All of the Motor-Fuel Alternatives to Conventional Crude Oil Stink

Crude oil is the best. There will likely never be anything better in our lifetimes. Crude oil is packed with energy. We were lucky to find it. The world is NOT running out of oil. What we may be running out of is CHEAP oil, which our modern economy and financial systems depend on.

So, what is wrong with the conventional oil alternatives?

1. Oil from oil shale: Hugely expensive; energy-intensive; wasteful and environmentally hazardous; takes one ton of shale to make 30 gallons of oil. In 100 years, production attempts have been a huge failure.
2. (Synthetic) Oil from the Canadian oil sands: Skyrocketing capital costs; requires large amounts of fresh water and natural gas/heat to extract; laborand investment shortages; waste issues; have to dilute it with (more) oil to move it; have to dig up two tons of sand to get one barrel of oil; other long-term issues
3. Oil from the Venezuelan tar sands/heavy oil: Venezuelan state-owned companies have much less experience with heavy oil than Canada does; Pres. Chavez and the jungle are in the way; sulfur-filled
4. Natural gas: North American sources have plateaued for 30 years -- we’re running to stand still; not cheap to contain/store gas; already tried CNG vehicles, and they didn't catch on; gas prices escalating; not enough LNG reaching U.S. shores
5. Oil made from natural gas/Gas-to-liquids/GTL: See above -- cheap natural gas sources are presently nonexistent -- expected to get worse; may have to outbid Japan (they pay $20 for liquefied natural gas already)
6. Oil made from coal/Coal-to-liquids/CTL: Been done before (Nazis and South Africa) but hugely expensive to do today; generates lots of carbon dioxide (Capturing CO2 will be expensive. "Clean coal" is a pipe dream.); declining net energy yield; need 3.5 tons of coal to produce 7 barrels of oil
7. Corn ethanol: we will never have enough corn to displace any real quantities of gasoline and diesel; need huge amounts of fresh water and fertilizer to grow corn; soil erosion; cost escalating for fertilizer (it’s made with natural gas); less energy per gallon than gasoline (methanol/M85 is even worse)
8. Sugarcane ethanol: Also likely can't come close to replacing any real quantities of oil; sugarcane grows best in tropical or near-tropical environments, of which the U.S. has few; tariff on importing Brazilian ethanol keeps biggest sugarcane producer out; harvesting sugarcane (in Brazil) is difficult and dangerous (essentially a slave-driven industry right now)
9. Cellulosic ethanol: No one has developed a way to make it at a profit; simple carbohydrates like corn and sugar are way easier to break down than cellulosic products (wood, switchgrass, paper); needed enzyme(s) haven’t been invented yet; not commercially ready before 2011/12 at best
10. Hydrogen: Not really an energy source -- it is an energy carrier; takes more energy to produce than it will ever deliver; big problem #1: hydrogen is the smallest atom -- it leaks; big problem #2: hydrogen gets very depressed when lonely -- it bonds with everything available (typically oxygen); hugely expensive all the way around; tanks are large and heavy; hydrogen is unstable at times
11. Electric vehicles in general: Electricity is also not an energy source – it is an energy carrier; today's batteries just can't hold a charge long enough, and they haven't changed much in 100 years: heavy, costly, inefficient, bad in cold weather, have to be replaced every few years; can't really store large quantities of electricity (yet); lithium (cell phone) batteries not easily scaled up for vehicles; plug-in electric vehicles not available yet
12. Electricity from coal and natural gas: Scarcity and rising cost of “the best” coal and natural gas
13. Electricity from nuclear: Will take the first 15 years of the reactor's life just to make up for the energy used to build it; uranium supply issues (every country will want uranium); screwups can become huge; takes 10 years to build one; very expensive, investors are nowhere to be found
14. Electricity from solar and wind: Suffers from the "intermittency problem" (if the sun isn't out, or it isn't windy, they don't work); photovoltaic cells still highly inefficient; grid isn’t designed for variable power (have to keep coal-burning electrical plants online all the time to kick in when solar/wind isn't available).

Unless we have several "breakthroughs" soon, and I doubt we will in time, gasoline and diesel will remain the dominant motor fuels. They, and life itself, will just become a lot more expensive.

Comments

[Techi]

Thanks Scott, you made me laugh and I do agree with you.

