The Looming Oil Crisis

The Hubbert Peak Theory states, that since oil is a nonrenewable resource, we are slowly going to suck the Earth dry, of its conventional oil. This theory also states that United States’ oil production would peak between 1965 and 1970. After these peaks, oil production slowly declines, until there is none left for us to extract. Due to lower quality in oil being extracted from the Earth, oil is becoming increasingly difficult to refine, and is almost using more energy to refine it than the actual production. “The oil-drilling rig count over the last 12 years has reached bottom. This is not because of low oil price. The oil companies are not going to keep rigs employed to drill dry holes. They know it but are unable ... to admit it. The great merger mania is nothing more than a scaling down of a dying industry in recognition that 90% of global conventional oil has already been found.” This quote, although outdated clearly states that oil is gradually coming to its depletion.

This is not just a concern of the United States. It is a global epidemic. It seems the only place on the face of the Earth with reasonable oil prices is the Middle East with five cents a gallon. In some parts of Georgia prices reached up to six dollars a gallon, after Hurricane Katrina. Although that is not the average for the rest of the world it is still amazing to see how high prices can actually reach. There are other reports of oil prices reaching up to six American dollars a gallon in England. During the 1990s, production volumes in Russia fell rapidly from nine to six million barrels per day, as the gigantic orders from the Soviet planned economy dried up. But falling state demand was not the only problem. The employees of these Russian oil companies had lost morale and were no longer interested in productivity and most of them actually ended up quitting.

There are solutions to this looming oil crisis. For vehicles, many motor manufacturers believe the future lies in fuel cells, which will power cars as effectively as now, but without relying on oil. Hydrogen based fuels seem to be one major solution. Hydrogen production is much more clean, available, and cost-efficient than fossil fuel production. Hydrogen can become as common as fossil fuels with ease; it just needs to be widely accepted. Vehicles using hydrogen fuel cells are extremely more efficient than combustible based fuels. Hydrogen utilizes up to sixty percent of the fuel used in the engine, were as combustible utilize a meager thirty to thirty-five percent of the fuel burned in its internal combustion engine. The fact that hydrogen is also a renewable resource means that we can produce it forever, without worry of running out.

Hydrogen is overwhelmingly more environmentally friendly than gasoline. When fossil fuels are burned they release large amounts of pollutants into the atmosphere everyday. Hydrogen cells using a reformer to convert fossil fuels, does release carbon monoxide into the air, but a very, very tiny amount (no where near the amount of fossil fuels).

How are these hydrogen fuel cells produced? Well what actually takes place is a fuel cell uses hydrogen energy to produce electricity, with only water and heat by products. As you can see hydrogen based energy is much more clean, efficient, inexpensive, readily available, and renewable than combustible based methods.

Solar energy, although maybe not as efficient as hydrogen fuel cells, are an effective alternative to oil. Solar energy is produced by the sun through solar panels. The answer to, “what do you do when there is no sun out,” is easily answered. Create auxiliary towers to store the energy. Although not available to the public now, these auxiliary towers seem to be a reasonable alternative to crude oil.

Solar energy however is not exactly cost efficient. With the cost being over five dollars in the United States per watt, and over five euros in Europe, not many are glad to take this new source of energy seriously. However, once solar towers are built and solar energy becomes common (if it does), the cost would drop dramatically.

There are three major types of solar power systems; these systems include the parabolic-trough, dish/engine, and the power tower. The parabolic-trough uses giant rectangular, yet curved mirrors to concentrate the energy from the sun into a long tube. The dish/engine uses a dish shaped mirror to concentrate the energy onto a receiver