Innovation didn't create oil in the first place, at least not human innovation. You might as well ask why innovation hasn't replaced the Sun or water or air.
Out of Fuel: Why Hasn't Innovation Provided a Reliable Alternative to Oil?
31–40 of 66 posts
Re: Out of Fuel: Why Hasn't Innovation Provided a Reliable Alternative to Oil?
#32There's more money in stifling it than researching it.
Re: Out of Fuel: Why Hasn't Innovation Provided a Reliable Alternative to Oil?
#33"The same legislation passed in the 1970s to force increased fuel efficiency, for instance, has brought no new innovation to U.S. vehicle fuel consumption in two decades" I disagree with this. We've seen hybrids, pure electric and much more efficient normal engines created in the past 20 years with things like cylinder shut-off, etc. If someone from 1970 saw a Toyota Prius it would seem like something straight out of…
What US laws have had an effect on the Prius? Japan just cares more, in the right ways, such as nuclear power, future technologies.
Re: Out of Fuel: Why Hasn't Innovation Provided a Reliable Alternative to Oil?
#34"The same legislation passed in the 1970s to force increased fuel efficiency, for instance, has brought no new innovation to U.S. vehicle fuel consumption in two decades" I disagree with this. We've seen hybrids, pure electric and much more efficient normal engines created in the past 20 years with things like cylinder shut-off, etc. If someone from 1970 saw a Toyota Prius it would seem like something straight out of…
What US laws have had an effect on the Prius? Japan just cares more, in the right ways, such as nuclear power, future technologies.
CAFE laws probably to some extent.
Re: Out of Fuel: Why Hasn't Innovation Provided a Reliable Alternative to Oil?
#35The answer to the why we have not found an alternative is simply that we value volumetric and mass energy density, and this graph on Wikipedia: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Energy_de... shows that gasoline has both of these, along with good resistance to premature ignition, and other favourable ignition characteristics. The solution will not be in finding something new, which is superior in ever…
I think a switch to electric makes the most sense. It can piggyback off our existing infrastructure, and in an engineering sense, it is only "loosely coupled" to whatever manner we use to create the electricity.
Re: Out of Fuel: Why Hasn't Innovation Provided a Reliable Alternative to Oil?
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree, but the article was specifically talking about oil, not fossil fuels. But I don't think we're dead in the water on the electrical utility front - fusion research is finally starting to enter the final stretch before commercialisation - ITER is expected to get us to the point where we can construct the first commercial-break-even reactor: http://www.iter.org/proj/iterandbeyond Actually, I find ITER as a prett…
NIF is a well designed/funded scam to do weapon research, it will never have a consumer benefit.
I would not say that NIF is a scam, as they are quite open about their priorities: https://lasers.llnl.gov/about/missions/
Re: Out of Fuel: Why Hasn't Innovation Provided a Reliable Alternative to Oil?
#37I think the question is wrong. It assumes that the problem is to find a "replacement" for oil, in other words, that all we need to do is replace the oil and everything else will work "the same." For whatever reason, Americans are locked in to thinking that cities should be designed for cars and that every errand should involve driving somewhere (with the expectation that your destination should furnish your car with…
Americans don't want "human scale" cities or public transit, or else we would already have them.
I realize this is not politically correct, but I like the isolation of the suburbs. I don't want to hear my neighbors or have a grocery within walking distance. I'm happy to need to drive to reach anything, because it means that the hustle and bustle of commerce stays far the hell away from my home.
I hate using public transit. I spent a lot of time and money to purchase and maintain my car, and for good reason. I enjoy the convenience of private, personal transport that departs and arrives on my schedule. I don't have to see, hear, or smell any fellow travelers.
Don't get me wrong: I'm happy to subsidize public transit with my tax dollars. The hard truth is that it is primarily for the benefit of the poor. I don't intend to use it. You couldn't pay me enough to spend two hours on a bus in lieu of my 30 minute commute.
We won't see an end to car culture until it is forced upon us. You will have to tear middle-class Americans kicking and screaming from their suburbs. We have chosen to live this way. The escape from the cities was hard-won, and most people won't give it up just because gas gets expensive.
Re: Out of Fuel: Why Hasn't Innovation Provided a Reliable Alternative to Oil?
#38Because nothing else is as massively profitable? I mean oil is insanely, massively profitable, nothing else can touch it, so why would big industry bother until they actually run out of it? BP alone made nearly $2 BILLION the same quarter they had to pay for the deephorizon cleanup That's AFTER paying for it. Normally they make close to $10 billion per quarter. Instead they can just run commercials before PBS shows t…
And arguably, as it gets less scarce, it gets more profitable, so the economic incentives for the big players all go the wrong way.
The problem with hoping that little players will change that is that oil has a massive, massive distribution infrastructure already in place that no energy startup could hope to match.
Re: Out of Fuel: Why Hasn't Innovation Provided a Reliable Alternative to Oil?
#39It has, biofuel companies are even hotter than startups which huge amounts of money getting pumped into them. As the price of biofuels drop and the price of oil rises it's inevitable they'll cross-over and people will start buying biofuels because they're cheaper.
How are biofuels viable as a replacement for oil in the quantities our current lifestyle demands? They can't be produced in the same quantities that oil can be, and producing them requires farmland, so food prices go up. stats and graphs: http://earlywarn.blogspot.com/2011/02/us-ethanol-production....
By hoping that algae based biodiesels and cellulosic ethanol production get figured out.
Airliners and aircraft manufacturers are throwing more hope behind biodiseals now, since once you can get algae producing that, it's just one step away from them making jet fuel. And there -really- isn't a replacement for jet fuel. Ethanol just doesn't cut it.
Re: Out of Fuel: Why Hasn't Innovation Provided a Reliable Alternative to Oil?
#40I think the question is wrong. It assumes that the problem is to find a "replacement" for oil, in other words, that all we need to do is replace the oil and everything else will work "the same." For whatever reason, Americans are locked in to thinking that cities should be designed for cars and that every errand should involve driving somewhere (with the expectation that your destination should furnish your car with…
Americans don't want "human scale" cities or public transit, or else we would already have them. I realize this is not politically correct, but I like the isolation of the suburbs. I don't want to hear my neighbors or have a grocery within walking distance. I'm happy to need to drive to reach anything, because it means that the hustle and bustle of commerce stays far the hell away from my home. I hate using public tr…
You've clearly never been to Europe - where quiet residential neighborhoods coexist perfectly well with a public transit system that works.
The only reason we don't have a public transit system that works any more is that GM was smart enough to realize there was even more money in it for them if they bought, and scrapped, all the public transit systems in America's smaller towns and cities. And it worked. Don't wallow in it; it's embarrassing.