energy expensive then they could budget.

 

[johnbbahm]

Fossil fuels replacement

I first heard that work was going on in man mad fuels about 5 years ago.
The first article was from Germany.
http://www.fraunhofer.de/en/press/research-news/2010/04/green-electricity-storage-gas.html

Then the NRL said they had refined the process for making jet fuel,
http://www.nrl.navy.mil/media/news-releases/2012/fueling-the-fleet-navy-looks-to-the-seas
NRL has developed a two-step process in the laboratory to convert the CO2 and H2 gathered from the seawater to liquid hydrocarbons. In the first step, an iron-based catalyst has been developed that can achieve CO2 conversion levels up to 60 percent and decrease unwanted methane production from 97 percent to 25 percent in favor of longer-chain unsaturated hydrocarbons (olefins).

In the second step these olefins can be oligomerized (a chemical process that converts monomers, molecules of low molecular weight, to a compound of higher molecular weight by a finite degree of polymerization) into a liquid containing hydrocarbon molecules in the carbon C9-C16 range, suitable for conversion to jet fuel by a nickel-supported catalyst reaction.

If they can make olefins, a modern refinery can make almost any liquid fuel needed.
If the source of carbon is part of the active cycle (air or water),
the fuel produced would be carbon neutral.
This is not a new source of energy, just a storage method, with an existing infrastructure.
I think when the cost of the refineries buying natural oil for feedstock,
becomes higher than making their own feedstock, they will choose the cheaper path.
Also it may not be 100%, because some sources of oil are much less expensive
than others.