[BrianPursley]

Hydrocarbons are infinite and renewable: oilismastery.blogspot..../

Proven hydrocarbon reserves are over 300 trillion barrels: www.nasa.gov/centers/j...

And that's not even considering unproven reserves: peakoildebunked.blogsp...

The only alternative to oil is human stupidity.

[Stockguy456]

very well done!

[useyourbrain]

Yes, if you present it that way it have sense. But this is wrong title of the article. Should be called "All popular oil alternatives stink" and NOT ALL!!!!!

This is the view of people who are paid from oil companies and big capital or who haven't done real research and so couldn't be called real journalists.
Try to do research about only 2 brilliant man (and there have been more of them), Nikola Tesla and Wilhelm Reich and if you do you will find that they have found over 60 years ago cheap energy sources. After you find out very suspicious circumstances how they died, you can ask yourself, why FBI confiscated most of their unrevealed works after they have gone.
Today's governments want to control world by energy and food. Go back and find out H. Kissinger's strategy made over 40 years ago and then tell me.
And next time, please don't insult us common people with such superficial article. We have brains too!

[User 215834]

Ask Japan for help they seem to have a car that runs off water. If their isn't a huge profit in it for the americans they don't want to waist time in doing the right thing for the economy & the enviroment.

[michsolar]

Microwave ovens, CD players, DVD players, refrigerators, are all items that also were way too expensive to be in any way practical. It takes innovation and economies of scale to make them practical. If someone was to read this article ten years from now they would laugh and be amazed at how short sighted people can be.

[Scott Benson]

FBI conspiracies, "cars running on water," and the massive move to products made (cheaply) in China are hardly great rebuttals.

I'll wait patiently for the laughter, if we have that much time to wait.

Thanks for the replies!

[CLH]

Scott---An A1 article.

[econtakes]

The above is true if it were only true? The reality is that major changes in battery and electric capacitors have emerged that have great promise and that new systems using ionization can separate hydrogen from H2O for power and energy.

Wind power is useful and will become more mobile and useful as batteries will become more plentiful with greater efficiency.

Fourth, the future is combination of electric and other fuel alternatives including wave (water).

The author was correct in what he was saying but shortsighted into the future.

[Igorisky]

You lumped all nuclear as one. Wrong, very wrong.

One type that just needs a short time to develop and bit of funding (Jimmy Carter cut it off, Reagan revived it, Clinton cut it out again) are fast breeder reactors. This is what we need and when we have it, it will give limitless (almost) electric power. This will give us power for our electric cars, electric trains and home and industry electric power day and night, for low cost. Fuel is reused so there is little waste. And no C02 produced.

[good green]

Finally someone in the media is telling the truth about oil and alternative energy. This whole scam (Global Warming.Climate Change/Alternative Energy) is just a big government takeover of free markets. The Democrats in Congress profess to take hundreds of thousands of cars off the road by making fuel prohibitively expensive. They are trying to bankrupt the country to implement a socialist dictatorship in America. Only the liberal elite will be allowed to own an automobile. Everyone else will be forced into inefficient flex fuel death traps.

Fight back America. This election is about your rights and freedoms and way of life. Don't believe the foreign propaganda spread by the IPCC. The Democrats are actively engaged in taking away your freedoms. Pelosi wants to take away your right to drive with lies. her goal is to completely destroy the American Auto industry and implement a government takeover of the oil industry.

There is no alternative to oil. It contains billions of years of the sun's energy stored in the fossil fuels. It is a biofuel and it is solar energy. There isn't enough land on the planet to grow 82 million barrels a day of fuel. The environmental movement is controled by foreigners who want to increase our dependence on foreign oil. They have used the Democrats to cut off the domestic supplies of oil while increasing foreign demand for oil. The Democrats are making Americans pay for the rest of the world's energy usage. It is time to throw the Democrats out of office for their blatant acts of treason.

Carbon Dioxide is the clean Air of the Clean Air acts. It is the cleanest exhaust in existance and essential for food production via photosynthesis. Greenhouse Gases are not pollution but the basis of life on Earth.

The time has come to expose the lies of the vast left wing conspiracy to drive up the price of gasoline. Defeat socialism; defeat the Democrats.

McCain and Schwarzenegger are just closet Democrats who are pushing the Global Climate Change Hoax.

