You Call This Fuel?

Image from EcoTimes

Someday, the local electricity plant may generate tourism as much as power – if your plant kept a pet tornado in a pool out back, wouldn’t you want a look?

It seems likely that rather than depend on one type of fuel, future needs for electricity and motive power will probably be met through a diverse range of alternative fuel sources, and some of them may not be the ones you’re most familiar with.

Entrepreneurs around the world are seeking to use new technology to more efficiently produce power from sources like the wind or even rendered animal fats, but there is also a great deal of innovation using sources previously unconsidered.

Of course, there will be biofuels like those derived from corn. But what about other plant sources like algae, which can be grown in pools in larger quantities faster than corn? Or how about cattails? Then there are cocoanuts, candlenuts, copaiba, and prairie plants.

You know about wind power, but how about wave power or kite power? And what about animal power? Taking a page from history, a village in India is harnessing cows to a gearbox driven generator to create electricity more cheaply than it would cost them for a windmill or solar power. The biggest drawback is what to do for electricity when the cows are needed for plowing fields a few months a year.

The best ideas may be those that eliminate a problem while providing a new fuel source. Sweden has very tough alcohol importation laws and is converting the confiscated booze into bio-gas for use in public transportation like buses. And a company in Canada is experimenting with creating diesel from used diapers!

Of course, the real question in relation to alternative fuels is not what they’ll be made out of, but how successful the companies coming up with them will be. Every time there’s a gas crisis – that is, every time gas prices are raised significantly – drivers become interested once again in the subject of alternative fuels as well as recycling, ridesharing and biking to work. But when gas prices come down again, some of the interest goes away. Not all of it, though. Each time, a few more are persuaded to live more greenly. And every one is more weight on the side of alternative fuel research and development; weight that’s needed because investors will be looking more closely at the offerings. Venture capital will no longer be readily given to entrepreneurs with an idea for the Next Big Thing.

In these challenging times venture money is going to the those who can show proof of how they will economically scale production of the fuel that they create. And that’s all to the better for us. Because of public demand for alternative fuels, those fuels will be developed and because the investors will be requiring a practical and affordable way to produce and distribute those fuels, we may actually get them.

In the meantime, let’s keep asking for alternatives to unrenewable energy sources. Don’t forget that, with gas prices, what comes down is likely to go back up again and “low” prices are always significantly higher than they used to be . Continue to reuse and recycle and whenever possible, rideshare.