Out of Fuel: Why Hasn't Innovation Provided a Reliable Alternative to Oil?

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/arabic/article.cfm?articleid=2648

by pherk • 15 years ago

41 62 15 years ago

knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu

ck23• 15 years ago

Because 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 telling us how they will "keep researching alternatives". Much cheaper.

gaius3• 15 years ago

Because the market prefers oil, is why. And it's easy to see why: oil packs an awful lot of kilojoules of energy into a given volume. That matters whether you are a motorbike or a cargo ship. And its price per KJ is pretty low too - remember that most "electric" solutions simply burn fuel in power stations instead of in engines, and use that to charge batteries, losing energy at every step of the conversion.

We will go battery/fuel cell/whatever - but the cold hard fact is, that technology just isn't ready yet.

ck23• 15 years ago

The market prefers it because there is a 100-year head start on distribution networks and standards to the consumer for gasoline.

The only thing that could compete with that is the ability to plug it into the wall yourself. But battery technology has not improved much in that same 100 years and there's no universal battery standard to swap out for a new one during roadtrips.

In a half-dozen generations there will be complaints from gas station owners as they go the way of slide-rule manufacturers and have to get government subsidies to stay open.

divtxt• 15 years ago

Oil is like finding an underground vault full of batteries of vastly superior energy density to any electric battery you can make. How are you going to compete with that?!

yummyfajitas• 15 years ago

Your comment explains why the oil industry doesn't bother looking for alternatives, but fails to explain why everyone else doesn't.

Vivtek3• 15 years ago

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.

anonymoushn• 15 years ago

We (the people involved in making decisions on behalf of politicians and the people who buy IP for tech that greatly improves energy efficiency so they can prevent everyone from using it) would rather keep using oil.

If we (people more generally) wanted to, we could do this - http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=2491667

nickff• 15 years ago

The 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 every aspect to oil, but instead to be willing to sacrifice in some areas, (maybe volumetric energy density and total thermal efficiency,) in order to find an achievable solution. Using a plentiful energy source (nuclear?) to perform hydrolysis, and distributing the hydrogen as a fuel seems like the most likely endgame to me, but the material properties of hydrogen are not favourable to storage and small scale use.

mechanical_fish• 15 years ago

A vivid demonstration: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=5&v...

ericb• 15 years ago

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.

Schultzy• 15 years ago

What do you mean by "loosely coupled"?

Are you saying that the electricity flowing into Volts and Leafs hitting the market doesn't really come from a polluting source or merely that it doesn't have to?

...or am I missing your point completely?

ig12• 15 years ago

It 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.

runningdogx• 15 years ago

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....

ig12• 15 years ago

Simple Answer: We can't produce oil (we discover it), we can produce crops. We're pretty good at it.

Complex answer: If demand for crops goes up then farmers can grow more crops. Although it's hard to see if that's happening right now as corn ethanol subsidies and corn import taxes completely distort that market. If you want to produce corn ethanol you buy domestic corn as you can get US gov subsidies for it, you don't get those subsidies if you use imported corn, so naturally US produced corn ends up disproportionately in fuel production. Also it's worth noting that DDG is a byproduct of corn ethanol production, and DDG is used as animal feed. So it's misleading to think that corn used for fuel production is pulling it completely out of the food chain.

icegreentea• 15 years ago

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.

rms• 15 years ago

Reluctance to adopt nuclear batteries.

angdis3• 15 years ago

I 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 a free place to park).

It doesn't have to be that way, although I can understand why a country that burns up 20% of global output of petroleum commuting to work everyday might feel that we need to "replace" oil and that will "solve" the looming crisis.

There are OTHER ways of thinking about a solution that does not involve simply replacing oil. These would include:

* Go back to human-scale cities by increasing density and diversity of housing, businesses and facilities.

* Invest in public transit infrastructure, alternative transportation modes. Mandate walkable metro-centers.

Of course, people won't change unless there's a reason to do so. What I am saying is that "market forces" will push us towards those kinds of solutions INSTEAD of towards an oil replacement. People will be better off if they can adapt to this reality rather than hang on until the bitter end to the idea that the future will involve "happy motoring" forever.

roc• 15 years ago

That's pretty much it. Our infrastructure and assumptions are built on the existence of oil. Its ease of transport, its energy density, its relatively low costs. And there is no alternative with all those features.

So you need to address those assumptions before you can see where it's going.

Which is why we should probably stop spending 10x as much subsidizing commuting over transit. Because most of those suburbs are probably not going to recover from this housing crash. Growth economics allowed us to waste money building, zoning and living that way. But it's not going to work anymore. Not for nearly as many people.

hapless4• 15 years ago

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.

Vivtek3• 15 years ago

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.

jinushaun• 15 years ago

Any proper discussion on the topic of energy dependence, car and city planning must acknowledge that many Americans have this point of view. Americans like driving around everywhere and not living in dense cities. It's an inconvenient truth for policy makers trying to push for green and pro-urban policies in America.

