"Holy Frijoles Batman I think we are in serious trouble” or Everything I know about Alternate Energy Fuels Part 2

OK so why are we in serious trouble. Well there is a thing called "Peak oil" which is becoming more important every day. "Peak oil" is a concept used to describe the point when we hit the peak of oil production. This was first theorized back in the 70's when the US hit the peak of oil production and after that we had to start importing oil to make up for what we’re not producing domestically. We now import ~58% of our oil needs(this is approximate because it goes up every year). So now we are now impacting the world oil supply which is finite and has a “Peak” also. Well no one knows the exact numbers but, we do know that one of the symptoms of “Peak oil” is that the global price of oil will start to go up when supplies dwindle. And they don’t have to wane much to start a price increase. You know, following the rules of supply and demand. Well I don’t know if anyone noticed, but recently the price of gasoline just shot up a ways and it is not going back down. Plus the world demand for oil is ever increasing. China and India are just starting their industrial revolutions and are each placing huge demands on global energy consumption.

If you believe the hype about big oil finds here in the US then you must be smoking something really good. Some of these big finds reported by the oil companies are from oil shale deposits. These are not just oil pockets like big underground lakes that we found in the 1920's and 30's. These are oil deposits bound tightly in the rocky oil shale. To liberate this oil from the shale will take lots of energy because the oil shale will have to be brought up to the surface, then ground up and then heated (which last time I checked costs energy) to force the oil out of the rock. Now three decades ago it was determined that this was a losing proposition because it takes more energy to get it out of the rock than we get from burning it. So we are in a net negative btu situation when you balance the energy check book. We can’t do this for very long! Check out this informative article if you want to know more about peak oil, and what some of the big brains think will happen when we hit the top of the global oil production curve. Peak Oil

So what are we doing about this? Well for about three decades now we haven't done anything but more exploration here in the US while importing more and more oil every day. I think we Americans don't really think there is a problem, so we aren't doing anything about it. Well I take that back, some people are doing some research, and coming up with innovative ways of producing liquid fuels for cars, but I think the general consensus is: "Well someone is working on this right? So why do I need to do anything."

Americans don’t feel the pain so we don’t react in this area until we are in a crisis. We need to have that crisis mentality now because when we are in real heavy duty trouble, we will not be able to react fast enough. We need to have a 5 year goal, a 10 year goal, a 20 year goal, a 30 year goal, until we are totally self sufficient once again.

Some people are doing ground breaking research with bio-diesel, ethanol, butanol and even hydrogen fuels, but no real strides are being taken like putting together a real plan with real goals and real live dates that something is going to happen by. Or how about putting some real money towards developing alternatives and not just having the federal government throw the alternative fuels camp a bone now and then, just to keep those pesky doomsday prophets quiet.


So what can the average citizen do about this huh? Well there are a couple of things we can do right now:

#1 Stop buying the big SUV’s that get such poor gas mileage. Conserve a little oil for the next generation. Buy something smaller, sportier and more economical. Send a message to the car manufacturers that we want more economical autos.

#2 Vote for people who are pro alternative fuels and who are willing to change the course of history and work towards putting real significant goals together to get us off the oil high. Set some date out in the sand and then back it up with real dollars.

#3 Talk to people you know and raise the awareness about these issues a notch higher. The more people thinking, talking and acting on this problem the more we can get accomplished.

#4 Encourage the oil companies with their recent windfalls to put that money into alternative fuel production. Buy fuels that have ethanol in them and show the oil companies that we want more fuels of this type.