What is the best way to end fossil fuel dependance?

[makinyashikino]

In your opinion, what fuel or way of generating power is the best for replacing our dependence on fossil fuels. Is it Nuclear or renewable sources. Biofuel or Hydrogen fuel cells. Discuss.

In my opinion Nuclear and Solar are our two best bets. Nuclear gets a bad rap, but it's mainly bad management and outdated hardware that create these problems. With state of the art engineering and computers, we could built much safer plants. And solar is becoming more efficent constantly, as well as cheaper. I think that solar roads is an incredible engineering challenge, but it would solve all of our problems.

[Tarrow]

I've always been a fan of the nuclear option but with a twist. Rather than load-balancing stations as are currently used, dump excess generation into water hydrolysis plants to generate hydrogen during off-peak times. When everyone turns the kettle on during the breaks in the football, dump some capacity back into the grid (rather than bringing whole stations on and offline). The match kicks off again, no-one's making a cuppa, fire up the electrolysis rig again.

Why generate hydrogen you may ask? Because most current petrol combustion engines wouldn't need a huge amount of modification to run on hydrogen. And hydrogen combustion is somewhat more emission-free than hydrocarbon combustion - the only combustion product being water. So not only are you generating power without recourse to fossil fuels you also in one fell swoop render a large proportion of the vehicles on the road emission-free. With a fuel supply made from water. No new technology needed at any stage.

A valid question (if it's as simple as I think it is) is why this hasn't happened yet. The answer I suspect lies in how much money the oil industry would be willing to throw around if their survival depended on it. There're entire nations that would financially collapse overnight if a setup like this was proven to work.

edit: and why nuclear to do this, not solar panels etc? I'd rather lose a handfull of green fields to nuclear power stations, than lose a vast amount more land to the silicon of solar panelling. Though it's not to everyone's taste nuclear does have power density on it's side in comparison to most other methods of generation.

Edited May 20, 2014 by Tarrow

[makinyashikino]

I've always been a fan of the nuclear option but with a twist. Rather than load-balancing stations as are currently used, dump excess generation into water hydrolysis plants to generate hydrogen during off-peak times. When everyone turns the kettle on during the breaks in the football, dump some capacity back into the grid (rather than bringing whole stations on and offline). The match kicks off again, no-one's making a cuppa, fire up the electrolysis rig again.

Why generate hydrogen you may ask? Because most current petrol combustion engines wouldn't need a huge amount of modification to run on hydrogen. And hydrogen combustion is somewhat more emission-free than hydrocarbon combustion - the only combustion product being water. So not only are you generating power without recourse to fossil fuels you also in one fell swoop render a large proportion of the vehicles on the road emission-free. With a fuel supply made from water. No new technology needed at any stage.

A valid question (if it's as simple as I think it is) is why this hasn't happened yet. The answer I suspect lies in how much money the entire oil industry would be willing to throw around if their survival depended on it. There're entire nations that would collapse overnight if a setup like this was proven to work.

edit: and why nuclear to do this, not solar panels etc? I'd rather lose a handfull of green fields to nuclear power stations, than lose a vast amount more land to the silicon of solar panelling. Though it's not to everyone's taste nuclear does have power density on it's side in comparison to most other methods of generation.

But would hydrogen combustion engines run on clean water exclusively? If we used clean water, we would strain our dwindling freshwater supplies even more, as the millions of cars in the US alone would consume insane amounts of water. If it could run on wastewater, then our problems would be solved, as we could use wastewater from the hydrolysis and nuclear plants, or even seawater if it didn't corrode the engine.

[tychochallenge]

two words: NUCLEAR FUSION

it'll make every other fuel we ever depended on obsolete

[makinyashikino]

two words: NUCLEAR FUSION

it'll make every other fuel we ever depended on obsolete

Too bad we don't know how to do it yet

[Othuyeg]

But would hydrogen combustion engines run on clean water exclusively? If we used clean water, we would strain our dwindling freshwater supplies even more, as the millions of cars in the US alone would consume insane amounts of water. If it could run on wastewater, then our problems would be solved, as we could use wastewater from the hydrolysis and nuclear plants, or even seawater if it didn't corrode the engine.

Umm.. No. Water is water, you can extract hydrogen from seawater just as you can from fresh water. And... You don't run a car on water, you run it on hydrogen extracted from water and when the hydrogen burns in the engine, it produces water as the reaction product. Do not worry, we won't run out of water.

Water is hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen and oxygen in the water are separated using energy (electricity). You now have separate oxygen and hydrogen. Hydrogen is then put into an engine along with oxygen and when these two react they release energy (heat) and produce water. At no point is water lost.

