What if we ran out of fossil fuels? Please give educated answer?

Question

So if we ran out of gas burned from fossil fuels what effect would that have on us all, (pretend the environment is like it is now, except we just ran out of gas.)
So, wouldn't we adapt, rely on candles, start making items by hand again, growing our own food, somehow clean our own water?
I mean, would the affect be that dramatic (obviously it would) but wouldn't it be just like medieval times, they survived then?
If we ran out of power, would we adapt?

Answer 1

Since the 1920's, we've known how to synthesize linear hydrocarbons such as gasoline and diesel from a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen gases called syngas. WWII Germany made their airplane fuel this way when they were cut off from world oil supplies. South Africa made their diesel this way when embargoed. The US currently mixes their high sulfur diesel with synthetic diesel to meet federal ultra low sulfur requirements. The very heaviest bitumen from the Alberta tar sands are gasified into syngas and synthesized into a synthetic crude. We normally get the syngas by gasifying natural gas, coal or bitumin in the tar sands upgraders but it can be produced by gasifying biomass ( which is actually done when making cellulosic ethanol through the thermochemical process ) or with energy, it can be made directly from CO2 and H2O as Sandia Labs have done.



Hence, so long as we have some form of power, we can still operate gasoline and diesel engines on synthetic fuels. Indeed gasoline and diesel are just chemically stored energy, ancient solar energy in terms of fossil fuels, but really they are no different from batteries except they are better.



But where would all this energy be from? Well, fundamentally thousands of times more power falls on Earth from the Sun then we use in total, 174 petawatts fall on Earth and we only use 15 terawatts. But solar energy is difficult and expensive to collect. However, we have safe, reliable power in Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors that are nuclear reactors which do not explode, do not leak, do not melt down, do not need power to shut down, do not need power to stay shut down and consumes our existing nuclear wastes. There's enough Thorium for thousands of years if not indefinitely.



From technology's point of view, there is no energy crisis but it is a problem of economic, political and people's perceptions of technology. The environmental crisis is also not an issue from technologies standpoint, the gasification of biomass to produce synthetic fuels produces charcoal as a byproduct which when used as biochar sequesters the carbon indefinitely. Existing gasoline and diesel cars could actually remove CO2 from the air if we just change how we make the fuel. The environmental crisis is purely the result of economic, political concerns and the limited knowledge of the public.



We would not run out of power, we would just run out on our current conventions.

Answer 2

Yes, we would adapt, and maybe thrive. Fossil fuels might be holding us back. Fossil fuels are a throwback to whale oil lanterns, as Standard oil was originally a whale oil supplier.



It might be hard to replace the convenence of the fossle fuel infrastructure.



There are a lot of alternative fuels that we can use to replace fossil fuels. There is a car that can run on wood chips, there are cars that run on electrcity, and a solar hho hybrid bus. We could which to these technologies if or when we run out of fossil fuel.

Answer 3

I see this in a positive light. If we run out of fossil fuel, I believe it would do us good in the long run. People would then have to rely and find alternative sources of energy like, wind,solar,hydro,geothermal etc. This would in a way be benificial for the environment due to decrease in emissions of greenhouse gases. I see it in a positive light.

Answer 4

We would do just fine using the virtually unlimited source of nuclear power.

Answer 5

Some people would survive but this is not medieval times we have 7 billion people most depending on transport, industrialized farming, electronic communication, banking, air travel, shipping. irrigation, pumped water and sewage.

It would be an unprecedented disaster with billions dying of starvation, violence, and diseases.

The people most likely to survive would be those living in remote areas, and poor third world countries.

I mean take the average town/city the stores would empty of food in days, they would be no water, all the sewage would block and overflow, the sidewalks would full of mounting garbage, there would be no light or power, packs of looters would roam the streets, after a week it would be impossible to live there, and all those still alive would have to move out (but where?)

Answer 6

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You DO know electricity isn't powered by gas and fossil fuels, right?