A truth that floated to the surface during the BP energy company's Deepwater disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, along with hundreds of millions of liters of oil, is that the world does not have a ready replacement for conventional forms of fuel such as crude oil and likely will not have one for some time, particularly as demand for energy grows worldwide.
Cleaner energy alternatives, including natural gas, wind, solar, nuclear and biofuel, have gained ground on greenhouse gas–producing oil (as well as coal), but there is still a long way to go before these inexpensive, efficient fuel sources can be phased out,
according to a keynote panel assembled recently at Technology Review's Emerging Technologies (EmTech) conference in Cambridge, Mass. (Technology Review is published by Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where the conference is held.)
Fossil fuels (in particular oil and coal) accounted for nearly 90 percent of global energy consumption in 2000 and are projected to remain the dominant energy source throughout the 21st century, supplying 70-to-80 percent of energy demand in 2100,
Fossil fuels (in particular oil and coal) accounted for nearly 90 percent of global energy consumption in 2000 and are projected to remain the dominant energy source throughout the 21st century, supplying 70-to-80 percent of energy demand in 2100,
according to a 2007 U.S. Climate Change Science Program report (pdf) prepared by the Climate Change Science Program Product Development Advisory Committee for the U.S. Department of Energy.
Increased use of natural gas is the best bet for cleaner energy in the near term, agreed fellow panelist John Reilly, a senior lecturer at M.I.T.'s Sloan School of Management and co-director of the school's Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change. Reilly is also one of the co-authors of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program report.
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he amount of solar energy that reaches Earth has the capability to provide terawatts (trillions of watts) of power, according to Harry Atwater, a professor of applied physics and materials science at California Institute of Technology. Atwater pointed out during a presentation following "The Future of Energy" panel that solar still represents less than one percent of energy generation today.
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(Global energy consumption is currently about 15 terawatts.) The dilemma with solar power is that silicon-based photovoltaic cells are fairly efficient but also highly expensive, whereas thin-film cells are relatively inexpensive but inefficient.
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