Forums → WEPR → Should we use OIL?

The oil debate is a double-edged sword. If we use oil we have green house gasses. If we use ethanol than the price of corn goes up and the products that are made from corn go up. Either way there is a group of people that just aren't happy.

First, please learn to use punctuation and proper grammar. Okay, now that I got that over with, I'll actually speak about the subject (Amazing, isn't it?)

No, I don't think oil should be used. And neither should ethanol. Especially ethanol. Ethanol is not very fuel efficient, as well as the fact that the way producers use ethanol, pretty much making a hybrid using ethanol and gasoline, increases the amount of gas imports to our country.

Now, why do I think we shouldn't use gas? I do think we should use gas, but instead of doing what most people are proposing, which is spend a huge amount of money and switch to <insert alternative energy source here>, we should continue looking for the most efficient energy source and gradually switch from oil to that. Kind of like changing your pets diet.

Now, to expand on this discussion, which energy sources are the best to use? I would personally say methane from cow manure, or OTEC. The methane one I am not too familiar with as I just started looking at that. But it helps because cows contribute to 19% of global warming, due to the methane released from their, to put it bluntly, poo. OTEC is a system that takes the water from the surface and from 1000 yards (or feet? Again, I just started studying this) below surface level, as it requires a 20C temperature difference, and mixes them together in a rapid cycle to produce steam.

So, what do you think is the best energy source?

TO MANY LIKE THIS.

LOCK.

But yes we should use it. Go look at other fossil fuels topics for my reasoning, i don;t really fell like typing it again.

We, as a people, are NOT going to stop using oil. Really, since the beginning of the industrial revolution we have created machines that rely on oil and petroleum. We still need lubrication and cooling in our combustion engines and generators, that will never change. But cutting back how much petroleum we use can make a huge difference.

With all the research beginning in this day and age, we will have alternative energy to power things like houses and buildings, but we will not be switching our cars over as a whole any time soon. I live in the state of Florida (blow my brains out, already) and it's so bright that I can't even go outside without glasses, why are we not using that to it's fullest potential? I am aware that there are several solar generators in the state of Florida, so you can close your Google page. If solar panels were cheaper, and I was a home owner, I would find a way to run on solar/wind power alone. Being "green" is too expensive, and people really don't like that.

TROJANS said: we have ethanol

Steevo15, you don't get the POINT behind ethanol. Yes I am aware that it costs the same amount, but that's not the whole story. Ethanol is good because it can reduce our dependence on foreign oil. If we, as a country, produce a gas/ethanol mixture we can stop using the Middle East's oil and stop paying them for the oil. It's bigger than the cost and use. Understand?

@WeeMan

You're right about that. We've basically painted ourselves into a corner in terms of just how dependent we are on vast quantities of cheap oil, and there are manty reasons for the tenacity of that depenency. It's not easily going to go away because there haven't been the incentive to develop alternative energies to the point of being economically competitive. Part of the reason for that is simply that there is simply no alternative energy source currently known that can match the energy return on investment for oil (EROI) in most crucial applications. Energy storage is another important consideration where oil beats everything else out as a fuel.

Solar can be very helpful for small-scale projects when local and temporal considerations are taken into account. It would require a vast amount of space and funds for any really large-scale proposals though, making them an impractical replacement for oil. Also, solar energy cannot really be stored for most of the applications that we use oil for, and yet storage is particularly important for solar because of its temporal considerations. We could try to store its energy by freeing hydrogen... but that has a whole other set of troubles to consider.

also @ WeeMan

Also, what's this about ethanol replacing the dependence on foreign oil? Ethanol can only provide a drop in the bucket no matter how much further governments decide to develop and subsidize its development. Even if waste biomass from food production could be used to produce ethanol, we would require as much as fifty times the arable land in the United States to provide for the fuel needs of the entire world. And that to me, is not worth all the costs - the sacrifice in arable land, the deforestation in developing counties to try to scrap together some more land, and of course, the economic shocks felt around the globe, surrounding many food products, which further impacts the poor both domestically and elsewhere.

Steevo15, you don't get the POINT behind ethanol. Yes I am aware that it costs the same amount, but that's not the whole story. Ethanol is good because it can reduce our dependence on foreign oil. If we, as a country, produce a gas/ethanol mixture we can stop using the Middle East's oil and stop paying them for the oil. It's bigger than the cost and use. Understand?

Steevo,

Cold fusion has always been the ultimate energy dream, and yes, for long time it will be remain a dream since all past attempts have consumed more energy than can be harnessed. We're going to need a very different way producing fusion reactions and collecting all that energy, which will require a much more advanced technology that we cannot even conceive in the present. But one can always dream

You are right, it takes 30% of the current level of crops to do this. But I believe I remember hearing an incentive for more people to start growing corn. Right now we don't grow a lot of corn because we don't really need to, but if there is more demand, for sure we can increase the supply! We can live in the dream world and keep wasting time talking about this cold fusion stuff, or we can try to fix the immediate need that we have for alternative energy. We need alternative energy, now, not whenever some scientist can finally work that out.

stevvvo when you siad we use 30 percent of ouyr crops look at ccali were i live we have the agriculture to make so much corn that were it starting to make etahonl and yes it harms us but look if we dont start to use ethanol we will die,so which would you take die or use or crop?

I think it would nice if the world happened to have all this unused arable land that could be used to "grow more corn", but unfortunately nearly all the productive potential is already being utilized to, you know, supply the necessity of food for all those billions of people. Unfortunately you can't have your cake and eat it too; there are opportunity costs. Either we continue trying to feed our ever-increasing population and possibly struggle just with that since we are still stuck with a fixed, unchanging amount of arable land on which to do that, or we let people go hungry so that we can allocate that resource to something different.

true but look we are in a state of matter were we might hear of exitinction and if we dont use any chemical that helps like ethanol we might have if chance of living but then if we dont we will face extinction

I don't know about you Trojans, but I'd sooner go "extinct" from not being able to afford bread anymore, than than having to give up my car. Actually, I don't even own a car. I'm being flippant, but you catch my drift I hope.