US Prepares for a Future Without Oil
Douglas Arent et al. | CSIS | August 2009
America's hunger for oil is increasingly difficult to satisfy.. Oil is the most in demand resource, covering 40% of the total US energy needs and 95% of fuel consumption. However, the US needs to rethink its position: forecasts predict a 25% rise in worldwide fuel consumption by 2030. The era of cheap petroleum is over and the US is now intensively looking for alternative transportation fuels and vehicle technologies. The technical, economic and political hurdles are enormous, but coping with these challenges will pay off.
Besides first and second generation biofuels, unconventional fossil fuels can serve as alternatives to oil. Especially the transformation of hydrocarbon into liquid fuels has high potential. Hydrocarbon can be gained from oil shale, oil (tar) sands, natural gas-to-liquids, coal-to-liquids, and methane hydrates. Should the US succeed in transforming its domestic resources into liquid fuels, the supply for the next 100 years would be secured. Next to the transport and distribution challenges, new fuels will also require new vehicle technologies. These combustion engines that can be adapted to different fuels seem most favourable (flex-fuel vehicles - FFV). Ethanol FFV serves as a model, as it is already available on the market and successfully runs with a combination of 15% gasoline and 85% ethanol. However, only 1% of all gas stations sell this fuel.
Numerous other fuels and vehicle technologies can be developed and produced and at the same time it is now possible to crucially reduce the output of greenhouse gases with the new low-emission and efficient vehicles. The environment would profit as much from it as US foreign policy does. Washington would no longer be dependent on foreign oil imports to cover its energy needs. This would not only decisively improve the energy security of the country but also the power balance between the oil producing and the oil exporting countries.
This summary was prepared by the Atlantic Community editorial team
from "Alternative Transportation Fuels and Vehicle Technologies" published here by the Center for Strategic & International Studies.
Sat, May 15th 2010, 01:48
Member deleted
It is already a straight forward know-how to convert the simple sugars into alcohol which can replace gasoline effectively.
On the other hand the ligneous part of biomass may be expected to remain more or less intact chemically and may be converted somehow into solid fuels in the form of pellets, etc. after separation from the liquid solution.
The feasibility of such an approach, neverthelessly, needs to be compared to the alternate methods of direct acidic hydrolysis of the polysaccharides which had been used much earlier in the past successfully to produce alcohol to use in operation of vehicles.