This blog post was written by Brett Dinner, our SkyPower intern.

Background

In the mid-1800’s, the United States of America rose to be a global power due in large part to its industrial revolution. The country became the industrial center for the western hemisphere, if not the largest manufacturing center in the world.  With the implementation of thousands of factories throughout the nation, the American labor market produced goods for both national use and for exportation to other countries. As a result of this activity, the economy boomed. Yet, this illustrious national economy was built on the use of fossil fuels.  With the United States setting an example for success, the rest of the world began to follow its lead.  Over time, these industries in other countries transformed their production processes from small-scale to large-scale manufacturing utilizing factories and assembly lines to achieve higher productivity. Fossil fuels became the catalyst for economic development worldwide.

Half a century ago, the United States accomplished an achievement previously thought of as impossible. Now, when venturing outdoors, one can immediately see the difference. From the Atlantic Coast to the Pacific Coast, no matter the city, even Los Angeles or the Big Apple, the air is pristine.  The formerly dark hazy skies in large population centers, which would show throughout sunny days, remain no more.  It is hard to believe that the day has come when the air is finally purified of smog and air pollution. Fifty years later, this is the consequence of society’s actions.

In the year 2050, the United States of America, the nation established on its principles of freedoms and of which built its economy on its utilization of fossil fuels, finally became free.  In the 1941 State of the Union address, United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt proposed four fundamental freedoms for people everywhere in the world: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom of want, and freedom of fear.  Yet, the national population for the country’s first 274 years had not truly enjoyed these inherent freedoms.  Only for the last fifty years has the freedoms of want and fear diminished. The people of the United States have worked hard to achieve the freedom from oil.

In commemoration of a half century of attaining this most recent freedom, we will examine from a historical view this world without oil. However, we will not delve into the process, which took place for society to achieve this mark. Rather, we will paint a picture of life in 2050 to answer what these great changes were and their effects on society. As background, it is critical to understand the two most important causes of the freedom from oil: society’s changed viewpoint regarding renewables and the basic reasoning behind these changes.

Society overcame great challenges regarding the field of renewable energy technologies in the first half of the twenty-first century.  Previously, people had been extremely hesitant to go green due to their lack of experience with the technology. Yet, as the push to go green became more prevalent, people became more informed about and experienced with the technology. As a result, society felt less uncertainties and risks associated with investing in renewable technologies. Additionally, as the few utility-scale renewable projects opened in the early 2000s proved to be extremely productive, people’s worry of economy of scale over time diminished. Consequently, larger-scale projects have been opened, allowing for cost of production to decrease. In addition, people’s awareness of externalized costs has been conveyed to society through the price of fossil fuels. Not only is the price of fossil fuels to consumers no longer subsidized by the federal government, but also it is raised to reflect government costs of impacts of fossil fuel use on environmental and human health. With this higher cost, people are extremely supportive of renewables due to their cost effectiveness.

Society’s altered viewpoint for the first time as a whole saw change as a necessity for the sake of ecology. No more was it seen as a collective action problem. Rather, the widespread use of fossil fuels, especially oil, became a cooperative or uncooperative game; the population, at a societal and individual level, would win the maximum amount through the discontinuation of oil or would lose the maximum amount through the continuation of oil.  Freedom from oil was that easy.

 

Energy

In the early twenty-first century, over ninety percent of the United States’ petroleum use came in the form of energy production. Presently, renewable energy, natural gas, hydrogen fuel cells, clean coal and biofuels now carry that burden. Although all coal plants now use carbon capture and sequestration, coal burning for energy use has heavily diminished. In this world without oil, renewable energy technology is finally employed nationwide and is extremely productive. In fact, nearly three quarters of electricity comes directly from renewable energy resources. Due to the minimized transport of coal to clean coal plants and the slight costs of operation of renewable energy technology, the cost of electricity to rate-payers is finally manageable once again and even little to nothing for communities with distributive generation. In the past twenty years, electricity charges had been blowing up, escalating at unprecedented rates. Now, the environment and citizens’ bank accounts are saved all due to renewable energy technology.

Rivers are commonly utilized throughout the United States to generate hydroelectric power.  These systems produce electricity by utilizing the energy in moving water to turn a turbine.  On several large rivers, such as the Mississippi River and Colorado River, impoundment hydroelectric plants have been installed. These impoundment facilities effectively store water behind a dam, gradually releasing water to spin turbines and create electricity.  However, while the Hoover Dam along the Colorado River has proven impoundment hydroelectric plants success, it has also faced problems. Due to the high costs to build and operate these systems, utility companies wanted a more cost-effective system. Additionally, high resistance for impoundment facilities arose from their disruptive force upon aquatic ecosystems.

