Will they ever find or invent something that will replace oil eventually?

Question

Will they ever find or invent something that will replace oil eventually?

Answer 1

I saw something on discovery channel about a hydrogen fuel cell for vehicles that is already developed. They just have to make it affordable.

Answer 2

Yes, electric cars and biodiesel/SVO cars are perfectly viable and have been around a long time.

You're also going to see some essential changes in hybrid:

1. Plug-in hybrid, where you "top off" the battery pack at home or office, so the first 10, 20 or 40 miles are entirely off the battery before the engine needs to kick in.

2. Alternative fuel hybrids, where the engine runs on biodiesel or even more natural fuels.

These can also be homebuilt by a home mechanic, so you could have one by the end of the summer.

Answer 3

2007-2012   More biofuels and hybrids

2012-2015   More celluostic biofuels, more clean diesels

2015-2020   Battery advancements/ultracapacitor technology finally yield mass produced electric cars with acceptable range, charging time, weight and cost.

2020-2025   Advances in solar technology help make pluging in electric cars only necessary on cloudy days/night

2025-2030   Only 40% of the cars on the road use petroleum, and over half of those run on diesel.

My prediction.  We'll see.  I do think we'll get off oil, slowly but surely.

Notice, I did not include the hydrogen car, because after thousands of hours studying all alternative vehicle energy sources, I honestly do not think hydrogen will ever be able to compete.  I used to, but the more I learned the more I realized it would never happen.

It would make more sense to charge an ultracapacitor to electrically power a car than make hydrogen, (requiring a source of fresh water), to simply put it into a fuel cell to turn it back into electricity.  Truly a waste of time and energy.

Someone save this and email it back to me in 15 years.  :)

I'll probably laugh and say "I can't beleive we didn't think of...." Fill in the blank with whatever you like.  You might be right.

Answer 4

Since the 40's there's been at least 60 different inventions that would have lessened our need for oil or eliminated our need for it all together. The "big three" auto makers buy and hide them. Right now Opel of Germany has a diesel race car that will go 140 and still gets over 100mpg.

Answer 5

Yes there will have to be a replacement for petroleum. The use of petroleum was started when another form of energy was running out, Whale Oil.

There is not an all inclusive energy like oil but if we use solar where we can and geo thermal can be used almost everywhere. Wind is a spotty source of energy as the wind is either too slow or too fast to use, but for 25% to 30% of the day we can count on it and that helps.

Hydrogen is everywhere but it loves to attach to other atoms and breaking that bond can be expensive, sometimes consuming more energy than it releases. Most of the hydrogen we use commercialy is taken from natural gas but the residue of that process is CO2, the greenhouse gas we are trying to avoid.

Making bio-fuels is mimicing petroleum products in that we have to burn them thereby adding to the carbon loading of the atmosphere. We need to be more creative, that is clear.

Here in Southern Califonia I think that Solar voltaic panels are a great solution as they make electricity directly from the sunlight. Then if you bury waterpipes 4 feet under ground the water will stay a steady 70 degrees all year, in the nothern climates the water will remain at 50 degrees. You can then take the heat differntial off of the water for use in a heat pump that will both heat and cool your home. The only thing you would need to run the heat pump is the electricity you are making with the solar panels. Then if you have a plug-in electric car you have removed yourself from dependance on oil as an energy source.

In areas of heavy overcast or cloud cover you would have to generate electrcity another way. Hydro-electric has it's pluses and minuses, as does nuclear. There is talk of a liquid coal but that is just putting off the inevitable shortage ot what now seems to be a plentiful supply of coal.

There is only two areas in North America that have a significant tidal flow to generate power from, but I say we need to look into the long term effects of putting machines in the ocean for long periods of time. Remember that if you F with mother nature, mother nature F's with you and mother nature always wins.

Enough for now.

Answer 6

no doubt they will find something to replace oil,they are working on it now,perhaps it will be solar ,even nuclear,we will just keep looking.

Answer 7

poeple have already come up with  alternative fuel resources...for example...a lot of people seem to think that cars of the future will be powered by hydrogen fuels which is environmentally friendly and available...they will have to replace oil eventually...expecially as oil will runo ut sooner or later...a lot of countries use wind, water or solar power as energy sources...there's definitly hope oil will be permenently replaced....

Answer 8

on commercials they talk about oil based products like oil from Chinese restaurant and that should help the environment.

