Why burn fossil fuels?

Considering this is a more "serious" discussion topic, I feel this would be better suited in Discussions and Debates, so I'm going to move this there.

-moved.

Fossil fuels are cheap. The price may be going up, but they're still cheap. I think in the world of energy, supply and demand and price signals are king. What kind of person thinks about the "brand" of gasoline they use? So to me, if nobody's using renewables, it's because it's too expensive vis a vis fossil fuels. You can throw money at renewable energy firms, like the US and China have done, but more often than you'd like they end humiliatingly belly up.

What's worse is that since renewable energy is a new tech, a lot of countries want to get the edge. This turns into protectionism which will only drive the prices up with tariffs. The best example of this is probably the EU's trade disputes with China, fearing that cheaper Chinese solar panels for example will drive their domestic industries out of business.

We also suffer from the collective action problem. Since a healthy environment is owned and enjoyed commonly (me smelling the roses cannot take away from you smelling the roses), protecting the environment should be a responsibility common to all people, but since it's common to all people, individuals will tend to free-ride and pass the buck to the other metaphorical person. What makes this problem worse are hidden costs. Burning fossil fuels creates greenhouse gasses and pollution making the state of the environment worse - which is clearly a cost in the form of a progressively crappy environment, and is also clearly a cost if you have to invest resources into correcting that. But it can be difficult to measure what that cost is, and it is also easy to outsource that cost, for example developing countries manufacture most of the products for most of the world, but pay for it disproportionately with a slowly more crappy environment. When you can't put a price tag and a security tag on something, it is very difficult for any one person to be accountable for anything. So it's easy to push the costs of dirty energy into a corner and call it someone else's problem.

That's why everyone on Earth needs to stand up for the planet and throw back the evil money that is stopping us from saving Earth.

The majority of the world is brainwashed so much by TV and the Internet that they have more interest in making money that will only be useful in the short term when getting or drilling for oil that is -lets face it, won't last much longer mate.

So people need to pull there heads out of wherever and come together with love and respect for all forms of life and save the Earth not just from emissions but money as it is the root of all evil and look at what it is doing.

It is making us drill up and SELL SELL SELL! Wile not thinking what it will do to the climate in ten years.

If you go on Youtube and search for "The last 100 years of global warming" by Nasa, then you will see the chilling truth of global warming since the industrial boom in 1897. Watch the last 20 years and it is just crazy how FAST the planets atmosphere is heating up.

Ugh, energy companies don't want to invest in alternative energy sources that don't make them money.
/Thread.


What we should be discussing is how to get around this and create our own cheap energy sources that we can create ourselves in our own home. This way we have our own source of power that we manage and maintain rather than paying someone to have it for us.
Thus energy bills go down, price of grid electricity sky-rockets prompting the continuity of the trend, energy companies go out of business and fossil fuels cease to be used.
I would pay engineers to invent this machine.

Advantages

• Fossil fuels are relatively cheap.
• We already have lots of power stations which are designed to take coal or gas.
• At the moment, it is readily available.
• Large amounts of energy.

Unfortunately, the money aspect outweighs the environmental problems. Whilst some governments are investing more in 'green' energy, and attempting to cut down their carbon emissions, progress is going to be slow.

We do need to make the change, however it is an expensive procedure to support the Western world (and heavily populated countries elsewhere) on renewable energy alone. Ideally we would be taking advantage of nuclear energy, however with the recent problems in Japan that's not likely to take off.

Alternative sources of energy of aren't really viable yet. They're expensive and there isn't an infrastructure in place for them to be readily available or a consistent source of power.

For people to jump ship and use renewable sources, they need to be comparable - and the technology isn't there yet. So, your choice is almost use fossil fuel or have no power in most situations for now.

TRIFORCE89 said:

Alternative sources of energy of really viable yet. They're expensive and there isn't an infrastructure in place for them to be readily available or a consistent source of power.

For people to jump ship and use renewable sources, they need to be comparable - and the technology isn't there yet. So, your choice is almost use fossil fuel or have no power in most situations for now.

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This. My car isn't going to run on solar power somehow entering its fuel tank.

Also, change your font, I genuinely couldn't read the OP.

Burning fossil fuels is done because human beings are impatient, lazy, selfish creatures. We know that burning fossil fuels causes damage to the environment, and to the health of the population, but still we do it because, a: we've been doing it for so long, b: it's cheap to get at, c: alternative energies can only be harnessed by spending money, which companies are loathe to do, and d: because there's more money to be had selling oil than any other energy source available. In other words, we're willing to suffer in the long term to satisfy short term needs. If that's not the definition of selfishness, I don't know what is.