[The OldWizard]

Ther is a little of Western Union's rejection of the telephone in this article. While I agree that oil is the most efficient source of energy and that we should develop our domestic resources, especially in the short term, I think a concerted effort to employ and make more efficient wind and solar makes sense. The Cape wind project on Cape Cod is a case in point, where 80% of the electrical power can be provided by off=shore windmills ,economically, competitively. That power is currently provided by an oil-fired plant that uses 750000 gallons of oil per day. The project is opposed by powerful political people even though a majority of residents favor it. Less importation of oil from undesireable places is also a stategic issue.

[Scott Benson]

(P.S. I'm a democrat and I'm voting for Obama, though I am predicting that by the end of his first term, people will be unimpressed. There's little he can do now.)

[LearningCurve]

Gosh! How political and superficial this discussion became –conspiracy theorists left and right!
Meanwhile, in the article and among the comments, geothermal was not mentioned. Geothermal investment options should be discussed on Seeking Alpha.
And, of course, there are inventive and competent engineers who are, at this moment, working on such problems as intermittency of power, or better battery technologies.
(My own conspiracy theory: We had an electric car, once. Remember Who Killed it.)
Thanks for the outline, Scott. Important stuff.

[aquaculture]

Fundamentally, this analysis is both incorrect and incomplete because it does not include 'unconventional' alternatives.
Actually oil-based transport is only 3% or-so efficient. The rest is lost as heat, pollution and in producing, transporting the fuels. In addition the EROI is getting more and more negative, as one has to include costs of pollution, protecting the shipping lanes, lives lost, geopolitical wars etc.
Make no mistake about it: the oil era is coming to an end and not because of a lack of oil.

11. Electric vehicles in general: Require infrastructure investments. Israel, EU states such as Denmark (windpower) are going electric. Electric motors are 90 % efficient. The U.S. could P/N track the Interstate Highways to guide slot cars. Such slot cars would have a very high efficiency with full regenerative braking on track and operate on battery only off-highway on small trips. Fuel costs would be around 40 $ cents/gallon gas eq. Also saves 40.000 lives/year with anti collision software, autom. speedcontol etc. , reduces costs of insurance, increases U.S worker productivity by at least 7 %, reduces geopolitical tensions.

14. Electricity from solar and wind: Also require grid investments.(which are neccessary with or without renewables)
Latest direct-drive wind technology is now at full grid parity (2-3 $ cents/kWh, not on some peak watt basis but in coupled arrays which as a total, offer full baseload power. In addition storage of power in large hydro reservoirs is also used today and very efficient. The U.S. has enough wind- and gravitational potential to meet all present and future needs.
Solar power is not at grid parity everywhere but it will be in a few years.
Solar hot water is certainly a good investment for most homeowners.

15. Electricity from geothermal sources. The U.S has enough recoverable geothermal energy to run the country for tens of thousands of years.

16. Ethanol from algae. Algaemass (sugarstarches, oils) doubles on average once a day. That is exponential growth. This means that in theory, if you would start today with 1 kg, you would end up with enough ethanol to replace all U.S oil imports in just one month.

greenoptimistic.com/20.../

[The OldWizard]

Scott, If you are a democrat, how do you square the main point of yur article with Obama's stated energy plan, no new drilling in particular.

[Techi]

In respond to Brian Pursley, I's no longer feel sorry for the general public for high oil price. Keep on hoping.

[ringoes_man]

Not exactly...

Solar energy is viable. While it's true that the sun doesn't shine all the time in a given spot, it does shine somewhere all the time. Also, most of the demand for electric energy is in the day time, when we are at work. Solar, daytime electric energy would reduce our need for carbon electric energy to the nighttime only; less than 1/3.

Geo-Thermal energy is everywhere. Dig a hole 4 feet deep and the temperature is a constant 50-55 degrees. Dig a hole a few hundred feet deep and the temperature is even higher. Five miles or more down and we are talking thousands of degrees. Pump water down there and up from there in an insulated pipe and you have free steam. Better yet, stick the steam driven electric turbine down there and just pump out the electricity.

Of course with all of these solutions there is an incredible up-front investment hurdle.

But, in just the past six years alone we spent $3Trillion to secure oil in Iraq and the Middle East. Had we spent that money at home, we could have placed solar panels on every roof in America, a bunch more in Death Valley, and bought every American household (80M households) an electric 'commuter' car.

