• Question: Hi!! Crude oil is meant to run out in less than 30 years....what will we use to power cars etc when it has all gone??? I know people do experiments with sunflower oil etc to see how far a car can run on it for, but surely using sunflower oil couldn't be possible....???

    Asked by mimi317 to Davie, Gemma, James P, James V, Nuala on 3 Jul 2012.
    • Photo: James Pope

      James Pope answered on 3 Jul 2012:

      Hi mimi317,

      It’s a very good question, and it’s not just petrol we need to be concerned about when we lose our oil reserves, as we use crude oil to make a number of products.

      You are correct though, as people are investigating what cars can run on from sunfower oil, to solar power to hydrogen fuel cells to electric batteries. I think what will happen is that cars manufactuers will sell the form of powering a car that works best in each area. So very hot, sunny places may well go for solar powered cars, whereas in the UK we will go for electric or hydrogen fuel cells.

      I’d expect the most common will be hydrogen fuel cells or electric batteries on the whole globally, but if someone came up with a new method for powering a car that was effective as petrol powered internal combustion engines, they would become very rich.

      Amazingly, 50 years ago, the popular science magazine, New Scientist, ran a feature on the future and they expected all our cars to be running on nuclear power by now, it was seen as such as perfect power source, yet these days countries are not planning to replace even Nuclear power plants let along fit them in cars!

    • Photo: James Verdon

      James Verdon answered on 3 Jul 2012:

      Hi mimi,

      A little while ago, it seemed like oil might be running out. However, in the last 10 years, significant new discoveries have been made. Particularly in shale formations – you may have heard on the news people talking about shale gas and shale oil, and fracking, which is the technique needed to extract it. These new discoveries mean that we’ll probably have enough oil and gas to last for more than 100 years at least.

      The biggest problem will be that, if we burn all of this oil and gas, we will dramatically increase atmospheric CO2 levels, leading to serious global warming problems. So global warming will be the problem well before oil runs out.

      A number of options have been considered for replacing oil in cars, from fuel cells, electric cars, and biofuels. The biggest problem with biofuels is that crops have to be grown to be turned into fuel. There are currently millions of people starving in the world, so it seems unfair for us to be using land to grow crops for fuel for our cars, when we could be using the land to grow food for them.

      I think electric cars seem to be the most likely solution for the future. If we have a low-carbon electricity grid, power by a combination of solar, hydroelectric and wind, as well as nuclear power, then we can plug our electric cars in overnight to charge them up, and then use them during the day. Because the electricity comes from low-carbon sources, these cars would have few carbon emissions, and so would be much better for the environment.

Comments