With so many alternate energy sources and everyday appear new ones, why we still use oil?

Question

Oil and gas should be banned from all over the World. Is oily, it pollutes, is sticky, is black. I hate petroleum and gasoline.

Gimme the electrical car or the biodiesel car or the hydrogen car.Down with the motor gas car forever.

Answer 1

What are you...10.  Where are you going to get the power to fuel your electric car.  From a power plant, what do you think they run on?  Air?  Fossil Fuel or Nuclear isotopes.  Biodeisel is still mixed with...you guessed it Deisel, that's a fossil fuel. Not to mention the amount of land needed to produce enough Biodeisel to provide a constantly increaseing demand.  Are you ready to pay 10 or 20 dollars for a loaf of bread? Hydrogen?  Ever heard of the Hindenburg, pure hydrogen is extremely volitile.  We don't have the tech level to produce a safe hydrogen vehicle.  Gasoline is petroleum, refined petroleum.  Are you also ready to get rid of everything made of plastic...like your computer, fibreglass, teflon, tires, how about how are you going to buy any food when the trucking industry comes to a halt, do you know everything you buy in the store travels an average of 1500 kms before you buy it.  Lets go back to horse and buggies, forget holidays, take a 2 day trip to visit your freinds on the other side of town.  ROFLMAO

Answer 2

We still use oil because it is the cheapest, most easily transported and stored fuel product we have.

I would love electric cars, but electric cars have to be charged, which today means we burn oil, gas, coil or use nuclear.  Hydro and solar or wind are still small players.

Personally, I like the idea of an electric car that is charged by a solar array at home (or work, since this only would work when the sun is shining).  But don't expect to be able to easiuly drive from Phoenix to Los Angeles on a single charge -- and where to recharge (will there be a recharge station in the middle of the Mohave Desert when my battery dies?) and how long will it take to recharge are issues.

Also, at the moment there is no viable alternative to the raw power of oil products when it comes to buses, large trucks, airplanes, construction and earth moving equipment, tractors, combines, fleets of ocean going cargo ships and cruise ships.  If we banned oil use, we would have a serious brute force problem.

Answer 3

I agree totally

within the next 10 years I believe car manufactures will have a complete change in the dependence on oil

there are so many alternatives to oil now and the pressure on these people is getting stronger for them to get their act together and produce an alternative

Some guy in the states is working on a electrical capacitor that acts like a battery but he claims he will be able to produce a car that can do 500 mile on a ten minute charge from the mains electric (hope he gets it to work)

Hydrogen fuel technology is coming on in leaps and bounds and promises a real alternative to oil.

Hybrid cars will help but I think this is just a stop gap solution

Battery cars are improving but needs to improve a lot more yet to be a viable solution

I really do believe that the oils producing countries are on the brink of loosing their grip on the world economies and will very soon see a decline on the dependence of oil

Lets hope it is not too long before oil is just not worth the expense of getting out of the ground

Answer 4

For 2 reasons:

1) Fossil fuels are the cheapest source of energy.

2) We don't have sufficient renewable energy power right now - not by a long shot.  We're slowly increasing our share of renewable power, but it's still only going to be about 15% nationwide around the year 2020.  

Electric cars are great, but electricity isn't totally clean.  52% of US power comes from burning coal right now.  Electric vehicles are still much cleaner than gas vehicles even with the current US grid mix, but we need to develop more renewable energy power plants.

Biodiesel cars are great too, but we don't have enough agricultural land to grow both a large percentage of our transportation fuel and our food crops.  The more land we use for biofuels, the less land we have for food crops, and the higher food prices will rise.

The best solution is to develop good electric vehicles (and plug-in hybrids) and make the US power grid greener.

Answer 5

Don't hold your breath. They have no intention of banning Oil. (gas is a product of Oil). It is still cheaper all the other alternative are still very expensive to produce for the masses. Some take major water sources to produce. That will be a real problem in the next few years.

High population is going to prohibit our abilitly to deal with these problems. We can't even fund bridges and road repairs today.

Answer 6

oil ,by nature, is oily.

unfortunately, we have enough oil to last

Y-E-A-R-S!

it is the cheapest, most powerful fuel (by volume), and most abundant of any out there.

it has proven track record.

Answer 7

The entire fuel industry is based on Oil and Natural Gas, all the corporates as well as countries have made HUGE investments and governments often have big subsidies.

Most of the transport runs on Oil it is difficult to overhaul such infrastructure overnight and that also threatens profits and jobs in major corporates not to mention the Oil kings and emperors. Also there is a fear of unknown , untested technology.

It will take time  but will certainly happen, Solar PV seems to be the most promising candidate in long run whereas Biofuels will be a stop gap arrangement in near future.