An upcoming new way to use less oil....

Today's post: Wednesday, 9-22-2010

We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.

At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both. Kuwaiti scientists recently predicted peak oil in 2014 – just 4 years from now.

And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.

Today’s post: An upcoming new way to use less oil

Electric cars are coming soon. Soon there will be both all electric cars and plug-in hybrids available for sale.

That will be quite soon for the Nissan Leaf and GM’s Chevy Volt.

But if you can wait a couple of years or so, or if you only need a two-seater now and can afford to spend more on a car, Tesla Motors may be your best bet.

Their model S will be about as upscale a sedan as an Acura or a Lexus or car from Mercedes Benz.

And, it will get up to 300 miles on a charge. It looks great and will perform better than most upscale sedans that use tons of gas to perform well.

See www.teslamotors.com . Their two seat, tiny roadster will go up to about 200 miles on a charge and gets almost unbelievable performance. That only takes a bit over $100,000 a few months to get.

The model S will cost closer to $60,000 which is close to what comparable gasoline powered cars cost.

Driving these cars using electric power cuts oil use in many ways.

Electricity will increasingly be generated with solar thermal, solar photovoltaic, wind, geothermal, and even nuclear power. None of these sources use fossil fuels, let alone oil.

Electricity is already generated by natural gas. With Bloom Energy’s fuel cell technology, that will become even more efficient and create far less air pollution. And, the existing natural gas generation already uses no oil.

Coal is now used to generate electricity, particularly in the Eastern United States. Despite the air pollution and CO2 release problems with that, it uses no oil and thereby driving cars powered electricity from this source uses less oil than driving gasoline powered cars and increases the national security of the United States. Further, when coal is turned directly into natural gas and then fed to a Bloom Energy fuel cell to generate electricity and the CO2 resulting is fed to algae to make biofuels, this will be far cleaner and less polluting and generate less net CO2 than it does now.

So, in every case, driving on electricity, uses no oil and is more desirable than using gasoline.

But, that’s not all!

Electric cars use less energy per mile or per time you accelerate your car than is the case with gasoline or diesel powered cars.

That even means that driving an electric car powered by burning coal now, you cause less CO2 release than you would doing the same driving with a comparable car directly powered by gasoline or diesel.

Electric cars are far from perfect in any way and the technology is a bit new yet; but they will help us use far less oil and release far less CO2 by doing so.