Pichu2Pikachu2Raichu said:

]What do you think will happen in the year 2030 or 2040 when 80% of all the land on earth is covered by water? This will happen as we release more and more pollution into the atmosphere, it will heat up more and more and more -it is happening right now and no-one is doing anything about it, we just keep putting the truth aside and hoping that the scientists are wrong (a 0.0003 % chance) which is just silly.

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Current technology can allow us to exploit the almighty power that the sun pumps out every second, we can even exploit and generate energy from ocean waves - a lot of power.

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I'm gonna go ahead and put this right here:

TRIFORCE89 said:

Alternative sources of energy of really viable yet. They're expensive and there isn't an infrastructure in place for them to be readily available or a consistent source of power.

For people to jump ship and use renewable sources, they need to be comparable - and the technology isn't there yet. So, your choice is almost use fossil fuel or have no power in most situations for now.

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Yes, I know there are ways of cleaner energy, but there is no way the current technology can replace fossiles, the best thing we can do is keep using them until another better energy source is perfected. Or are you both implying we should actually stop using fossils as of now? Just because... Do you not understand how important those fossils we burn are? There are many countries in the world that can't quench the hunger of their citizens, it's thanks to this fossils that those countries can get about enough food.

All planes use fossils, and planes are not only used to move people around, they are also used to transport cargo and trust me, planes will continue to burn fossils as energy source for many many more years, electric engines, solar panels, wind power and what not is not able to generate enough energy to get a plane to fly from a continent to another, at least not a plane big enough. You can't just go out saying that fossils are used because we are lazy, selfish, impatient or whatever you please just like Jay_37040, burning fossils, even tho I agree it's bad for the environment, it's what keeps us going..

It's not just that other energy sources aren't as cheap, other energy sources aren't reliable and you people have to understand that. It's very damn easy to go ahead saying "oh yeah, humans are stupid, they are burning fossil fuels and damaging our world", please, you use internet and electricity about as much as I do, your family sure has a car they HAVE to use in order to go to work, buy the groceries, go travelling and doing whatever they need to do. Many electric plants still run by burning fossils, are you telling me you agree on shutting them down and immediately replacing them with a source that's not as reliable? Are you not gonna b*tch about it every time there's a blackout? Are you not gonna b*tch about it every time there's not enough sun for your car to run? Or for your water heater to work?

It's very very easy to make a thread and start complaining about the use of fossil fuels, but you are still using them as we speak.

So why is it that we still burn fossil fuels? There are a few good answers for this:

1. It is making BP so much money, and no company wants to stop doing that.

2. It is easy to obtain and requires little effort to obtain.

3. You can get a lot of energy out of burning fossil fuels. A diesel engine can pull a house - a lot of torque


Now we know what burning this gunk is doing the the Earth -the only planet that can support life as far as we know, so why are we still doing it? -Money.

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Money? Or is it because we actually need it. Yes I know there's a lot of people out there who just doesn't give a damn about it, but hey, wake up, we actually need it. You ever thought about what would happen to the world if actually JUST used the current renewable energy technology?

Again, I'm not saying fossil fuel burning is good, it's just that you guys (even tho you have the right idea) are just not looking at the whole picture here.
Progress is indeed slow, it's not like fossil fuel engines were also made in a day, it took us years of engineering to get to where we are, 20 years ago engines weren't as powerful as what they are today and so on and so on.

You think this internet ranting will get us somewhere? Seriously, anonymously going on the internet just saying how despicable we are for not using renewable energy sure helps.

If you drive a car, you contribute a huge amount of pollution. Don't let the oil company fool you into thinking that they are "allgoodz" THEY ARE KILLING THE EARTH FOR THE WEALTH MATE....WEALTH~

IDK, what do members think about this and climate change and global warming?[/B]

Is it too* late to do anything? In this case just go hard out??

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If you people believe we still just run on fossil fuels because some companies just wanna get rich and live the good life, you are ONLY half there.

I think this discussion will lead to nothing, for the people in this forums do not lead the world and aren't scientists who work on searching for a reliable cleaner greener energy source.

danks_ said:

I think this discussion will lead to nothing, for the people in this forums do not lead the world and aren't scientists who work on searching for a reliable cleaner greener energy source.

