Could alternative energy sources provide enough energy to replace oil as the worlds primary energy source by the

year 2050

Crude oil or black gold is the industrial world's primary energy source and has been estimated to account for anywhere from 30 to 40% of total energy use. Furthermore, fossil fuels, specifically the holy trinity of fossil fuels; crude oil, coal and gas, account for more than 75% of the worlds energy consumption and are as such vital components in our everyday lives. As it is a commonly accepted fact that they originated from prehistoric life on earth, further analyses of crude oil resources indicates that accessible crude oil is limited and could be depleted within a few decades. Therefore, the current reality is that the major source of energy could be gone by the year 2050. In an attempt to make most of it, prices of oil have been and are still being elevated, a fact that is in part also consistent with the recession. Consequently inquires arise as to where the lacking energy, created from the absence or unaffordability of oil, will come from. Currently, renewable energy sources, the prime being geysers, solar power, wind power and biomass, account for merely 7% of total energy consumption, nevertheless, it is in them that most people lay their hopes in regard to the future of energy. In this paper we propose to examine said energy sources, focusing on both their negative and positive qualities, whilst calculating the amount of energy said sources are able to produce on a consistent budget thus calculating their effectiveness in comparison with the need in an attempt to determine whether, in their current trend of development, they will be able to replace oil as the worlds primary energy source by the year of 2050. A process in which we will also take into consideration the fact that said energy sources are, unlike oil, only able to produce electric energy. Taking the current state of renewable energy sources and the allotted time into consideration this paper argues that alternative energy sources are not, and as the current trend of development shows, also will not be ready to replace oil as the worlds primary energy source by the year 2050, but will easily have the capacity to provide some part of the total needed energy and therefore enable a slower consumption of much-needed oil.

To begin with we will first take a closer look at some of the most prominent alternative energy sources. Since it is impossible for us to focus and take into consideration all of them, we have chosen those considerate to be the most important ones. Choosing which of the alternative energy sources is most important is as difficult a task as any, for we may choose by different criteria and in each case have a completely different outcome. Should we judge by the current level of development and the costs, wind power would prove to be victorious, but taking a look at the anticipated potential of each source, would leave no choice but solar power. On the other hand, anyone judging by the availability of using it in every corner of the world would probably consider biomass to be the most important one. That is why we have decided to take a closer look at the previously listed three; wind power, solar power and biomass. Firstly, due to its current superior status, we will focus on wind power. Wind power is produced by using wind generators to harness winds kinetic energy. And it is, although it currently only provides two percent of the worlds energy consumption, gaining popularity with the users. For instance; as of 2011 the Empire State Building, one of the worlds largest buildings became the biggest consumer of renewable win power. It will be using more than 100 kWh of wind derived energy in the couple of years to come. This of course is not a precise calculation but merely a proximity. There are many advantages to using wind power as a renewable source of energy. For starters wind is free and wind farms need no fuel. Furthermore, they produce no waste or greenhouse gases and the land beneath can usually still be used for farming. They also often present tourist attractions and are good method of supplying energy to remote areas. On the other side wind is quite unreliable therefore it is risky to depend solely upon it and suitable areas for wind farms are often near the coast, where land is quite expensive. Moreover, some people feel that covering the landscape with these towers is unsightly and they can kill birds because migrating flocks tend to like strong wind, but that is rare phenomenon because wind farms are usually not built on migratory routes. However, they can affect television reception provided you live nearby and are noisy, meaning they also represent a type of a noise polluter of air, which is another disadvantage when living nearby. Having said that, one must also take into consideration that as aerodynamic designs have improved modern wind farms grew much quieter. Moving on to the actual costs of generating wind power and its further converting. As we mentioned before the fuel costs of powering wind farms are negligible, making up for that is a very high capital cost. The estimated average cost must incorporate the cost of the cost of construction of the turbine and transmission facilities, borrowed funds, return to investors (including cost of risk), estimated annual production, and other components, averaged over the projected useful life of the equipment, which may be in excess in twenty years. Energy costs projections are quite dependant on said estimations and may substantially differ from source to source. Cost per unit of energy produced was estimated in 2006 to be comparable to new generating capacity in US for coal and natural gasses. Wind cost was estimated at $55.80 per MWh, coal at $53.10/MWh and natural gas at $52.50. That would in tale the consumer to presuming that the costs of wind power generated energy are comparable to the costs of fossil fuel generated energy which would, according to a 2009 US study, appear to be incorrect. The study argues that even tough wind farms are quite expensive one must take into consideration that the largest expense is constructing them, consequently the costs of wind energy are considerably lessened each year of the farms operating. The marginal price of wind energy, once the farm is constructed, being estimated to merely 1 cent per kWh and less. According to that information one would presume wind power to be an excellent source of energy, as it is, but we still have to keep in mind previously mentioned disadvantages of wind power, the primer being winds unpredictability. There has been some development made in that direction. A general found of $100.000 is being reserved by NASA with the intention of investigating the