So the problem is not technological, and it's not financial, it's political will.

www.myspace.com/ringoe...

[Scott Benson]

Mr. Obama will grow up fast enough. I'm writing him a letter this weekend concerning his lost cause assocation with the corn ethanol people. Corn ethanol cannot displace any meaningful quantities of gasoline or diesel. But, I still like the man. :)

[The OldWizard]

I like him, too. Unfortunately, I think he is being influenced by a bunch of theorists who have little peoblem-solving experience. Solving our energy problem by the year 2030 is not a viable plan. Increasing our domestic oil supply will not take ten years as someone has apparently convinced him. Fairly knowledgeable people like those n the oil-drilling busines put the real time-frame at 2to 6 years. These are not the oil companies. Of course they need to be given the go ahead to drill in the areas where significant oil reserves are known to exist. It can't be acceptable to a serious candidate for the presidency of the Unted States to let China drill for oil 50 miles off the coast of Florida and oppose our domestic companies drilling off the coast in what very well may be the same oil field. This is not logical problem-solving. Alternative energy sources,especially wind and solar where they make sense and a host of other measures should be done in parallel to drilling for oil in known high potential areas.

[Obvious Adam]

Scott's article points out the short view to alternative fuels. But the real, long term problem is infrastructure. The most efficient way to produce hydrogen (short answer) is via wind turbine electricity sent to a filling station to electrolicize the molecules, compress and store them. When compared to 2005 gasoline production costs wind/hydrogen is within three cents of mean production costs. But requires investment to move the electricity to the filling point. Scott's point on hydrogen being more energy intense is correct with the present infrastructure. It would depend on coal gasification to produce, then sent to a central distribution point, then trucked to a station. That method is controllable for an "oil" company. They control the production and distribution, where the quarterly money is made. We have become lemmings to "quarterly profits". Even when a company has a good quarter, traders and analysts (most having never actually worked in a job), decide that it was not good enough for them. So companies have no incentive to fund infrastructure improvements. I would much rather see a company plan that shows me a sustainable (in business terms) program, not this quarter but for the next 10 years. Show that you will still be IN business because you planned for the future, not just the present. Obama could easily change his windfall tax scheme to provide tax incentives for REAL infrastructure improvements, and penalties for NO improvements. In other words- put that multibillion quarterly profit into the future and we will back off on taxes, keep thinking of only today and we'll tax you till you bleed. And the improvements have to be real, physical and usable. No breaks because you "are thinking about doing something". Some of the alternative energy could work, if we just had a way to get it to the masses.

[The OldWizard]

I recently returned from a trip across Northern Europe. In Copenhagan's harbor there are 26 modern windmills that provide approximately 20% of the city's electrical power. They haven't ruined the view or hampered recreational sailing or boating, nor interfered with air traffic. On CAPE COD the same forces who scream for alternate energy to oil have spent upwards of $30 million thwarting the cape wind project on the grounds that the view would be spoiled, and it would hamper recreational boating. Politicians should understand that at some point we the people will demand that we do what is good for the people, not what is good for a special interest group or political party.

[wheels14]

Funny but wrong.

Batteries have not changed much in 100 years?

[User 222995]

Conspicuous by their absence are hydro electric plants. Did you just overlook them? Or were you unable to find anything to complain about?

Since you have "pissed" on virtually every current form of alternative energy; Do you have any thoughts or suggestions that might aid the search for alternative energy? No! Yeah, didn't think so. You left out Methane, forgot about that one too, huh!

One of the comments above contains this: "Proven hydrocarbon reserves are over 300 trillion barrels" The question is; Where are they? If they happen to be at the bottom of the Marianas Trench, good luck getting to them.

[Mojave Green]

One serious problem with many alternative energy sources is not mentioned - water consumption. Solar thermal and geo thermal (and nuke) all require large amounts of water for cooling. It's possible to have nearly closed cycle systems but without the "free" energy of the heat of evaporation the cost of production is much higher. Close cycle systems are not presently being proposed. Out here in the Mojave Desert there are several efforts to locate huge solar thermal "farms". Of course, the only available water is ground water, but that's already disappearing. Oddly enough, this dirty little aspect is never discussed in news releases.