Answer 9

To the person that responded with ethanol, they actually use more gas and oil producing ethanol than they wind up with in the end. They actually lose fuel in the production of ethanol. The only one that benefits from ethanol are the farmers because whichever crop is used for ethanol (for example, corn) drives the prices up as well.

Oil is used in so many things, I do agree that it will be difficult to replace in everything. If you look at the production of ethanol for example, they use it in the tractors to produce the crops, driving the ethanol to market in trucks, etc. You would have to create an invention that replaces that.

I think the invention of an oil alternative might be the easiest part, of course. The hardest part would be trying to keep oil companies from interfering or suppressing the invention and marketing and production of an alternative to oil b/c of course that would hurt their profits.

Answer 10

TheEffect

I saw it on the history channel a year ago

there was a electric car made by one of the major companies

they made a dozen and loaned them out so some people could try them, eventually took them all back and now they are just sitting out in a desert holding lot.

no reason  given, just left to bake in the sun

and the people that got to drive them said they thought the cars worked great

so threre are probably allot of cases of things being made that can economically replace oil and it just gets shelved so people can get all the cash out of oil then act like its something new when they offer a replacement

Answer 11

They have also found that some cars can run on cooking oil and even used cooking oil. And yes a diesel engine can run on refined used cooking oil. Watch them actually do this on Myth Busters. I had a friend you pd 4,000.00 dollars to have her diesel car changed over to use nothing but soy bean oil.

So yes their are other alternative fuels out there but do you think the oil companies are going to make the conversion easy on us. Of course not.

Answer 12

I heard that in the 80's a person created a fully functional hydrogen engine but an oil company bought it and won't reproduce it. Just what i heard but it sounds believable lol I think while there is still money in oil there will never be anything to replace it.

Answer 13

They already have--ETHANOL.  www.ethanol.org

Answer 14

Its called the sun....They found it the first time we looked up...

Answer 15

synthetic lubricants have already been invented. trying to compete with big oil is another story.

Answer 16

There have always been alternatives to petroleum.  The only reason petro became so popular was because they had good salesmen.  Originally, the auto industry created electric vehicles that had almost no maintenance to them.  It was the oil companies that convinced the car manufacturers to switch to petro so that the vehicles could be stronger and faster.

Originally, diesel engines ran from vegetable oil, but the oil companies promised cheap prices if car manufacturers switched.

During World War 2 small engines were powered by hemp oil.  The oil company and car manufacturing lobbyist help pass the bill that started the drug war prohibiting Americans from producing any "marijuana type" plants, even though hemp is an industrial plant that has no THC in it.  In fact hemp can be used in plastics, clothing and fuels as a substitute for petro.

Petro is a dirty fuel that can be completely replaced by other cheaper, cleaner and more efficient substitutes.

Think about this, we currently have the technology to mass produce ethanol/ electric cars that have almost -0- emissions , will go 0-60 in 4 seconds, and travel 600 miles without a refill.  All for prices between $20,000-$25,000.  Ask the government, oil companies and auto industry why we are not selling them.

Answer 17

Oil is an amazing substance.

When we talk about replacing it we are really not just speaking of gasoline, but of lubricants (even electric vehicles will need lubrication to keep wheels and engine parts turning), chemical compounds used to make the many types of plastics  we also take for granted, the souce of power for many electical generating stations and the list goes on.

In the transportation realm, it is a real task to replace gasoline or diesel fuel.  These products carry tremendous amounts of energy in a relatively small volume, the products can be easily shipped and stored, distribution infrastructure is in place (pipes, tankers, storage tanks, underground storage), and the vehicles that use the energy exist in the hundreds of millions (think farm tractors, trains, airplanes, seagoing vessels, construction vehicles).

Direct conversion of solar energy into electricity is very expensive, but even if costs are brought down, we don't have a fleet of vehicles that can run solely on electricity.  At the moment, we also don't have batteries that can hold enough charge to transport a motor vehicle hundreds of miles without a refill, as we have with gasoline and diesel fuel.  

Disusisons about alternatives to petroleum focus on automobiles, but airplanes ar enot good candidates for solar or battery power.  Nor are heavy big rigs that haul freight.  Nor are trains that haul tons of goods at a time.  Nor are ocean-going tankers.

Eliminating petroleum use will probably require major lifestyle changes and sacrifices.  To be sure, we can all live using less energy, but life will probably be very different.

Answer 18

I heard that some kind of plant might replace oil... I think it was weeds. I remember reading something about it in Yahoo! News. Maybe you should check out for yourself.