possibility of creating high-altitude, nano-tube cable tethered, above-ground wind farms which would represent swarms of kite-like airborne turbines spinning at high altitudes sending power down via nano-tube cable tethers to generate power. This would be an improvement in lines of stronger and more consistent wind further from the ground and the wind farms not taking up so much space on the earths surface, more space being reserved for planting crops. But this is merely a possibility and nothing has been set in stone. As for the future of wind power, it is currently growing at a rate of 30% per year with a worldwide installed capacity of 158 GW in 2009 and is widely used in Europe, Asia and the US, US, China and Germany being the leading consumers. In the year 2009 wind power presented 1,3% of worldwide energy consumption and accounted for approximately 19% of electricity use in Denmark, Denmark being the worlds primer wind power energy consumer, 9% in Spain and Portugal, and 6% in Germany and the Republic of Ireland. Provided the trend of development of wind power farms does not change or at least not for worse, wind power may be presumed to account for up to 3% of the worlds energy consumption in merely 5 years. Next we will take a closer look at the source with the greatest potential; solar power. The sun is very powerful and just the tiny fraction of the Sun's energy that hits the Earth (around a hundredth of a millionth of a percent) would be enough to meet all our power needs many times over. In fact, every minute, enough of suns energy arrives to Earth to meet our energy demands for a whole year, but sadly we are yet unable to harness it properly. In fact, not only does the sun provide us with solar power energy it is also indirectly responsible for wind power, biomass, hydropower... For instance the heat from the sun causes the wind to blow, contributes to the growth of trees and other plants that are used for biomass energy and plays an essential role in the cycle of evaporation and precipitation that makes hydropower possible. But let us focus directly on solar power. Solar power is the conversion of sunlight into electricity, either directly by using photovoltaics or indirectly by using concentrated solar power or to split water and create hydrogen fuel using techniques of artificial photosynthesis. Put simply, we know many ways of using solar power; solar cells who convert solar power directly into energy. Just a square meter of solar cells is, in a sunny climate, able to provide enough energy to run a 100W light bulb. Solar water heating, solar furnaces, solar towers, solar powered boats and many more, they are all only at the beginning of their development stage therefore it is impossible to predict, even though there are some front runners, which way will become the most prominent and used one. The advantages to using solar power are many. It needs no fuel and creates no waste or pollution. It can be used in sunny countries to get electricity to remote places and it is quite handy for low-power uses such as solar powered garden lights and battery chargers, or for helping your home energy bills. On the other hand a very big disadvantage is that it doesnt work at night moreover, its very expensive to build solar power stations, even though the cost is coming down as technology improves. In the meantime, solar cells cost a great deal compared to the amount of electricity they'll produce in their lifetime. Nearly 8% of the cells must be replaced ever each year and they have low conversion efficiency (only 15%). And of course lastly, solar power is quite unreliable and can only make a change in very sunny climates. It is jet unable to fuel larger facilities but can make a great change in your home energy bills. The prospect of generating pollution-free power from the suns rays is naturally quite appealing, but to-date the low price of oil combined with the high costs of developing new technology have

