Oil

[dave_c]

How important is the 'black gold'? Surely there's other flammable material that could spin our turbines and in turn destroy our ozone?

[Clanad]

As mentioned previously, he Powder River Basin of the western U.S., in the States of Monatana and Wyoming, contain sufficient coal deposits for at least 300 to 500 years of useage.  The coal is high quality, low sulphur and is easily extracted.  Germany, prior to and all through WWII relied, primarily on synthetic fuel derived from coal.  The technology is known and the raw materials are available but the economic impetus has been lacking thus far. Once oil becomes expensive enough (right now its total cost for extraction is about $4.00 per barrel) and declines in availability, synthetic and other alternate fuels may be developed...

[BillyBB]

It's not so much petrol we should be worrying about but plastics.

[dave_c]

Hmmm, interesting, so if coal can do the job why is oil so sort after? And BillyBB can you explain further about plastic, will the natural resources to derive polymers eventually run scarce?

[jake-the-peg]

Britain used to use gas that was derrived from coal too. It was rather dirty though.

The best fuel is hydrogen, but the most practical was of getting hold of it is electrolysing water for which you need electricity....doh.

However it is the way of the future for a highly mobile fuel source for things like cars just need to crack the issues around electricity generation probably via nuclear fusion although thats probably anothre 50 years or so off.

[lampgb]

Hydrogen is the best fuel. The only by-product of burning it is water. I expect that the oil companies have purchased all the patents that would enable it's development in the motor industry. They would not be to happy for us all to have a fuel pump at our kitchen sinks would they!

[BillyBB]

I'm sure there are people here more qualified to answer but I believe that with advances in technology, fuel cells, bio diesel, ethanol and renewable energy like solar and tidal should provide for future electricity and transportation needs. As the oil becomes more expensive to extract these alternatives become viable.

Many other things we depend upon in the west have no other source than oil. From some medicines through the myriad of plastics and chemicals used everyday. The technology developed in the last 60 years relies upon the new materials we have made from oil.

[Gef]

BillyBB is spot on. Energy is not the problem as long as we learn to harness solar. wind, tide, hydro effectively. Main problem is that oil is our main source of hydrocarbons for chemical use rather than burning. Most modern medicines, detergents, plastics (polymers) etc are derived from oil. It's not impossible that these could be derived from coal but look back to what we had in the 1840s before the oil revolution.