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This does not disqualify the opinions of those contributing to this conversation. And conversation is key here. The reason politicians and policy makers do the things they do is partly because of public opinion. And public opinion cannot be heard unless people are willing to contribute to the conversation. Do not forget that the people are really the government. It is their opinions that informs who they wish to represent them in a governing body. So in effect, the opposite of your assertion is actually correct. People discussing things in forums like this directly lead to action being taken at an executive level. Discussions that start here do not end here, they expand until one voice becomes many.

Pichu2Pikachu2Raichu said:

T
If you go on Youtube and search for "The last 100 years of global warming" by Nasa, then you will see the chilling truth of global warming since the industrial boom in 1897. Watch the last 20 years and it is just crazy how FAST the planets atmosphere is heating up.

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Though I did not watch that video (youtube doesn't work that well at university), I can only assume it replies to the hockey stick chart established by the IPCC (international panel on climate change), which clearly states that temperatures have been rising since the Little Ice Age ended half-way the 19th century.


Though it is perhaps interesting to know that current (ice ages included) climate is the second coldest period in Earth's history (only beaten by the Ice Age in the Ordovician 450 million years ago)?

On a side note, as Triforce said, alternative ways of energy are not readily available yet. Yes, there's plenty of research going on on how to use the ocean/sea movement (waves, tides, storms, etc) and turn it into electricity (in Norway and the Netherlands for example) or wind energy (I know Belgium is investing a lot in wind energy... wind mills pop up everywhere you go alongside high ways and on banks in the North Sea). There's also plenty of research going on CO2-sequestration (put it back in the ground) or on, for example, how to generate enzymes that use CO2 and emit O2 instead.

But the major problem is that although there is research and industrial application of alternative energies, creating the instruments often costs more (both money and polution-wise) than they win. Unless these methods will become environment-friendly and cost-efficient, alternative energy, regardless of how noble the thought, will remain a though cookie. It's a shame really, that the dire situation of greenhouse gasses has only become a public issue so recently.

Talking about greenhouse gasses... lower the amount of cows/cattle in the world and the CH4, which is a much more reactive GHG than CO2 is, will rise less fast as well.

Jay_37040 said:

This does not disqualify the opinions of those contributing to this conversation. And conversation is key here. The reason politicians and policy makers do the things they do is partly because of public opinion. And public opinion cannot be heard unless people are willing to contribute to the conversation. Do not forget that the people are really the government. It is their opinions that informs who they wish to represent them in a governing body. So in effect, the opposite of your assertion is actually correct. People discussing things in forums like this directly lead to action being taken at an executive level. Discussions that start here do not end here, they expand until one voice becomes many.

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"human beings are impatient, lazy, selfish creatures." You really lost me on the discussion about there. And if that's the opinion you "want" the government to hear from you and how you like starting discussions, then even more will I stick to my opinion on that this particular discussion is going absolutely nowhere.

Again, the rest of your post just covers about half of the picture, not only are other sources expensive, they are not efficient enough or reliable enough to take over the job. It's not just money, it's getting the work done.

Kotowari said:

will rise less fast as well.

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slower* haha ;)

danks_ said:

"human beings are impatient, lazy, selfish creatures." You really lost me on the discussion about there. And if that's the opinion you "want" the government to hear from you and how you like starting discussions, then even more will I stick to my opinion on that this particular discussion is going absolutely nowhere.

Again, the rest of your post just covers about half of the picture, not only are other sources expensive, they are not efficient enough or reliable enough to take over the job. It's not just money, it's getting the work done.

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But you're missing a big half of the picture as well. Renewable energy has never been about the now, it's always been about the future. It's about how supply, demand, and price signals will make fossil fuels more expensive and renewable energies less.

Besides, there are ways to make renewable energies work that offset their reliability problems. People in China get water heaters that use the sun, taking reliance off of the electricity grid. And you don't have solar powered cars, you have electric cars that may be powered by a solar farm somewhere. There's nothing unreliable about renewables once you have a good way of storing that energy. And scientists can always build a better battery. There are even things governments can do to help to encourage the use of renewables by private individuals, for example allowing excess energy to be fed back into the grid and giving the person a credit for supplying energy.