prevented the widespread adoption of solar power. At a current cost of 25 to 50 cents per kWh, solar power costs as much as five times more than conventional fossil fuel-based electricity. According to the Bloomberg New Energy finance (March 2011) solar panels cost $1.80 per watt but would decline to $1.50 per watt till the end of 2011. In 2005 solar power energy was the fastest growing energy source and with additional installations increasing by 83% bringing the total installed capacity to 15GW to the year of 2009. Today solar power is estimated to account for approximately 0, 8% of the worlds energy consumption but is, as an energy source, rapidly developing. For instance PV is anticipated to account for 5% of the worlds energy consumption in 2030, rising to 11% in 2050 and therefore making a tremendous step forward towards replacing fossil fuels as the most prominent energy source but will still have a long way of development to reaching said destination. Lastly, the energy source available everywhere in the world that is a bit less important than wind and solar power, biomass. Biomass represents biological material from living, or recently living organisms, such as wood, waste, (hydrogen) gas, and alcohol fuels. It is commonly plant matter grown to generate electricity or produce heat. The most conventional way of using biomass is still direct incineration. Forest residues, for example (such as dead trees, branches and tree stumps), yard clippings, wood chips and garbage are often used for this. But biomass also includes plant or animal matter used for production of fibers or chemicals and biodegradable wastes that can be burnt as fuel. It excludes such organic materials as fossil fuels, which have been transformed by geological processes into substances such as coal or petroleum. In that sense fossil fuels are also some sort of biomass, having originated in ancient biomass, but we do not consider them to be a part of biomass because they contain carbon that has been out of the carbon cycle for a very long time. Accordingly their combustion disrupts the carbon cycle in the atmosphere. Speaking in favour of using biomass energy is the fact that there is a plethora of organic and agricultural waste that needs to be used somehow making biomass an easily obtainable energy source. Furthermore using biomass helps in solid waste management, getting rid of previously mentioned organic and agricultural waste whilst creating no additional pollution and therefore cuts down the level of carbon release into the atmosphere. Biomass briquettes produce much cleaner electricity than fossil fuels and create no air polluting emissions and biomass is a cheap form of energy, because due to it being used in more or less the same place from whence it came, it needs no large pipes being laid. On the down side, during biomass production gasses like carbon-dioxide, methane,... are released into the atmosphere and may contribute to global warming. Secondly the production of biomass is very expensive and the set up of a biomass power plant requires a lot of space and the recycling of wastes requires a large amount of water. Furthermore the prime biomass energy source is wood, which can be converted into liquid fuel, but the net energy recovery is very low and there is far from enough wood available for it to be converted into liquid energy in any significant quantities. Naturally other biomass sources have been tried. Crops, for instance, are converted to alcohol. Corn, in specific, is being converted to ethanol, but that gives us negative results for it takes more energy to produce the ethanol than it can be obtained from it. What is more, using crops for creating fuel takes away from the crops being used for food and thus contributing to the global hunger. And even though the overwhelming majority of people believe ethanol to be very environmentally friendly the fact is that tough it produces less carbon dioxide than gasoline it still presents a large polluter with creating nitrous oxides, aldehyde and alcohol emissions. That is why Giampierto in his 1997 study concludes that large scale bio fuel production is not an alternative to the current use of oil and is not even an advisable option for covering a significant fraction of it.

