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Originally Posted by Marek
I just realized that not only does oil become too expensive for fuel at some point, but that we also need it to create plastics and such. I don't know much about chemistry though. How does oil consumption for the production of plastics compare to oil consumption for fuel? Also, are there any viable alternatives to plastics being worked on?
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Unfortunately I don't know the figures, but from what i remember most of the oil goes in to one kind of fuel or another. The plastics and other products proportion is much lower I think. If we were to stop using oil in our cars the world oil supplies would last us much longer than 2050.
Also, an interesting aside; burning fossil fuels in power plants and then using that energy to make hydrogen would apparently save us alot of energy; due to the large ineffiency involved in burning fossil fuels in cars. Although it would still be polluting; it would still be much cleaner than current methods because so much more of the energy produced per Kg would actually be used and not wasted as heat etc. I wish i had my chemistry text book with me
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Originally Posted by Marek
I'll read up on fusion energy. If that comes into development it's probably more desirable than windmills and such, if only purely based on the amount of space it requires. (Though come to think of it, houses with fully integrated solar panels and windmills might actually make that a moot issue.)
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From what I understand about the potentials of Fusion it would make solar power; wind power or indeed any other form of electricity production irrelevant. Basically a fusion reactor would produce a massive amount of energy for many many years at a very low cost and cleanly. I've heard it said that successfully harnessing Fusion energy would cause a major economic revolution world wide due to the fact that we would have effectively a cheap and long lasting fuel source (by cheap we're talking nearly free). This would mean the third world reaching first world standards; and the first world going far beyond; that big an effect.
Unfortunately the promise of Fusion power has been around for at least 50 years, and not everyone is convinced it can work. But it's very encouraging that major world powers are actually going to build a prerequesite of a commercial power plant; we'll hopefully know how realistic a hope it is.