We've hit "peak oil"; now comes permanent price volatility

Nuclear (fission now, fusion when available) and solar/PV, my friend.

True, it'll be a few different sources, but it's those 2 that will matter most in the next 50-100 years. Well should matter most, I fear nuclear won't increase any. If the polywell fusion design pans out, that's where you will see a dramatic shift. It's a rather elegant solution that could be deployed as local power stations for a distributed grid since construction of plants should be rather low cost.

Fuel for transportation is easy, Bio-diesel. With diesel engines being as good as they are now, there's now reason why there shouldn't be a massive switch from gasoline to diesel. Many other nations are already doing it. Between that and EV, you're good to go.

Mitchell (who likes to oversimplify things at times)

#1.2 ,

The problem - fuel for transportation.

Exactly .

The problem - fuel for transportation.

There are many solutions for this. For "short" distance vehicles battery packs are fine. For longer drives and heavier loads we can still take advantage of the better efficiency of electric motors but use fuel cells to power them instead of batteries as the main power source. The fuels for this fuel cell, they are essentially flex fuel vehicles, can come from splitting water with solar and wind power and from pyrolysis of biomass. The pyrolysis process can use any organic material including wood, grass, garbage, sewage, manure, etc. and produces a mixture of natural gas and liquid hydrocarbons ranging from gasoline to diesel fuel. All of these can be used in a solid oxide fuel cell without refining.

I think what Michael may be looking for are immediate answers. Every car on the road today can be switched to burn natural gas or liquid propane. The cost of the conversion is probably going to come in under $3,000 per vehicle, depending on the size of the tank and what type of fuel system the car has. If we start converting them now, anddemanding alternatives to be offered we will be in better shape when we start to run out of cheap oil. Another solution is ethanol. The Brazilians have perfected the system. The only thing they are doing wrong is clear cutting huge swaths of rain forest to grow enough sugarcane. Science is working on methods to produce fuel from grass cuttings and twigs i.e. lawn refuse. We are borrowing technology from termites to breed or engineer microbes that efficiently break down cellulose into more usable fuels.

In the meantime, we need to be working on battery power for battery electric vehicles (we are). We need to work on more efficient solar technology (we are). We need to manufacture cheaper more reliable wind generation techniques (we are). But most importantly, we need to increase the efficiency of what we have (we are, but not nearly enough). Mainly our buildings, but secondly in transportation.

There are any number of patches and solutions out there. We have the technology. I put it upon the powers that be to stop the selfish greed that is holding us back as a species. If they don't on their own, the public will take it, and not very nicely if history is an indicator.

#1.5 Tim, I agree. I think that we will see fuel cells come into their own soon. We can generate massive amounts of power using fuel cells from our waste sewer water in every city and town in the US. I think one thing in the Battery Electric Vehicle that is missing is a universal battery pack. The infrastructure is already in place for every fuel stop in the country to be charging a rack of interchangable battery packs for cars. All we would have to do is unplug the charged pack, take the one out of our car, and replace it with a fresh one. We would probably have to hire attendants to do this because of the weight of the packs.

I think one thing in the Battery Electric Vehicle that is missing is a universal battery pack.

That would be a valuable boost to the widespread deployment . But 1st they need to develop the technology some more .

#1.8

Yar matey that they do. We are getting close though. The new Tesla S premium model has a 300 mile range. That is usable! The car starts at $49,000 after the quite large government rebate. Considering a Ford Focus electric starts at $39,000, and only has 100 mile range, the Tesla is lightyears ahead of the game.

The Tesla corp really has solved most of the problems which plagued earlier e-cars . The only things they haven't addressed are charge time and price .

Science is working on methods to produce fuel from grass cuttings and twigs i.e. lawn refuse.

Wrong. Science is not looking for this. The reason science is not looking for this is that science discovered this years ago and it has been going on for hundreds of millions of years. What is happening is corporations looking for ways to patent these processes so they can control them and thereby the price and supply.

Methanogenic bacteria have existed for hundreds of millions of years. All we have to do is build the composting equipment to collect the methane. Pyrolysis is the process that made our fossil fuels. We know how to do it, but it is general knowledge and can not be patented and monopolized so we don't pursue it. And neither of these require the use of food crops. They operate off of any organic material including our waste streams.

This would also create thousands to a million local jobs all across the country in every community growing, harvesting, transporting, prepping, and processing the biomass fuel. This biomass comes from wood, grass, sewage, manure, trash, lawns clippings and debris, etc. And it is a source of income for landowners that have idle acreage.

Tim, I didn't know that corporate greed was hold back the methanogenic bacteria fuel generation. What a shame. When will people realize that not everything that is worth doing has to be freaking profitable. The really sad thing is that they can still make money on it, but they want ALL THE MONEY. Unforgivable, unacceptable, and absurd. They need to be put in their place.

Yup, they can't patent it, they don't pursue it.

Another thing we could be doing is changing our thought process on hybrid vehicles. Make them work like freight trains. Hook a very small diesel motor up to a generator, not to the drive train. The little motor can sit and charge your battery while you work, or you could plug it in. The battery and the electric motor are the only things that need to be strong enough to push the car at highway speeds. But, I suppose if you made the diesel motor strong enough to generate the power to run the car at reasonable speeds you could increase the range dramatically, so maybe offer a couple of different sized motors depending on the customers' use.

Ultracapacitors are awesome to reclaim breaking energy as well

Place a relatively small motor on each wheel, say 10 hp (7.355 kW) each. That is a maximum of 40 hp (29.42 kW) of power for acceleration. But during cruising only one motor needs to and only enough to maintain speed. To run all 4 motors at full power for 6 seconds would use 0.05 kWh of energy. Then the other motors shut down one at a time to reach cruising conditions. This energy is supplied by both batteries and the engine. Once down to one motor, the engine recharges the battery, as does the breaking in stop and go traffic. A 5 kW generator should be capable of supplying the energy necessary for powering this type of vehicle with a battery pack that is capable of powering the vehicle for 30 seconds at max load, by itself.

This also gives an all wheel drive capacity to the vehicle by monitoring the relative rotation of the 4 wheels and applying poser to the motors that are not turning.