Edited May 20, 2014 by Othuyeg

[Othuyeg]

Too bad we don't know how to do it yet

We know how to do it, we simply lack materials and material technology to contain it in a fashion suitable for power generation.

[Redjoker]

We know how to do it, we simply lack materials and material technology to contain it in a fashion suitable for power generation.

We really don't as far as I know, the most successful test managed to put out more energy than they put into making the fuel, but that about 1% of the energy needed to make the reaction occur.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/12/tech/innovation/energy-fusion/

[makinyashikino]

We know how to do it, we simply lack materials and material technology to contain it in a fashion suitable for power generation.

Well, knowing how it works is quite different from ACTUALLY doing it. the problem is it's been "50 years away" for 50 years now, it's gonna take time. What we need is modern technologies to solve our problems

[ZedNova]

Use it all up. Then we'll have to find an alternate source of energy.

[makinyashikino]

Use it all up. Then we'll have to find an alternate source of energy.

That's very shortsighted.

[maccollo]

Solar obviously has huge potential, but I think what's more important I think is what we will use to store that energy. Thermal storage seems reasonably efficient and can store the energy for months, and for transportation I think it will either transition to all electric or we will use electricity to produce synthetic fuel.

Use it all up. Then we'll have to find an alternate source of energy.

We sort of have to find an alternative before that happens. The energy we get from fossil fuels is what allows 7.2 billion people to live on this planet. If that just goes away it will be the biggest mass starvation in human history. Personally I find that scenario to be quite ****ty.

Edited May 20, 2014 by maccollo

[ThirdHorseman]

Just having available options is not enough. Even if those options are better in every logical, rational way it isn't enough to disrupt the entrenched powers. You can hold rallies, make posters, organize talks...it doesn't matter. The only way to get the world to move away from fossil fuel is to tie other options to military or economic advantage.

The case I always bring up is the switch from coal to oil in the early 1900s leading up to WWI. Coal was king, but there were a few people who realized that oil was a much better means for powering naval vessels. They began a push to switch the British Navy from coal to oil. This was crazy at the time, because Britain had no oil and no access to foreign sources but had tons and tons of coal. But the military and economic advantages were undeniable, and even though Britain had to work frantically to extend it's power and secure sources of oil...all the while fighting against local powers who had gotten very rich on coal...they moved forward with it. Of course, Germany (which was trying to build up a world-class Navy of its own) did the same. So even though coal was the well-established fuel, backed and supported by an immense infrastructure and a huge powerful and wealthy elite, it was dropped in favor of oil.

The only way we will shift from fossil fuel to other means (solar, etc) is if we reach a similar sort of situation. You can show graph upon graph of how the sea levels are rising, polar bears are dying, and it will do no good. You show how a new power source gives a military or economic advantage...then you'll see how fast they switch...

[makinyashikino]

I think what's more important I think is what we will use to store that energy.

Flywheels!

Edited May 20, 2014 by Cavenyanson
forgot to close quote

[Stargate525]

There was a plan I saw once to build a miles-long tube with generator fans inside it, and utilize air pressure differential of the weather to generate power. The US is sitting on one of the richest geothermal vents we could hope for in Yellowstone. There are engines being developed that will run on any flammable liquid with almost no nasty emissions.

Solar obviously has huge potential, but I think what's more important I think is what we will use to store that energy. Thermal storage seems reasonably efficient

We can also pump water up a gigantic hill into a reservoir, or spin up flywheels in a vacuum, or any number of other methods.

[Dodgey]

Nuclear hands down for reliability and consistency. With the excess energy being used for the purification of water to pump out into the deserts. Increase farming land and reforestation.

[The Yellow Dart]

I think the future of energy will eventually be space-based solar power.

Any power source that we get from the earth will invariable have some affect on the earth when used in large enough numbers. With wind power, we would have to erect millions of windmills worldwide to satisfy power demands, which would cause changes in weather patterns and affect wildlife and environments. Solar is inefficient and would require covering up huge tracts of land with panels, which would greatly impact the environment, and possibly affect weather and world temperatures. Nuclear produces terrible waste that contaminates and ruins parts of the earth, and is just another fuel with a limited lifespan that we will have to give up eventually.