Typhon2• 15 years ago

Human scale cities imply human scale commerce.

I assume that by "hustles and bustle of commerce" you mean those monstrous gigantic malls. It doesn't have to be that way.

danssig2• 15 years ago

>For whatever reason, Americans are locked in to thinking that cities should be designed for cars

I think it's the abundance of ground. The last time I was in the states I realized that the entire shopping street in my city could fit in an american mall parking lot. What a tremendous waste of space, but it's cheaper than going up like is done in Europe.

>Invest in public transit infrastructure

Personally I think public transit is a stepping stone. It's not a workable final solution. It doesn't go anywhere anyone wants to go, it goes close to where a lot of people want to go. It doesn't know when we want to go so it just picks times and forces us into buckets.

A proper solution would be that "public transport" consisted of a network of self-driving cars that you can schedule on the internet to come pick you up and drop you where you need to go. We wouldn't need parking places because the cars never stop. We'd have the convenience of not having to drive.

jeza2• 15 years ago

> It doesn't go anywhere anyone wants to go, it goes close to where a lot of people want to go. It doesn't know when we want to go so it just picks times and forces us into buckets.

That's why you run a network of high frequency services (every 10 minutes or better). You turn up at a stop and wait on average 5 minutes, I think most people can tolerate that. If it doesn't go where you're going then you transfer, again waiting an average time of 5 minutes. That's convenient and you don't have to drive either.

> A proper solution would be that "public transport" consisted of a network of self-driving cars that you can schedule on the internet to come pick you up and drop you where you need to go.

Would still create congestion on busy routes and I suspect a huge number of these cars would be needed purely to cater for demand for about 2 hours of the day.

neworbit• 15 years ago

It's attractive to propose "let's build a new kind of city" or if you prefer, a new sort of living style, but this is one of the classic boil-the-ocean sort of problems that any ground-up engineering solution faces. How do we migrate people from a solution they know, like, inhabit, and own today to one that they don't know, will likely have to be educated to like, don't currently inhabit, and don't currently own? It's a tall order.

solid• 15 years ago

>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 a free place to park).

A major reason is the massive amount of explosive growth directed through central planning by government. This has literally made most cities designed around travel by car.

>Of course, people won't change unless there's a reason to do so. What I am saying is that "market forces" will push us towards those kinds of solutions INSTEAD of towards an oil replacement. People will be better off if they can adapt to this reality rather than hang on until the bitter end to the idea that the future will involve "happy motoring" forever.

Getting rid of government subsidy to oil through lobby, tax breaks, and the military-industrial complex would go a long way toward this goal. We are bearing the full brunt of the "moral hazard" experiment.

Duff• 15 years ago

Easy. Oil is an awesome fuel for energy generation, especially distributed generation. In the 19th century, it was awesome enough for people to go to sea for months at a time slaughtering whales and rendering their fat to provide light to homes.

As someone who grew up in the country and got to spend lots of my childhood quality time splitting logs and hauling wood around, I have to tell you that the day the oil-fired boiler was installed in my house was a happy day.

That said, I think people take advantage of a good thing. I work in a downtown city center and live about 5 miles away. $5/gallon gas means about $60/month to me in direct costs. My co-workers live an average of 20 miles away, with a 15% living over 75 miles away. That's insane!

ry0ohki2• 15 years ago

"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 the Jetsons.

tobylane2• 15 years ago

What US laws have had an effect on the Prius? Japan just cares more, in the right ways, such as nuclear power, future technologies.

ry0ohki2• 15 years ago

CAFE laws probably to some extent.

lucasjung• 15 years ago

The multi-thousand dollar tax credits that made purchasing one cost-effective certainly drove its initial popularity (it's the only reason my sister bought one).

Even after the credits shrank to a level where a prius is no longer a cost-effective purchase, there are still U.S. laws (state and federal) which incentivise purchase of a prius (or other hybrid).

For example, a disproportionate number of hybrids are driven in the greater DC area. A big reason for this is because the state of Virginia allows hybrids to drive in carpool lanes with only one person (this may have changed--last I read there were lawsuits underway to challenge this policy). For people who live in the DC area, deciding where to live can involve some serious number crunching: the farther you get from the beltway, the less you will need to pay for housing, but the more you will need to pay (in time and money) for your commute. Buying a hybrid gave you a free pass to cut your commute time almost in half, allowing you to live farther away and save on housing.

lwhi• 15 years ago

Oil is a natural solution to storing energy.

Solutions provided by humankind are nowhere near as advanced as evolved natural processes.

euroclydon• 15 years ago

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.

tobylane2• 15 years ago

There's more money in stifling it than researching it.

Out of Fuel: Why Hasn't Innovation Provided a Reliable Alternative to Oil?

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