As for the costs of biomass energy they variate somewhere around 5 to 10 cents per kWh, however they are dependent on the kind of used biofuel, method of generating energy from biofuel and the size of the plant for generating energy. Although it is quite expensive, energy derived from natural gasses cost only 2,8 cents per kwh, it meets about 4,3% of the worlds energy requirements. Today these three energy sources provide a bit under 7% of the worlds energy consumption, accounting for the rest of the 7% are other alternative energy sources, but are rapidly evolving. According to some researchers we may expect them to account for as much as 24% of the worlds energy consumption up to the year of 2050, especially taking into consideration the rapid evolvement of solar power. Alas, when talking about replacing crude oil there is more than the energy supply factor to consider. Due to its unique attributes crude oil can be refined in various derivative forms and used not only as an energy source but also as the basis for manufacture of petrochemical products including plastics, medicines, paints and myriad other useful materials. A field of usage no alternative source has yet been able to cover. Another problem that arises when talking about replacing oil with alternative energy sources is that alternative energy sources merely generate electric energy whereas oil is a type of chemical energy in the atoms bonds that can be converted into mechanical energy and therefore also represents a fuel for our means of transport. The problem appearing is that that would mean all cars and other vehicles would need to be converted to run on electric energy. Since there are over 700 million vehicles in the entire world there is no need to stress the fact that that would in tale too large a financial burden. And even were the financial disadvantages, or as one could say handicaps, not a problem, electric energy is still extremely hard to storage and should vehicles be powered by electricity they would require very large batteries for them to be able to take longer tours without recharging and such large batteries would substantially increase the weight of the vehicle which would be far from practical. That is why several companies and government agencies are funding research to reduce capital and operating costs of a new kind of fuel bio fuel called algaeoleum. Algaeoleum is the newest green fuel which uses algae as the source of natural deposits. Algae fuels would present a superior choice to oil in a sense that they do not affect fresh water resources, can be produced using ocean and waste water and are biodegradable and relatively harmless to the environment if spilled. Of course there is also the option of replacing oil as fuel with fuel generated from other crops but even tough algae cost more per unit of mass (as of 2010, food grade algae costs ~$5000/tonne), due to high capital and operating costs, than other crops, they can theoretically yield between 10 and 100 times more energy per unit area than other second-generation biofuel crops. A biofuels company has even stated that algae can produce more oil in an area the size of a two car garage than a football field of soybeans, because almost the entire algal organism can use sunlight to produce lipids, or oil. The United States Department of Energy estimates that if algae fuel replaced all the petroleum fuel in the United States, it would require 39,000 km2 of land which is only 0.42% of the U.S. map. However, the goal of algaeoleum replacing oil as a fuel is yet to be commercially achieved. According to the head of the Algal Biomass Organization algae fuel can reach price parity with oil in 2018 if granted production tax credits, but it is highly unlikely that it will be overwhelmingly accepted, at least not at first. Besides that, a big disadvantage of algaeoleum is that it also requires some modifications to the engine which will be hard to achieve U.S wide, not to mention worldwide and the additional costs will certainly discourage any consumer from using algaeoleum. But should algaeoleum truly reach price parity with oil till 2018 and become widely available than car companies will certainly make sure to start installing the modified engines into the new models of cars and algaeoleum will start to take over, especially should the government take steps to encourage it. Alas, most experts believe that to be an extremely overly optimistic scenario.

Alternative energy sources may not be ready to take oils place as the worlds primer energy source, till the year 2050, but they will, nonetheless be able to partly replace it. Firstly as a fuel, with algaeoleums prices falling and production and government founds increasing, and secondly, as a generator of a substantial amount of electric energy. Both of which will enable a slower consumption of the worlds oil supplies. A large contributor to that being solar power, an energy source that is expected to experience an upsurge in the amount of energy it is able to produce. That is why it is in the sun that we must lay our hopes, after all it was Thomas Alva Edison, way back in 1931, who said: "I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that. Sources: http://www.altenergy.org/renewables/wind.html http://www.buzzle.com/articles/biomass-energy-costs.html

http://www.biomassenergycentre.org.uk/portal/page?_pageid=75,59188&_dad=portal http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/technology/wind-power/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power http://www.darvill.clara.net/altenerg/solar.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption#Solar_power http://www.solarpowergeneration.ca/ http://www.renewablesinfo.com/interesting_energy_articles/the_most_important_renewable_energy_source.html http://www.wwindea.org/home/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=21& Itemid=43 http://www.repartners.org/biomass/biocosts.htm http://www.biocap.ca/rif/report/Sokhansanj_S.pdf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae_fuel http://www.scribd.com/doc/49532854/ALGAEOLEUM