It is a well-known fact that eventually we will not be able to rely on oil to fuel our world any longer. The world must eventually find an alternative fuel source, and sooner rather than later. Burning fossil fuels pollutes the air, depletes a dying source, and the process of finding and collecting the oil to begin with involves a tremendous amount of money, manpower, and devastation to the natural world.
As a people we have been taking small but important steps to replacing fuel as our energy source. Hybrid cars rely only partially on fuel, tapping into electricity as a source of power instead. Windmills that have popped up all over the world are attempting to harvest wind power, and solar panels on homes are a great way to trap energy from the sun. But will this power be enough? Electricity works well when used in conjunction with another source; it cannot be immediately replenished when it runs out and instead must take a charge for several hours. Wind and solar power are great—as long as the wind is blowing and the sun is shining, which we can’t control any more than we can control, well, the weather. As it currently stands, we have been unable to tap into a fuel source that is as quick-to-work and long-lasting as oil.
However, a few little-known candidates for alternative fuel sources have popped up. One idea that has the science industry excited and the tree-huggers nervous it new technology that claims it can add up to 50 years of life to our depleted oil source. Advanced nanoreporters have been developed, which can be transmitted into the ground to let oil companies know when oil has been hit. This means more oil at a faster rate, which gives us a bit more time to locate a new energy source, but also means more digging and more pollution.
As the United States’ “most widely used alternative fuel source,” propane is another consideration to replace oil. Propane is cleaner than oil, reducing pollution, and can add on an additional four or five gallons per mile when used for driving. However, propane is incredibly expensive, and there is that whole potential blowing-up thing.
One of the strangest but coolest innovations we’ve heard of recently here at Five Point Capital is the use of chicken feathers to store hydrogen as an alternative fuel source. It seems that when heated to the appropriate temperature, chicken feathers become a sort of hydrogen-storing filter, with the feathers insulating a phenomenal amount of hydrogen for their size. While animal-rights activist may be against the idea of killing chickens for a fuel source, millions of chickens are killed each year for food, so using their feathers for fuel may actually be less wasteful than it may seem.
While the Earth is still pretty dependent on oil, recently technological innovations combined with our determination as a people to save our planet make us here at 5 Point Capital hopeful. From propane to wind power to chicken feathers, the possibilities seem endless even if not particularly practical. Our personal favorite to win the Best Alternative Fuel Source award is water power. We hear that those tides are pretty regular and incredibly powerful, and any middle school science fair participant can tell you that harvesting the energy from moving water is not very difficult, so hopefully our expanding oceans will one day help to fuel the planet.