Jay is right when he says that the people in power respond to public opinion, because well, it's true. Many of us live in democracies and many of our politicians are more than willing to make less-than-pragmatic decisions as long as it makes them look good when they need to look good. You don't need to be a democracy to make renewable energies work; China is clearly not a democracy and yet it aspires to become a renewable energy leader. Why? Well, renewable energies are currently on the forefront of technological advance, and the Chinese want to lead in that as they develop high tech industries and become a sci-tech leader. China also wants energy security. Currently it must buy fossil fuels that pollute, come from politically unstable regions, and which prices may also be unstable. This argument applies to any country really, because in the strategic sense renewable energies are more reliable because the source is indigenous and the country will have control over that, unlike the supply for fossil fuels. The Gulf countries themselves are looking at diversifying their economies and eventually energy sources because their resource wealth cannot last forever.

When you say something like "then even more will I stick to my opinion on that this particular discussion is going absolutely nowhere", it sounds like you're more concerned with standing by your opinion than having a real conversation. Nothing that Jay says is wrong, really, and I'm sure he doesn't claim to be presenting the whole picture either. What matters is having the discussion so we can learn from each other's knowledge and experiences. What's worse is not having the discussion at all. Energy policy is in the public interest, therefore, we should discuss about it, that's all there is to it. Few of us are politicians or scientists (I hope to be!), but we can still discuss about the economy, public health and so on even though none of us directly influences the decisions being made. If you look at even some of the comments in this thread, it is clear that there is misinformation and misconceptions and not-so-clear understandings of what renewables even are. Would it be so wise to state that the conversation is going nowhere when our background knowledge is not even adequate?

BlahISuck said:

But you're missing a big half of the picture as well. Renewable energy has never been about the now, it's always been about the future. It's about how supply, demand, and price signals will make fossil fuels more expensive and renewable energies less.

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I don't have anything against using renewable energy, dude, but it's implied in everyone's comment how stupid we are for not using them right away.

BlahISuck said:

Besides, there are ways to make renewable energies work that offset their reliability problems. People in China get water heaters that use the sun, taking reliance off of the electricity grid. And you don't have solar powered cars, you have electric cars that may be powered by a solar farm somewhere. There's nothing unreliable about renewables once you have a good way of storing that energy. And scientists can always build a better battery. There are even things governments can do to help to encourage the use of renewables by private individuals, for example allowing excess energy to be fed back into the grid and giving the person a credit for supplying energy.

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And you've been to china and you are sure that the heaters work all the time, every day of the year? China's a very weird country that bans opinion from the internet to look good inside and outside of china. Are you sure that info is legit?
I'd be totally okay with having an electric car and solar panels in my house, I'm not saying it's wrong. For a household it works, just not everything can be replaced with electric and renewable energy right away. I'm not gonna hate on China, if they do that's awesome dude, but China's not a place I'd trust and if you actually wanna give something good to the discussion, why not bring and post more information about it?

I do know about giving person credit for the supply of energy that's sent back to the grid, I live in germany and it's getting quite popular for big house owners to start installing panels. In fact, lot's of buildings from the university where I study at have several panels on the rooftops and I think its great, they are awesome for actually doing something.

Doing something about it > talking about how wrong it is not do it.

BlahISuck said:

Jay is right when he says that the people in power respond to public opinion, because well, it's true. Many of us live in democracies and many of our politicians are more than willing to make less-than-pragmatic decisions as long as it makes them look good when they need to look good. You don't need to be a democracy to make renewable energies work; China is clearly not a democracy and yet it aspires to become a renewable energy leader. Why? Well, renewable energies are currently on the forefront of technological advance, and the Chinese want to lead in that as they develop high tech industries and become a sci-tech leader. China also wants energy security. Currently it must buy fossil fuels that pollute, come from politically unstable regions, and which prices may also be unstable. This argument applies to any country really, because in the strategic sense renewable energies are more reliable because the source is indigenous and the country will have control over that, unlike the supply for fossil fuels. The Gulf countries themselves are looking at diversifying their economies and eventually energy sources because their resource wealth cannot last forever.

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I didn't say countries in democracy don't take people's arguments and opinion in count, I said it's stupid to say than after you called yourself and all the other humans lazy and in other words stupid. That's no way to come in to a discussion.

BlahISuck said:

When you say something like "then even more will I stick to my opinion on that this particular discussion is going absolutely nowhere", it sounds like you're more concerned with standing by your opinion than having a real conversation. Nothing that Jay says is wrong, really, and I'm sure he doesn't claim to be presenting the whole picture either. What matters is having the discussion so we can learn from each other's knowledge and experiences. What's worse is not having the discussion at all. Energy policy is in the public interest, therefore, we should discuss about it, that's all there is to it. Few of us are politicians or scientists (I hope to be!), but we can still discuss about the economy, public health and so on even though none of us directly influences the decisions being made. If you look at even some of the comments in this thread, it is clear that there is misinformation and misconceptions and not-so-clear understandings of what renewables even are. Would it be so wise to state that the conversation is going nowhere when our background knowledge is not even adequate?

