GEM
Looking at the price of a barrel of oil leaves one with a sense of amazement. We have a natural resource that is pumped out of the ground and used to create an energy source for the industrialized world. It is unevenly distributed throughout the world so some countries have a bonanza of petroleum wealth, while others appear as barren as the sands above the oil reserves. It comes down to a matter of what are we willing to pay to power this land of prosperity we have developed and what alternative sources we can develop that will replace the oil.
North America seems to have come up on the short end of the petroleum stick but we have an abundance of coal. Not as usable as an energy source as petroleum but available all the same. Its drawbacks are that it is a major source of land and air pollution, it must be mined and shipped to a destination, and it is non-renewable. It also doesn’t work real well for our current automobile infrastructure. None of this is new or insurmountable.
There are all of the green power sources but we have not found a reasonable way to use them cost effectively. But that is about price and creating the next set of rules for powering a consumer economy. I believe that hydrogen will be the next power source for powering the world. It is plentiful, non-polluting, renewable and works with the existing infrastructure. The current problem is that the existing technology does not make it cost effective to utilize hydrogen as an adequate substitute for hydrocarbons. It’s about the cost baby.
One of my favorite SF books is titled GEM. It is about Earth, much like we have it today. The world has broken up into blocks with one for energy, one for food and one for labor. The Middle East and Great Britain are the fuel block. North and South America and Australia are the food block and the rest of the world is labor. Fuel is a scarce resource but food is fast becoming the issue. As the resources become scarce, prices and tensions increase and the factions go to war. It’s the end of the world as we know it.
The book was written during the cold war so it expresses the mind set of that time. I would think that market factors and innovation will eliminate the need to fight over scarce resources. We have the hind sight of knowing what a world war would do and technological advances over the last 30 years have opened unlimited doors for those who can see the possibilities. It may cost a little more in the short term to drive your car but the future will bring a non-polluting vehicle that produces water as exhaust. Who knows, since Hydrogen is lighter than our atmosphere, maybe we can finally get cars that fly.
Icool
Cobb
North America seems to have come up on the short end of the petroleum stick but we have an abundance of coal. Not as usable as an energy source as petroleum but available all the same. Its drawbacks are that it is a major source of land and air pollution, it must be mined and shipped to a destination, and it is non-renewable. It also doesn’t work real well for our current automobile infrastructure. None of this is new or insurmountable.
There are all of the green power sources but we have not found a reasonable way to use them cost effectively. But that is about price and creating the next set of rules for powering a consumer economy. I believe that hydrogen will be the next power source for powering the world. It is plentiful, non-polluting, renewable and works with the existing infrastructure. The current problem is that the existing technology does not make it cost effective to utilize hydrogen as an adequate substitute for hydrocarbons. It’s about the cost baby.
One of my favorite SF books is titled GEM. It is about Earth, much like we have it today. The world has broken up into blocks with one for energy, one for food and one for labor. The Middle East and Great Britain are the fuel block. North and South America and Australia are the food block and the rest of the world is labor. Fuel is a scarce resource but food is fast becoming the issue. As the resources become scarce, prices and tensions increase and the factions go to war. It’s the end of the world as we know it.
The book was written during the cold war so it expresses the mind set of that time. I would think that market factors and innovation will eliminate the need to fight over scarce resources. We have the hind sight of knowing what a world war would do and technological advances over the last 30 years have opened unlimited doors for those who can see the possibilities. It may cost a little more in the short term to drive your car but the future will bring a non-polluting vehicle that produces water as exhaust. Who knows, since Hydrogen is lighter than our atmosphere, maybe we can finally get cars that fly.
Icool
Cobb
posted by Cobb at
6:26 AM
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