while were on the topic, am i the only one who watched that show and wondered how fire could help the environment?

Well, I know it can help the environment because this year in NJ, a air force pilot was out on a training exercise and dropped a flare over the pine barrens and a lot of it burned to the ground. He got a lot of grief for it but what he did was good because although the area is called the PINE barrens, a lot of it was over run with oaks. AFter all of these burned down, there was enough room for new plants to grown and fertilize.

lol, no i was referencing to Wheeler from Captain Planet

oh yeah...i knew that ...who knows? How exactly did heart help anyway? And the coolest one on the show was Wheeler and the guy who had earth...

Heh, heart...

But anyway, back on topic, do you really think we're anywhere near switching from gasoline? Sure, we have the technology, we've had it for some time. Maybe not as great as it is now, but we've had it. The oil and gas companies won't let their monopoly on the industry go that easily. It'll be a long uphill battle to get alternative fuel into the mainstream marketplace.

Eww..thats gross lol

I dont think we are close but I do think we have the technology to do so. But even if we were able to function on half-gasoline and half-renewable resources, it would make a huge difference.

Oh, we've had the knowlede and the technology to have the potential to mass produce alternative fuel cars, but not only would it be a big change for economy (and society is afraid of big changes quickly), but it would put a lot of big companies either out of business or cut their size dramatically.

don't forget most of the oil we get comes from the Middle East so companies there would also lose money

which in fact, would be a good thing considering the oil cut off would decrease the money that terrorist organizations are bringing in...

good points all, this is why we need to eject the "old breed" from power and completely change the way government works. i think that getting oil companies to invest in alt. fuel would be easier than just switching, because it would help get the big businesses out of the issue, rather than have them try to buy their way to power

I'm happy that this topic is being thought about, and I'm going to put in my two cents. I've done a lot of research into this, and my view on what's going to happen is a bit pessimistic.

As a brief summary, at the current rate of oil use expansion, we'll have the world dry of oil in 2030, if everything stays the same. If you want the numbers behind that, I can get them for you.

Without oil, obviously, governments would collapse, there would be a lot of starving (no way to get food anywhere), and general all-around chaos. So we need alternate energy sources, none of which are efficient enough right now.

A quick rundown of the main prospective alternate fuel sources:
Hydrogen
Ethanol
Solar power
Wind power

From my research, there are problems with each of these, even if all used together. At best, we could delay the fuel crisis for a number of years.

Wind and solar energy would be near impossible to scale up to the degree we would need to power all the cars in the nation.

The main way we have of creating hydrogen uses more energy than it would produce. Hydrogen cars are very expensive (projected at roughly 1 million). Plus, hydrogen is extremely light, requiring pressurized pipes, gas stations, and fuel tanks in cars. Hydrogen cars crash... BOOM! Big explosion from all of that pressurized hydrogen.

And lastly, about ethanol. WAY too much corn to give us all we need. Besides, most of the fertilizers we use to grow corn are oil derivitives. Seems a bit redundant.

My, that was long winded. What do you all think of it, though?