My two cents –

I agree with Kpaske, 20 years to have seen a big shift. Things seem to have to get really bad to get any change. Planning ahead gets only as far as paper studies until the system crashes. Too much money being made off the “Low Hanging Fruit” It is the boring mundane truth that things don’t go ZAP and change; they creep along in small increments. A look at an old 1950 Popular Mechanics magazine will show what I mean. No flying cars today.

The concept of an energy ‘Tipping Point’ (Crash), is possible caused by everything from an Arab oil cut off to a new discovery of an alternative energy source. Things’ getting bad does not mean technology will pop to the rescue; they may just be bad for some time.

I always tell people that our grandchildren will say,” Let me get this straight. You had this thing called oil from which you could make all kinds of wonder things and you could not reproduce and you burned it all up? Were you nuts or just greedy?” We probably were.

China and India will not hold back on their economic growth for the sake of conservation and they will bid up the price of oil for us. They will have all of our money from their manufactured goods sales to pay the higher price. We will be (Are in) a death spiral of fewer quality jobs, little manufacturing in the US, and less money with which to buy things.

Batteries are a real showstopper. A few technologies have surfaced like Zinc-Air and Platinum fuel cells, but they only improve things a few percent and are very expensive relative to oil. Arthur C. Clarke once said, “ A suitably advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” I don’t expect any magic in the battery area.

As a worker in the semiconductor industry, it was always a joke that value of the solar cell energy production could never pay for the cost of production if you include the process from Silicon to finished solar panel. Some applications make sense like remote locations, but not as an energy source for the national grid. Home solar cells, in a wired area, are highly subsidized, meaning Siemens gets a big bite of taxpayer money. The subsidized cost of panels breaks even at 8-10 years and, guess what, the silicone cover seals break down in 8-10 years and the cover glass is clouded by pollution.

So here is my prospectus for the energy future –-

1. Fewer people. Worldwide crowding will trigger heath conditions resulting in a thinning of the herd. This won’t be pretty, but there will be more of everything for the survivors. You will be able to pollute and burn all you want and mother earth will just shrug. You won’t be able to make a large enough mess for natural cleaning processes not to dispose of. Then we will need to keep the lid on population. Doing it overtly now is not politically possible and it is too late anyway.

2. Some new energy sources will emerge. Iceland is producing Hydrogen from natural steam/electrical generation. It will get shipped to the east coast of America. Maybe 10 percent of the east could use Hydrogen; Iceland will be the new Saudi Arabia. Seal jokes will replace Camel jokes.

3. Atomic power will return. We have 105 reactors providing power now. The French recycle and recover fuel rather than burying it. We must get past the political issues and use what we have.

4. Coal. We are the Kuwait of coal. It will be an expensive fuel but coal oil can be made.

5. Methane Hydride. It is just laying in a water ice mix everywhere in the deep oceans in globally enormous quantities. Just go and get it. It is relatively expensive, but available and clean.

So much for my happy thoughts and good luck to us all.

Roy