• Question: what will happen if we run out of coal.gas,oil

    Asked by yoreni to Craig, Flavia, Giuditta, Jack, Sheona on 11 Nov 2015.
    • Photo: Flavia de Almeida Dias

      Flavia de Almeida Dias answered on 11 Nov 2015:

      We would stop having the big oil related companies putting pressure and buying off to shut down projects running on alternative ways of energy which will make oil and gas irrelevant. The oil lobby not only causes wars across the globe (to bring *freedom* to those countries which *just happen* to be big oil producers), but also causes a lot of projects running on alternative energy sources to shut down.

      We would probably be in trouble for a bit, but then we would catch up and start using all our potential to get more energy from the sun, wind, water, and hopefully soon enough fusion. The planet would thank in relief for the reduced carbon dioxide emissions. Happy ending.

    • Photo: Giuditta Perversi

      Giuditta Perversi answered on 11 Nov 2015:

      Sadly, we are already running out of it and powerful people are still whining about boosting the alternative and renewable resources research and application.

      One of my university professor said that we are using oil in the most idiotic way: burning it!
      The oil that you dig out from the Earth is made of different compound of carbon and hydrogen. It can be refined and turn into gasoline for a car or the like, but it’s also the same starting material that you use to make plastic!
      An awful lot of stuff that we actually need are made of plastic, if we run out of oil making it quick, cheap and long-lasting will be REALLY complicated!

      So we really should save up oil for this, and of course recycle as much as we can (because if we are running out of it, it’s crazy to leave the plastic around to pollute the environment)!

    • Photo: Sheona Masterton

      Sheona Masterton answered on 12 Nov 2015:

      I have a bit of a different take on this question, because the results I get are used by oil companies to help them to find oil and understand why it’s there. There’s actually still loads of oil and gas and we aren’t going to run out any time soon – apparently there’s enough oil to keep humans going for the next 40 years if we carry on using it like we do today. The trouble is that a lot of it is harder and more expensive for oil & gas companies to get to that it used to be.

      At the moment, oil companies tend to fund loads of research to make it easier to get oil because it still makes them money. But at some point in the future, it’ll cost them more to find and extract the oil from the ground than they’ll make from selling it…in other words they’ll stop making a profit, and that’s when things will really change! Big companies will start investing far more in other forms of energy, like nuclear, solar, wind etc, but only when that becomes more profitable. After all, these are businesses, and their whole purpose is to make money! I think it’s not just down to the massive oil companies to change attitudes towards energy- we all need to change our approach to how we use oil, gas & coal by recycling as much as we can, using less packaging, driving less etc!

      These are the scientific and engineering challenges that our next generation of scientists (you guys!) will be faced with…good luck!

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