With these thoughts in mind, less costly and less disruptive run-of-river hydroelectric plants have become more prevalent than impoundment hydroelectric plants. In run-of-river facilities, a portion of river’s natural flow of water is channeled through a series of pipes to a powerhouse where the turbines are located and continues onward to the river.  The force of water, similar to impoundment plants, turns the turbines and generates electricity.  However, as these facilities are dependent on sustained flow of river and therefore are only located on the major rivers in the United States.  In the last several decades, people have begun utilizing another source of water for energy.

Ocean energy systems have developed covering the coastlines of the United States using tidal power, wave power, and ocean thermal energy conversion. Although Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) systems, which generates electricity through using the sharp temperature differences that exist between warm surface water and deeper cold water, only have been sparingly employed off the coast of New England, other solutions have proven more cost effective. In production of energy, ocean and lake energy systems only contribute less electricity than solar energy systems.

Tidal power, or lunar power, employs the daily rising and falling of seas due to the moon’s gravitational pull to create kinetic energy, which can be converted into electricity. Tidal barges have been developed most prominently off the Gulf of Mexico nearest to the Florida Keys, the Chesapeake Bay, and the San Francisco Bay. In each of these places exists large differences between high and low tides. These dam-like structures capture water moving into a bay through open gates during high tide, after which the gates are closed. During low tide, the water is released out of the bay through a sluice gate, spinning a turbine and generating electricity.

As an alternate system of ocean tidal power, tidal fences have been attached to the underside of bridges, which lie above channels. These systems, submerged into water, act as turnstiles. Flowing water pushes the systems’ vertical blades, causing the rotor to spin and the production of electricity. However, the system most utilized of tidal power systems is tidal turbines. Tidal farms are predominantly off the Atlantic Coast coasts throughout majority of the Gulf of Mexico.

Yet, the systems most implemented in ocean waters exploit the kinetic energy of moving waves to generate electricity thereby producing waver power. First employed off the coast of Washington and Oregon, offshore wave power systems have been greatly embraced and expanded throughout the Pacific Coast and even to large lakes such as the Great Lakes due these systems’ lack of size. These different systems work in two ways: the first of which utilizes the bobbing motion of the waves to stretch and relax hoses attached to floats to build up pressure on the water in the hoses to turn a turbine and generate electricity; the latter uses the bobbing motion of the ocean to power a pump that generates electricity.   Presently, in oceans along the coasts of the United States and lakes inland, the majority of buoys float not for navigational purposes but rather to produce electricity.

Solar energy is the renewable energy most used in the United States. Throughout all states in the Southwest, South, and Southeast regions, one can find solar employed at a residential, commercial, and utility scale. Much of the large, flat formerly barren land these regions are filled with concentrated solar power (CSP) systems and concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) plants.  Most houses in these regions also utilize PV systems. In fact, some city governments require that houses must have PV modules on their roofs. As a result, homeowners in these regions extensively produce their own electric current from sunlight energy.

Across the Northeast, Northwest, Midwest, Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains and Appalachian Mountains, stand thousands of wind farms. These clusters of wind turbines convert the kinetic energy contained in moving air into electricity. In addition, many wind turbines are interconnected with PV systems due to the ability of PV systems to operate at variable heights.

Of all the renewable energy technology, the one most affected by oil was no doubt geothermal. Without oil extraction, geothermal energy companies around the nation greatly benefit. Former oil wells and new wells can be used by geothermal direct systems to produce heat energy as a source of heat and hot water for industrial, commercial or residential purposes. Yet, oil wells are only one source of geothermal energy. In regions with magma conduits, hot springs, hydrothermal circulation, and drilled water, geothermal energy systems also prosper. In flesh steam power plants, dry steam power plants, binary power plants, each of these sources use the kinetic energy in hot water and steam from geothermal reservoirs to turn a turbine and generate electricity. In addition, these same sources are used jointly with geothermal source heat pumps. Geothermal source heat pumps use the temperature difference between the upper ten feet of earth’s surface and outside air for building heating and cooling.

Biofuel presents the primary replacement to the United States’ use of oil. Yet, with the large amounts of petroleum used, agriculture has become as prominent in the nation’s economy as ever before with escalated prices of crops. Farms of fast growing crops, most commonly algae and switchgrass, often cover at least fifteen percent of each state’s undeveloped regions in order to be accord with state regulations.

All homes and most land vehicles and smaller boats across the nation are powered by electricity. Plug-ins, which connects to the grid, are as widely employed as gas stations used to be. Many vehicles and homes also utilize electricity from distributive generation, while vehicles also often employ hydrogen fuel cells. Large trucks, boats, and airplanes are often powered in part by electricity, but require fuel and thus utilize biodiesel or natural gas.  Additionally, high speed electric trains connect all major cities throughout the country, utilizing hydrogen fuel cells, the grid, and often PV panels on their rooftops.

