I don't dispute at all that our present reliance on fossil fuels can only end badly. Yet whenever I see environmentalists advocate that we do away with them altogether, I keep wondering what they expect to replace oil and coal as supplies on planes and ships. Sailing ships can't carry enough food to keep the megalopolises of the present supplied, and I'd hope that they're smart enough to realize that instead of simply advocating a blanket slogan with an idea that sounds good until it has to actually be implemented. It's not enough to penalize use of coal or oil, there has to be a viable alternative energy source as flexible as petroleum and coal. Is there any such source that can solve issues of how to say, transport things like food and other basic necessities between the big cities of the 21st Century?
Well, rail roads are good for transporting goods and should be invested in more, but yeah, agreed on shipping and planes. Which is why in my opinion its a very good idea to save the oil for uses such as those, cause you can't easily do away with such fuel there yet. If we run out of it before there's a solution, what happens to global trade? :-/
Good question, but one without a good answer. This is just my personal POV, but I think some of the truly ultra-environmentalist granola types just want the oil gone and don't think for a second about what to replace it with. Solar, Geothermal, Wind, all that works on a local scale. The idea of how those people would keep up global trade and avoid the problems of the first gigantic famines in a modern society since the 1930s produced by deliberate modernization, however, doesn't occur to them. In a way it's just like the oil companies that focus on the immediate future and deliberately try to squelch any competition, long-term reality be damned, though the latter have a shitload of money and loyal followers in two political parties and the former don't. Which is also IMHO one reason why even the Kyoto Protocol's signatories like Canada didn't bother adhering to it and blamed the non-signatories for not wanting to sign a worthless scrap of paper
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I think the solution to plane fuel etc will have to lie with hydrogen fuel cell like technologies. Collect the energy from renewables, store it, use it on the go. However, I think hydrogen on planes sounds a little dangerous. ;) we'll see. And there isn't one renewable that can replace everything right now. Solar cells will probably play a large role as new types are invented and perfected. But each "slice" of the solution will have to be worked on. There likely isn't going to be one simple solution. Also, energy saving technologies too, things like that. Better windows. Lots of little and big inventions will have to be applied together.
Better batteries are definitely a part--an airplane's engine can be electric, but how do we keep enough power on the plane to keep that engine going? Unfortunately, from what I understand we're already nearing the physical limits of what batteries are capable (I'm not good at the natural sciences though, so someone correct me if I'm wrong).
Part of it might too be a reduction of globalization--more local food production, more local goods production (if 3D printing really takes off, stuff could be made locally on an as-needed basis). We don't strictly need to import our food from another continent.
Once upon a time, they didn't. And the US can't support itself on its own agriculture right now either, but it will need to change. It's probably impossible for Japan or similar nations to become completely food self-sufficient again at their current population, but they can definitely improve. There are all sorts of small-scale agriculture experiments going on around the world. Plus, while I know nothing of Japan's imports, there is a big difference between importing something from Korea or China, versus Argentina. Even importing exclusively from nearby countries would cut down on the technical difficulties of moving food around, because the distances wouldn't be so far.
Agriculture doesn't quite work that way. Japan's a mostly mountainous country with very limited room to grow crops. For it to become truly sufficient in a way that would erase reliance on agriculture, it would have to undergo a demographic collapse on a staggering scale. Importing food from equally densely populated countries like Korea and the PRC isn't exactly a solution to this problem.
An airplane's engine cannot be electric because it will required LOTS of energy that we physically don't have now. And that will be huge overhaul since we had to build the whole airplane (and technology) from scratch. Right now, we are making better efficient airplanes by using composite materials as in the Boeing's Dreamliner, this reduces the cost of fuel consumed as is reduces air drag and so on. (Source: friends that work in Boeing and I'm an aerospace engineer :P)
That's why I mentioned multiple forms in the same sentence. In terms of any local adoption of these energies, multiple ones per different geographical regions are required by definition as what will work in one place isn't guaranteed to work in other places. The big issue is that modern societies remain dependent on importing food by air and sea, and there really isn't any alternative to petroleum here. Replacing plastics is more potentially feasible.
When I see people advocate doing away with fossil fuels altogether, I wonder if they realize that fossil fuels power the processes that fertilize the food that feeds a few billion people. Totally agreed: there's no way we can survive right now without fossil fuels or an alternative to fossil fuels. It's not just a matter of our way of life, it's a matter of literally billions of people starving to death without fossil fuel support.
Yep. The key thing people neglect right now, though, is this system has already seen one relatively brief, limited breakdown when food prices rose a couple of years ago. It brought down one government and led to a wave of turmoil all over the world. Whether or not people see that warning for what it is, is of course a different question.
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Part of it might too be a reduction of globalization--more local food production, more local goods production (if 3D printing really takes off, stuff could be made locally on an as-needed basis). We don't strictly need to import our food from another continent.
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Glad to hear more efficient planes are in the works though.
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