"Understanding the Future of Sustainable Energy"

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Our current means of transportation (personal and commercial) is by gasoline and diesel.  Both gasoline and diesel have very high energy density by mass and volume .  This means large amount of energy can be stored on board vehicles effectively both in terms of mass and volume.  In addition, the high energy density allows for extended range and effective transportation.  No potentially cost competitive alternative means of storing energy on board vehicles has an energy density  greater then gasoline and diesel (why we use gasoline and diesel for transportation).  With lower energy density this means alternative must either have more "fuel" mass on board the vehicle or must have less energy stored on the vehicle.  Huge amount of energy cannot be placed on a vehicle because heavier vehicle are more energy intensive resulting in reduced miles per energy.  An optimal amount of energy that can be effectively stored on a vehicle exist.  No alternative (energy storage) can effectively provide the transportation range that gasoline and diesel provides. 

Gasoline and diesel represents huge amount of (solar) energy accumulated in the ground over thousands of years.  Crude oil in the ground can cheaply be extracted and refined providing a cheap fuel with high energy density.  The price of gasoline and diesel has been increasing dramatically in the past 10 years .  The dramatic increase in fuel is attributed to the fact that it is becoming more expensive to extract oil (as the easy to access oil is being consumed), and because the identities (countries and companies) that control crude oil, gasoline and diesel see the potential to make more money .   Gasoline prices are vulnerable on world events such as refinery fires, natural disaster, and human conflicts (see chart below). 

The price of gasoline and diesel will continue to increase with consumption and demand.  With increased fuel costs, smaller cars with increased miles per gallon will inherently become more popular  (as smaller cars achieve higher miles per gallon). In addition, to a reduction in car sizes, automotive technology to reduce tail-pipe emissions will have to continue to develop to maintain air quality.   Fossil fuels will continue to dominate the aerospace and shipping industry as high energy density is critical in those applications.  However, alternatives to personal transportation such as hybrid gasoline electric and battery electric vehicles will become increasingly more popular.   

California Gasoline and World Oil Prices.   (Source: California Energy Commission)

Header: Smart Car sold in Canada Source:http://en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Image:Nuvola-blue-smart-fortwo-2.jpg