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The problem
Our global transportation needs now account for the burning of 70% of
the world’s crude oil production. By 2005 this amounted to 85 million
barrels a day, or over 30 billion barrels a year. Oil has become so central
to our way of life and the globalised economy that any restriction to
its access will be considered an international emergency.
Peak Oil
Fifty years on from the geologist Hubbert’s early warnings of the
danger of reaching the point of “Peak Oil”, it has now arrived.
The activities of the 20th century are estimated to have consumed
around 900 billion barrels- about half of the accessible oil deposits
that the planet has laid down over the last billion years.
As oil producing countries and their corporate collaborators do not provide
trustworthy data for their remaining oil reserves, it is impossible to
be forewarned of the arrival of the Peak Oil point. However, analysis
of actual production data suggests that we are about to see global production
rates fall off the end of the bell-curve.
When oil can no longer be pumped in quantities to match demand, a cascade
of issues will surface creating panic, disruption and violence. Even those
short occasions where temporary blips in supply have occurred, the price
rockets, electrical power cuts and empty fuelling infrastructure can suddenly
slow day to day business activities to a halt.
Future Scenarios
The response to the looming crisis in transportation must be multi-faceted.
Alongside the great need for technical advances, there is an even greater
requirement for behavioural change. It is not just social/work factors
such as reducing the need to commute to centralised workplaces. The cost
of food is going to climb as increased oil costs affect every stage of
the agricultural food chain from seed to plate. In fact the cost of everything
is going to be increasingly affected. This will destabilise many areas
of the world and increase the likelihood for ethnic and religious conflict
at both a national and international level. As oil price accelerates so
will the economic divide between those who can still afford what they
need and those that can no longer buy access to limited resources.
Biofuels
Whilst unprecedented areas of virgin rain forest and existing farming
land is already being put over to oil rich crops such as soybean and oil
palm, basic arithmetic demonstrates that our finite global land area ensures
that biofuels can only provide a small portion of our needs. The rainforests
are the richest natural carbon sinks we have; their global role in underpinning
the remaining stability of our biosphere should not be underestimated.
Energy crops will undoubtedly play a role, but if they start to play too
big a part, global famines and further lowering of our ecological carrying
capacity will be added to present problems.
Solar
Solar vehicles are definitely an option for the future. A technical leap
in the conversion rates of PV could allow 100% solar vehicles.
Hydrogen
If Hydrogen is to power our future transportation, either through use
of electrical motors and fuel cell technology or improved internal combustion
engines, the hydrogen must be sourced from non-fossil fuels. Detractors
point to the present expense of fuel cell technology and the difficulties
of storing hydrogen on board at sufficient densities. However progress
is being made in all these areas, it is the challenge to source the actual
hydrogen from renewable resources that is woefully behind schedule.
Nuclear
In summary, nuclear power as we use it today is simply a very complicated
way of heating water. In the same way as the coal, oil and gas power stations
they were built to replace, nuclear power stations still work on the steam
engine principle. They are massive water boilers feeding steam into steam
turbines. The technology does not scale down to provide power systems
for use in road vehicles, all it could do is allow the electrical charging
of batteries or production of hydrogen through electrolysis.
It must be remembered that the nuclear option has many inherent problems.
Its growing stockpiles of radioactive waste and the issue of uranium depletion
pose serious problems for its future. Even if politicians choose to bet
on the nuclear option, it is not going to offer a long-term replacement
to oil’s role in transportation.
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