25 comments on Can we get by with fossil fuels ?
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GAIA Host Collective
Oil and and gas are near perfect fuels for transportation and heating. But of these two, oil is more fundamental to our economy - if for no other reason than the military machine runs on oil. But there are other reasons: the whole suburban way of life, the whole country in other words, turns in a big pile of junk. So, CTL is the only way to go for those who are unwilling to make significant changes in our way of life. Ha! I just contradicted myself - correction: for those who are unwilling to see a drastic asset devaluation.
My daughter lives in W. Va., although the eastern part. In the western part, there's already a huge movement opposing removing mountain tops. When one considers the (low) energy density of coal and the conversion loss, and then figures out what it will take to replace any significant fraction our current oil budget, well, I can't begin to imagine what the future will be like. But next time I go down, I'm going to visit western W Va -- visit the future.
But I do wonder if we'll be able to build the infrastructure in time to do that. It's going to be much harder as energy gets pricier. We may not be able to scale up in time to keep the American way of life going for even a few decades longer. The wealthy will still be driving, I'm sure, but only the wealthy driving is not enough to support the highway system.