Market prices for petroleum are moving upwards. This movement can be stopped only when alternate liquid fuels will become available in large quantities. OPEC (Organization of Oil Exporting Countries) controls and sets global prices for petroleum.

US oil companies follow the OPEC price lead gladly and are reaping excessive profits. Available petroleum reserves are being depleted at a rapid pace. Demand is overtaking supplies. Discoveries of new petroleum deposits are plummeting. Excessive prices for transportation fuels will lead to economic hardships and eventual economic collapse. World economies must find alternate liquid fuel supplies or they will self-destruct.

Remaining petroleum reserves are estimated at 1.3 to 2.3 trillion barrels. These reserves can only last 25 to 50 years at consumption rates that will exceed 50 billion barrels per year on an average for the next fifty years. This huge consumption will add more than 100 ppm of carbon dioxide to the Earth's atmosphere, which is already overloaded.

Transportation fuels are the lifeblood of modern economies. Foods, goods, and commodities must be transported to reach consumers. Short interruptions in transportation lead to economic crises. Long-term interruptions lead unavoidably to economic disasters and collapses. Governments and industries have not been able to develop sensible solutions for secure, future fuel supplies.

Many options for extending or replacing petroleum and its many refinery products have been proposed. Finding new petroleum deposits, making petroleum substitutes from coal or oil shale, producing ethanol from food crops, producing hydrogen using nuclear power, legislating "Cap and Trade" policies, and demanding strict energy conservation measures have been suggested. None of these energy supply options can withstand closer scrutiny and analysis.

If none of these popular proposals is acceptable in the final analysis, is there any solution left that can be developed in time, can be used for several centuries, will not slow global economies, and will in fact accelerate economic growth for all the world's countries?

Only one single option for saving our world from economic collapse exists. We must learn how to convert solar energy into liquid fuels and we must prevent the use of precious, limited, fertile lands that produce food crops, feed livestock, or grow forests. We must learn how to grow and breed high energy yield plants, plants that have high energy contents and produce large amounts of biomass on a single acre of land.

Additionally, we must find energy conversion processes that convert biomass into petroleum substitutes and we must modify existing refinery techniques to produce liquid motor fuels from biotic petroleum substitutes. None of these process steps is utopian. All of them can be developed and tested on a large scale in less than two decades.

The benefits of such an approach are manifold and exceptional. The world will be enabled to produce affordable, plentiful, and secure liquid fuels for centuries. Competition between food and energy producers for fertile lands is not necessary and must be outlawed. The continued use of the world's inventory of combustion engines installed in automobiles, trucks, trains, ships, and airplanes is assured. The world's facilities for oil refining and fuel distribution can be used without major changes. A seamless transition from a fossil fuel dominated economies to solar based economies is entirely possible. Millions of new jobs across the globe will be created. Nobody loses, most people win.

Page 1 of 2 :: First | Last :: Prev | 1 2 | Next