Alternative energy slow to take hold

John W. Schoen Senior producer • Profile • E-mail

With oil and gasoline prices pushing to new highs and global demand projected to grow faster than production capacity, consumers are understandably puzzled by an ongoing energy enigma. Simply put: Why haven’t alternative energy sources — from renewables like solar and wind power to alternative fossil fuels like coal — kicked in to take up the slack? And how long before these non-oil energy sources begin to make a difference?

Thirty years after the “oil shocks” of the 1970s signaled the end of cheap, reliable supplies of oil, the global economy is still dependant on petroleum. And despite billions of dollars in research grants and government subsidies, no alternative energy source has yet been developed to replace it.

Now, with oil prices at $60 a barrel and supplies tighter than they were 30 years ago, analysts, scientists and businesses working to develop alternatives say it will be decades — at least —before the global economy’s reliance on oil can be broken.

‘We’re going to be talking about weaning ourselves from fossil fuels for many, many decades to come.’ — Ryan Wiser Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

“There’s just no silver bullet here," said Ryan Wiser, a scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who specializes in the economics of renewable energy. "There is no singular technology — renewables, nuclear, what have you  — that’s going to replace fossil fuels in the near future. We’re going to be talking about weaning ourselves from fossil fuels for many, many decades to come. There’s no way around it.”

Renewable energy sources are hardly new. Photovoltaic solar power cells have provided electricity to locations not served by the grid — from remote homes to missions to Mars — since they were first invented in the 1950s. When nuclear power was introduced at about the same time, it was thought that one day it would be “too cheap to meter.” Wind and water have been used to power mills for centuries — long before the electrical grid was created.

And "biomass" — in the form of wood or other combustibles —  was the world's first energy source until the middle of the 19th Century, when the development of railroads, which made possible the production of millions of tons of coal, reduced the reliance on wood for fuel.

But from that day “Colonel” Edwin Drake drilled the first commercial oil well in 1857 in Titusville, Penn., petroleum began to edge out other contenders as the fuel of choice. In 1901, when speculators hit the first Texas gusher on Spindletop Hill near Beaumont, the multi-billion-dollar oil industry was born. With crude oil trading for less than $20 a barrel for most of the 20^th century, refined products like gasoline and kerosene provided a cheap, safe, reliable, versatile and easily-transported energy source that alternatives simply couldn't compete with.

Now, with a surge in oil demand coming from huge developing economies like China and India —— on top of continued growth in demand from the developed world — the world’s oil producers are struggling to keep up. For the first time in its history, OPEC is producing at just about full capacity and can't keep enough oil flowing to curb the recent rise in prices.

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