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What Can Replace Oil? Plenty of things but not in the quantities we've come to rely on. by Paul Grignon IT's not just the fuel of choice for our wasteful and reckless transport-intensive global economy. As a feedstock for agriculture and the chemical and materials industry, petroleum is a reputed to be part of at least 500,000 different products in a list that is constantly growing. It is also the source of our food. Can humanity survive without oil? Not, apparently, if we continue to act as if there were no limits to anything. A vast inheritance of cheap energy has made greedy monkeys of us all. Truly renewable energy alternatives will never satisfy the gluttonous appetites of today. Possibly not even the bare needs of a population over six billion and growing. Give or take a few years the Peak of Production has been reached for Oil, Gas and many other important resources. At the same time populations swell and good farmland is swallowed into cities. After fossil fuels it is probably just a choice between atomic reactions. The fusion reactor in the sky that creates the energy of sunlight, wind, rivers and tides. Or the dangerous manmade kind that create gene bending wastes that will pile up eternal poisons where we live. Politically nuclear reactors go hand in hand by necessity with authoritarian centralism. Renewables go naturally with independence and decentralism. Which would be the obvious choice of the ruling elite? Anyway, nuclear reactors make electricity, not an easily portable fuel nor a feedstock for industry. What Can Replace Oil? It's a hard act to follow. As an energy and chemical source, petroleum is like fine brandy aged to perfection over 100's of millions of years. Biomass fuels are literally just day old moonshine. Hydrogen, all the rage for fuel cell investors is a portable fuel but not an energy source. To separate it from water requires electricity, a process that consumes more energy than the hydrogen supplies. Research into solar and biological generation of hydrogen is still in the rudimentary stages. To produce hydrogen in commercial quantities it can only be made from natural gas and other fossil fuel sources. Many people unfamiliar with the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics are commonly led to believe that alternatives are "sources" of energy when they are really just conversions, at a loss from fossil fuels. It's good for raising investment money but it's no answer to the question "What can replace oil?" A document from the US Department of Energy claims that their tests have achieved returns of 6 units of biomass energy for each unit of petroleum used to grow specialized biomass fuel crops. That would at least extend petroleum reserves. Hemp advocates have long claimed that just 6% of the USA planted with hemp could replace ALL of the petroleum fuels used today. Unfortunately that adds up to about 70% of all arable land in the USA. What about the impact on food supply? If we had to make a choice between regular steaks or freezing to death without cars we might choose to become more vegetarian and grow energy on a lot of the land currently growing perfectly edible crops to feed animals whose meat returns only a small fraction of the nutrition humans could have eaten directly. As many of us are becoming increasingly aware, animal husbandry has recently become an even more grisly and more dangerous pursuit than it used to be. Animal products are implicated in most of our modern illnesses. Factory animal farming is becoming less morally acceptable to many just as the new plagues of Mad Cow and other meat borne diseases it has spawned begin to spread. Agriculture is in trouble on all sides these days. Soil is little more than a flat place to feed oil to plants. Since the issue is to deal with oil depletion then obviously "organic" fertilzation would be the only remaining choice. Aggressive organic agriculture with lots of demand would be the quickest and surest way to reverse the morbid trends of toxic corporate dependency. Without the accustomed energy-intensive machinery of factory farming there would almost surely be a return to the use of draft animals and much re-employment of humans as well as no end of necessity to find ingenious ways to use technology appropriately. Europeans currently live "civilised" lives on just 38% of the energy per capita that North Americans consume. A change in the American "lifestyle" could be a great improvement. Real culture could have a chance to grow as people become relocalized in fulfilling their needs. The potential for increased conservation, efficiency and inventiveness is huge. For a strong dose of optimism on this subject, there is no better source than Amory Lovins, who claims that not only can we survive without oil we can do better!	LINKS The Oil Crash & You The end of affordable petroleum is at hand and yet our leaders stumble in the dark about the reality of our situation and ignore the emergency we face trying to make a conversion to renewable energy that should have begun a half century ago. Fossilgate the biggest Cover-Up in History They know but they can't admit it.   OIL AS A FINITE RESOURCE: When Is Global Production Likely to Peak? by James J. MacKenzie Energy is the lifeblood of the world's economy, ...Oil, coal, natural gas, and electricity are needed for virtually every important function in industrial societies...As the peak and decline of world oil production comes within sight, policies to encourage more efficient oil use and a switch to alternative energy sources...become urgent. Unfortunately, ...few decision-makers appreciate how little time remains, and efforts on both of these accounts are weak and overdue. Alternative Renewable Energy The Australian Renewable Energy Website Both sites provide comprehensive overviews and examples of renewable energy technologies Apollo II A quantitative Plan for conversion to Renewables before the OIL CRASH makes it impossible. Journey to Forever Biofuels and Other Appropriate Technologies in Practice Around the World Electricity and Vehicle Fuels from wood waste People making power for themselves from almost anything imaginable   US Dept. of Energy BIOFUELS After perusing this site you could be forgiven for wondering why exactly is the US looking for more oil? ENERGY FARMING In America By Lynn Osburn American Farmers could be making America energy self-sufficient, countering global warming AND fighting the corporate takeover of the globe. HEMP by William Thomas A few words about the plant that, before petroleum, was the mainstay of human economies Ethanol Information Center Henry Ford, Charles Kettering and the "Fuel of the Future" If there is a historical lesson to learn from the "fuel of the future," it is that technology is often political...A dedicated agrarian, Ford thought new markets for fuel feedstocks would help create a rural renaissance. Energy Revolution Dr. David Suzuki's new website on conservation & renewables Sustainability, Energy, Resources, and Housing by Kermit Schlansker, PE An engineer's view of what needs to be done STARTING NOW to avoid a global die off Natural Capitalism by Amory Lovins This well-known author has been predicting, championing and chronicling successful adaptations of business to the ecological imperative. He is more than sanguine he is joyfully optimistic about the prospects for the future.