• Question: Can humans create fossil fuels instead of taking it out of the ground?

    Asked by dynamitefire to Carol, Ellie, John, Philip, Rebecca on 24 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: John Welford

      John Welford answered on 24 Jun 2012:

      I don’t think we can make “fossil” fuels as these are made by buried plant and animal matter being squashed and heated over millions of years. What we can make are alternatives to fossil fuels, usually called “bio” fuels. This replaces the process of squashing and heating to make fuel from plants in a much faster process.

      There are various different ways to make biofuels and new methods are being developed all the time. A lot of modern science looks at ways of reducing or replacing our use of fossil fuel.

      Unfortunately a lot of the alternatives have side effects, for example needing a lot of land to grow plants for fuel. There are some quite difficult choices to be made about what technologies we should be using to replace fossil fuels and when we should start using them. It’s a really big issue as it affects everyone in the world!

    • Photo: Carol White

      Carol White answered on 24 Jun 2012:

      Hi dynamitefire! John is absolutely right, that we can’t make “fossil fuels” as those are fuels that have been made naturally over thousands or millions of years. So without a way of speeding up time, humans wont be making “fossil fuels” any time soon!

      But there are lots of alternatives we have to consider, to provide the energy we really need:
      – biofuels (as John mentioned)
      – renewable energy (such as solar, wind, tidal, geothermal and hydroelectric)
      – nuclear energy
      – hydrogen fuel

      It’s a huge issue facing the world – how will we provide enough energy for everyone, now that we’ve used up most of the the fossil fuels….

      What do you think?

    • Photo: Philip Glasson

      Philip Glasson answered on 27 Jun 2012:

      Hi dynamitefire!
      fossil-fuels would take alots of energy to make them. ( as described above)
      Petrol (from oil) has one of the highest amounts of ‘energy per weight’ than any other energy source we have. probably why our transport systems are so highly dependent on the stuff (cars,truckes, planes, tanker ships), and it can just leek out of the ground for free!

      If we made a fossil-fuels it would take so much of energy to make, we might as well have just used the energy to power the car/ trucks directly.

      Now Hydrogen Fuel Cells are different, Not as good as petrol in the energy to weight stakes, but is easy to recharge and its only waste product is …….water
      A bunch of guys at Imperial University have build a Supper-Car that they have raced across America just to highlight this technology

      I know some of the guys involved.
      Have a look
      http://racinggreenendurance.com/

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