Shell Oil's future planners, in their 2001 Book of Scenarios, confirm that renewable energy can power the world at the European Union's per capita consumption up to a global population of 10 billion people.
Jeremy Leggett, oil executive turned solar panel manufacturer, in his book, "The Empty Tank" quotes a 2003 United Kindom government report that concluded "[Solar energy] alone could meet world energy demand by using less than 1 percent of land now used for agriculture". Leggett adds, "Regarding low carbon technologies, the government report places emphasis on renewable energy and hydrogen".
How to Replace Oil without Dirty Fuels
This year gasoline and diesel powered internal combustion engines (ICEs) in the U.S. alone will burn roughly 200 billion (not million) gallons of fuel. These engines are the world's largest consumers of oil. They power cars, trucks, trains, boats, ships, construction equipment, small aircraft, farm equipment, off road vehicles, industry, some utilities, etc, etc, etc. and burn roughly 92% of America's transportation fuel. ICE fuel consumption continues growing exponentially each year.
Petroleum has a lock on fueling most all these engines. Opening this market to domestic, hydrogen fuel made from solar, wind, wave and biomass resources and simultaneously improving engine efficiency, provides the roadmap to energy independence, cleaner air and water, less pollution related disease, major reductions in global warming gasses and diminished Peak Oil dangers.
How do we do it? Since their inception, diesel engines have operated 20% to 70% more efficiently than gasoline engines due to Direct Cylinder Injection of fuel into hot air. More recent, well proven, variations of this technology apply its best aspects to gasoline engines with a quick, simple conversion to Direct Cylinder SparkInjection.
Gasoline engines converted to Direct Cylinder SparkInjection increase their efficiency as much as 20% and run at this increased efficiency on either gasoline or hydrogen. Fuel savings alone provide a payback of conversion costs. When applied to diesel engines, this improved technology cuts fuel consumption by roughly 5% and also allows convenient dual fuel operation.
Hydrogen is the gasoline and diesel fuel of the renewable energy revolution. Just as crude oil's energy can be refined and stored in gasoline and diesel fuel, energy from solar, wind, wave and biomass wastes can be efficiently stored in hydrogen. Hydrogen burns clean in ICEs emitting only water and can open the giant ICE market to all renewable resources providing real competition to OPEC and big oil. When ICEs run on hydrogen they clean the air, reduce engine maintenance costs and increase engine power without contributing to global warming. Breaking oil's lock on ICEs is step one in replacing oil.
Over the past 30 years scientists, inventors, innovators and entrepreneurs have operated vehicles on hydrogen raking up hundreds of thousands road miles including operating a 1978 Dodge pickup truck exclusively on hydrogen since 1978. The Dodge truck project is a joint project between the American Lung Association and the American Hydrogen Association. Despite the hundreds of thousands of kilometers this vehicle has traveled it still continues in operation.
Conversion of just 2% of the more than 245 million ICEs in the U. S. would stop the exponential growth in transportation fuel use; a 5% conversion would roll back consumption to 2001 levels and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and pollution accordingly without burning any hydrogen. The more hydrogen converted engines burn the more oil they will replace. Fleet vehicles, diesel power plants, railroads, river and harbor tugs, ships, stationary engines and utilities could begin burning renewable hydrogen prior to any major infrastructure changes.
These engine conversions would build the market for Undepletable Hydrogen and attract capital for its high volume production and distribution. The high volumes would bring down costs and prices facilitating rapid replacement of vast amounts of oil with clean burning Undepletable Hydrogen. ----real energy independence, cleaner air, cleaner water, and significant reductions in greenhouse gasses!
No magic here; just the fruit of inventive minds and independent thinking free of energy industry control and its lust for greater Peak Profits. The kind of independent thinking that retired the horse and buggy, replaced passenger ships with airplanes and gave us the micro computer that made today's internet possible.
Unleashing this kind of thinking on the energy crisis creates real competition to the OPEC cartel and those who run it.
Is there enough domestic Undepletable Hydrogen? Yes, unequivocally! Please see our Abundant Energy blog on this topic and sign in below so we can keep you updated. Thanks much ---Bill and Roy
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Hydrogen
Jerry — 05:33 PM Jan 05, 2006
Hydrogen uses more energy in its extraction than it provides. The PC renewables (Solar, Wind, Wave and Biomass)can't begin to meet the demand.Jerry Writes: The PC renewables ....Can't begin to meet demand.
Bill.cleanpeace — 01:12 AM Jan 17, 2006
Shell Oil's planners, in their 2001 Book of Scenarios confirm that renewable energy can power the world at the the European Union's per capita consumption up to a global population of 10 Billion people. Now you have it straight from the mouth of the Mighty Mollusk: Shell Oil!Jerry Leggett, oil executive turned solar panel manufacturer, in his book, "The Empty Tank" quotes a United Kindom government report that concluded "[Solar energy] alone could meet world energy demand by using less than 1 percent of land now used for agriculture". Leggett adds, "Regarding low carbon technologies, the government report places emphaisis on renewable energy and hydrogen. Now even the UK government agrees.
On a broader scale, each day earth receives more solar energy than all the energy that was ever contained in all the oil ever produced (14.7 x 10 18th BTU). Nature delivers vast amounts of this energy in wind, waves, and biomass and distributes high concentrations of direct solar energy across the sun-scorched deserts of the world.
Each of these abundant energy resources presents an opportunity to tap high volumes of clean energy using safe, non-polluting technology. Harvesting less than one fifteenth of one percent of this daily availability of energy and converting it to hydrogen fuel could replace the 30.6 billion barrels (1.3 Trillion gallons or 4.9 Trillion liters) of annual oil consumption.
In a narrower sense, a small portion of the SW deserts in the US receive enough direct solar energy to produce enough hydrogen to replace all the oil the US burns for as long as the sun shines using direct solar concentrators.
However using a centralized source of energy is not the best answer. Producing hydrogen fuel in each region's solar rich areas makes more sense. By producing hydrogen closer to major markets transportaiton energy consumption and issues are reduced.
Producing hydrogen from fossil energy only increases consumption of the fuel from which it is made. This makes no sense except in cases where distributed energy and high heat transfer techologies can make up the energy difference druing delivery to end users. Making hydrogen from renewable energy makes perfect sense and the end product cleans the air while burning, emits only water as an exhaust and consequently combats global warming, peak oil and pollution.