What are we going to do if we run out of fossil fuels?

Question

Go back to using animals for power? Use wind to push boats accross the sea? Solar energy? Slavery?

Answer 1

Oil will probably last another 100 years, if we conserve. Coal will probably last another 500 years, if we don't stop using it because of global warming problems. After 500 years, I think we will have developed some better power source, like nuclear fusion or whatever.

Answer 2

Horses, wood and wind.  Seriously, we won't run out, actually, the price for these resources will rise as there scarcity increases.  Eventually, energy supply and demand for energy will adjust to an equilibrium.  If man can use technology to overcome the supply shortage (use existing solar, wind-which is indirectly solar again, or ground thermal for example), then we will see a more seamless transition, if man can't overcome this, or if the transition is fraught with war and social turmoil, then well, many billions will die as demand must decrease to match supply.

Answer 3

Good answer by Bob.  We'll be using a combination of fuels.  For one thing, our coal reserves are massive and will last long after we run out of oil.  We're developing carbon sequestration technology where they trap the carbon as the coal is being burned and pump it underground to trap it, which will make coal a viable power source that doesn't contribute much to global warming.

So we'll have a combination of offshore wind, land wind, solar, geothermal, nuclear, wave, and coal with carbon sequestration.

Answer 4

150 years ago, the same question had people up at nights--how were we going to light our lamps without whale oil?  But when the whales became scarce, economics and technology pointed the way to natural gas and then electricity for lighting.  In the end, it became a heck of a lot cheaper to light our lamps--with electric lights, even poor people could keep 10 lamps going all night if they wanted to, which could never happen when we depended on whale oil for lighting.

Yes, we're going to see a lot of changes when we are forced to stop using fossil fuels.  If we don't suffocate ourselves first with global warming, I think we'll come out ahead once we learn to use energy from renewable sources.

Answer 5

We don't know.

Just like we don't know what we are going to do if/when we run out of aluminum, iron, or any other resource.

In the market, as a resource becomes more scarce, its price is bid up, and the natural incentive, the reward, to come up with something else increases, and the alternatives become more cost-effective relative to what we're already using.

The effort to come up with, modernize and switch to another resource, itself uses resources.   For example more petroleum is used to drive with ethanol than to drive with gasoline, when you consider the crop inputs to the corn and the fuel used to process corn into ethanol.   Even if this were not the case, other resources would be used.   The price mechanism tells us how and when and to what to switch.

Answer 6

solar is one good way but the rest i don't think so, alternative energy is still out there and getting better and cheaper , just keep looking for the good ones

Answer 7

dig and dig until the other side of the earth is reached...break the earth into pieces and live in mars or any habitable planet, then destroy it again....

The solutions are easy..many have created and discovered more solutions, but there are more of us who are stubborn and not mindful of the consiquences..

The ice is melting...what's next?

Answer 8

If? More like "when".

The way we're going thru it, could be next week some time....

We should be seriously considering biofuel, in fact its ridiculous we havnt already gone that way seeing how old that technology is.

Answer 9

Research in Renewable energies, shall reduce load on fossil fuel in future decades. And we should try to swith to renewable energy at the earliest possible, all the conventional fuels (fossil fuels) we use, means causing change in echological balance of globe.

Answer 10

We'll go to other energy sources; nuclear, wind, solar, biofuels.  People have their favorite way, but this is a huge problem and we'll need them all.  And we'll figure out how to do things with less energy.

The question is whether we'll start right now to work hard and make this an easier transition, or wait until fossil fuels become very expensive and global warming is hitting hard.  If we do that we'll be engaged in a desperate struggle in a very unpleasant world.