The sun is putting out MASSIVE amounts of free energy in every direction, only a tiny fraction of a percent of which arrives at earth. The rest just spreads out into space and does nothing but put a little dot in the sky for who/whatever is out there to see it. We could either have massive solar plants orbiting earth, or orbiting the sun. The moon is a possibility, but we would have to build sites all the way around its circumference because the 14 day night period would leave us high and dry each fortnight. The main difficulty in this idea is delivering the power from space to earth. The most common idea is microwaves but that would require a receiver on earth to be several km in diameter to be able to produce about the amount of a nuclear power plant. I have a feeling lasers might work in someway, but I don't think many people would like the idea of any government having a massive laser traversing the earth a dozen times per day, and there are other problems as well, like losses to superheated atmosphere. Maybe laser-induced manmade lightening ("arc cannon")? Or perhaps a second purpose for a space elevator. Hopefully future advances will produce a better way to solve this problem.

I thought this image from wikipedia was pretty relevant to KSP players: Mining asteroids to produce solar power stations.

[Nibb31]

That's very shortsighted.

Did anyone ever claim that Humanity was smart?

[The Yellow Dart]

Did anyone ever claim that Humanity was smart?

The question was "What is the best way", not what is the most human way, or the worst way.

[Nibb31]

Define "best". If the "best" way is not feasible, practical or realistic, then I'm afraid it doesn't qualify as "best".

It's going to take a huge effort to break away from burning stuff, because our entire economical infrastructure is based on it. To some extent, rebuilding our infrastructure is a huge economical opportunity. But on the the other hand, capitalism (and humanity in general) doesn't fair well with long-term investment strategies. The only thing that will make us drop oil is when oil becomes too expensive to still turn profit.

That time has probably come already, which is one of the reasons the economy is tanking. As long as corporations can wring the slightest drop of profit out of an asset, they will. As long as they can cut other costs that are cheaper and easier to do, they will.

[Nibb31]

I've always been a fan of the nuclear option but with a twist. Rather than load-balancing stations as are currently used, dump excess generation into water hydrolysis plants to generate hydrogen during off-peak times. When everyone turns the kettle on during the breaks in the football, dump some capacity back into the grid (rather than bringing whole stations on and offline). The match kicks off again, no-one's making a cuppa, fire up the electrolysis rig again.

Unfortunately hydrogen is not practical as an everyday fuel. It's hazardous to handle and hard to contain it at ambient temperatures. You need cryogenics to store it in a liquid state and a beefy pressure vessel, which is expensive, heavy and power consuming.

You won't ever see widespread use of hydrogen in consumer-grade vehicles.

[StuntMax]

In your opinion, what fuel or way of generating power is the best for replacing our dependence on fossil fuels.

I'm going to put some other fact on the scale.

We largely depend on oil, that's a well known fact; discussion usually is focused on oil used as a fuel, but it's not the only use we have for oil.

Oil is used to manufacture plastics. Try thinking, let's say, an hospital running with no plastics. Oil is our main source for a whole lot of chemicals, first of all sulphuric acid, that is vastly used in a whole bunch of industrial proceedings.

Agriculture heavily relies on oil-derivated fertilizers and pesticides. Should we run out of oil, half of the Earth population is going to starve because of the heavily reduced productivity of farms, there's NO WAY earth can feed 10 bln people without oil-derivated fertilizers (better get your kids used eating things like bugs and earthworms, because it will probably be their primary source for proteins. And hope you won't miss a good old beef steak, because in a few decades cattle farming is going to be highly unsustainable)

When oil runs out, we're going to dive in an unfathomable pool of ****. And not because we'll have no gas to run our cars, or because we'll have no electricity to run our KSP box. We'll need to rethink... well, everything we give for granted, today. Probably billions of people are due to starve to death, the surviving ones will fight for food and land.

Mankind hates change, we're going to live exactly as we did up to today until the last drop of oil has been extracted just because it's easier.

[MrOnak]

I'm surprised Thorium-based nuclear reactors haven't been mentioned yet. That's where I'd put my money.

[Comrade Jenkens]

In the long term I think that moving to a hydrogen economy will be best. Trouble is we don't have the tech yet and it will take a long time to convert.

In the meantime I think that just building more nuclear power stations and renewable stations, as well as encouraging people to have solar panels, will help ease us of fossil fuel for power generation.

[bsalis]

Coastal based multi-purpose nuclear reactors. Uranium/MOX/Thorium fuel based, whatever. Run them continuously at full power. Put electricity into the grid as needed, with anything left over used to pull hydrogen out of the seawater. In places that need it, add a desalination module.

Unfortunately hydrogen is not practical as an everyday fuel. It's hazardous to handle and hard to contain it at ambient temperatures. You need cryogenics to store it in a liquid state and a beefy pressure vessel, which is expensive, heavy and power consuming.

Then take the hydrogen and some CO2 out of the air and make methane with some chemistry magic.