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Of course I'll stick to my opinion, this discussion goes nowhere if people like Jay and all of you just bash the fossil fuel industries and blame them for being money diggers, it's society's fault too for having a capitalist mindstate and consuming about everything there is on display whether needed or is that a lie? It's easy to blame them for being money hungry, it's also easy to go on and say how society is rotten and blah blah blah, as individuals what are we doing as we discuss this to actually have a positive influence on the world? Apart from "educating" ourselves (on the one and only side that seems to be discussed of here)

I'm not saying we shouldn't discuss it, it's okay to learn, but the discussion is going nowhere because most of the people posting are you just looking at how BP is money sick and all that stuff. I haven't seen anyone giving any actual information about renewable sources of energy, that's why the discussion is going nowhere. Are you just going to ignore that up to this point all that has been talked about is how BP wants to take your money and not give a c*** about the environment?

Look at the comments please, there's little to nothing one can learn from this so far, so far Kotowari's post has information of value, the only one that doesn't go on saying the same thing. If you are also having a discussion you need to look at the two sides on the coin, and most of you are sticking to your comfort zone: blaming it on other people and saying something's bad yet not really doing much about it.

And what I personally do? I don't own a car, I have 1 heater in my house that it's only turned on when I take showers, I plug out all the electronics that are not being used, I use the public transport or go on my bike anywhere. As a person that's about as much I can do. What are you people doing apart from making this discussions on the internet?

danks_ said:

Yes, I know there are ways of cleaner energy, but there is no way the current technology can replace fossiles, the best thing we can do is keep using them until another better energy source is perfected. Or are you both implying we should actually stop using fossils as of now? Just because... Do you not understand how important those fossils we burn are? There are many countries in the world that can't quench the hunger of their citizens, it's thanks to this fossils that those countries can get about enough food.

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Speaking for myself, no that's not what I was implying at all.

More or less, everything you said, was what I attempted to say in much shorter text. So, I'm on your side.

OP said:

why

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Because the burning of fossil fuels + the accompanying Industrialization is the definitive technological hallmark of the 19th & 20th Centuries? The modern world was built on coal, petroleum, natural gas, etc. And that's unlikely to change because it's part of the status quo, and the Oil & Gas companies are incredibly powerful and want to continue to make money. And while there's money to be made in Green tech and sustainable fuels, it's a fledgling industry compared to Fossil Fuels. The question is, how long will this last? Peak Oil (if it hasn't happened already, still being debated) may happen in 2050. Then what?

Why do we still burn fossil fuels?

1. Low cost
2. Easy distribution
3. High energy yield

Until a "cleaner" alternative source satisfies those three criteria, more people demand this alternative source (remember the rule of supply and demand), and oil companies start losing power (good luck with that right now), we most likely aren't going to stop burning fossil fuels for quite a while. Or until crude oil supplies run out, whichever comes first.

Also, change your font, it makes my eyes want to commit suicide.

@ danks


What's interested me lately is the shale gas revolution in the US, which apparently is a bit cleaner than regular fuels and will also extend US fossil fuel use a couple of decades (unless the rumors that reserves are overstated are true and it'll just be a big flop). It's interesting because China has the largest estimated reserves of recoverable shale gas (as determined by the US Energy Information Administration), and that the US is willing to share tech with China. This means that Chinese shale gas might be the next big thing with international investors rushing to get their slice. Would this hurt demand for US renewables, Chinese renewables, or both?

I'm not too sure about this one. The Premier in 2012 said that China would end the expansion in wind/solar and invest in nuclear/hydro/shale gas. But on the other hand, the Chinese state is very wealthy and is more than willing to invest in order to become a leader in cutting-edge high-tech. Would encouraging shale gas change their minds? I'm still kind of on the fence with that one.

I believe this global warming business is a pile of crap. It is just another way for governments like Australia and China to put up a Carbon Tax and just steal money from their citizens.

Fossil Fuels are a cheaper source of energy, it is also an energy source that will provide heaps amount of energy. However, it is not efficient as there is no finite amount of theses fossil fuels.

Alternative energy sources are a more cleaner way to get energy and there is a finite supply of wind and solar energy. Take note Fossil Fuels provide a more energy output than alternative ways. It is also more expensive to use and install alternative energy.