 

Manufacturing

Oil had been largely been used in manufacturing of everyday materials. Now, with oil use completely nonexistent, the manufacturing industry has completely changed. In fact, with components in biofuels and other replacements having to be naturally produced, the quantity of oil replacements produced is significantly less than the amount of oil that had been used in manufacturing but fifty years ago. Yet, in order to ensure that the supply of goods that had required oil for production are still sufficient, several fossil fuels have begun to be used as replacements for oil, namely coal and natural gas. They have allowed for gradual growth in the biofuel market while holding the price of products requiring oil substitutes to not completely skyrocket. However, natural gas and coal are not sustainable solutions. The United States does employ great natural gas and coal reserves, but in the end, each is a fossil fuel. Thus, neither will be on the earth forever. New solutions are sure to come in upcoming years. In the meantime, with the majority of energy coming from renewable energy, the United States can afford to use these fossil resources with biofuels.

Simple products like plastic have found unique ways to continue, although at a smaller scale. One innovative technique utilizes feathers from chickens, turkeys, and other birds in order to replace polyethylene or polypropylene in oil in the production of keratin plastic.  Thus, domestic farmers are provided with an easy way to sell the nearly three billion pounds of chicken feathers they accumulate yearly. The primary solutions for plastic production use natural gas, coal or cellulosic ethanol from plants, such as sugarcane, corn, algae, and switchgrass.

Plastic was seen everywhere in the past, but is now used much less frequently. An interesting result of this is that the use of once ubiquitous fiberglass has greatly decreased as well. Due to large decrease in plastic supply, it is now required by national law to be recycled. Goods bought in stores are no longer packaged in plastic unless refrigeration is needed. Instead, paper products such as cardboard are most prominently used. Glass is often used for containers, as it was a hundred years ago. However, its production process is now completely reliant on natural gas rather than its former use of oil. Also, many products, such as containers and chairs, utilize steel or other metals. In addition, farm grown superwood is heavily used as a replacement for plastic.

The widespread use of synthetic rubber has diminished due to the lack of existence of oil in the United States. Nearly seventy percent of rubber is now produced through at least partially biological processes with the other thirty percent of rubber using natural gas.  While natural rubber cultivation makes up the majority of rubber production, synthetic rubber production uses cellulosic plant components.  This plant material is crucial in the fabrication of isoprene, a key ingredient in rubber.  Natural rubber, similar to plastic, is only used sparingly compared to past usage and used based on greatest need.

Even clothes, curtains, rope, and carpets production have changed. Each often were composed of polyester, nylon, or acrylic, which most often utilized oil for its petrochemicals.  Now natural gas, coal and biofuels are used to replace these polymers in oil. Clothing and textiles are now mostly produced from natural fibers, such as cotton, silk, and wool, and manmade fibers made from cellulosics like bamboo and viscose.  Other daily products such as soapless detergent, make-up, dyes, candlewax, paint and even many pain relief medicines, which also employ petrochemicals, often have no alternative but using natural gas and cellulose.  Each of these products has greatly decreased other than medicine and paint.  Pain relief medicine now mostly uses new found natural solutions from plants in the rain forest. Paint has begun using pigments from fruits and vegetables. Detergent is now largely no longer soapless. Candles have given way to using vegetable oil or low cost LED lights.

With oil no longer in use and the great production of biofuels, natural gas and even biofuels are now needed more than ever before in order to produce biofuels. Pesticides, which help to ensure fast production and minimal loss of vegetation, had required large quantities of oil. But now, they utilize the very thing they help to make. Additionally, while oil had been needed for refrigeration of food, this energy source has been replaced by renewable electricity. In addition, much more food is locally grown due to most commercial farms being for biofuel production and the reduction of packaging with plastics.

Yet, with much less vegetable oil to replace oil for machinery lubrication, production of every manufactured product has been greatly affected. Even renewable energy technology has greatly risen in price. Fewer large vehicles are built because the rising costs due to materials that had required oil. More people taking intercity public electric trains or subways or buses instead. Even asphalt products, such as streets and rooftop shingles are hardly seen. Roads are largely concrete. Yet, in less developed areas many just have dirt roads.

 

Conclusion

This world has been affected in every way by no longer using oil. Over time, it has become much better and no doubt will only continue to do so.  In the next half century, many more changes have been made, especially with coal and natural gas. More substitutes for these fossil fuels continue to be researched and developed. It it all started when people realized oil was no longer in their future.  The world gradually became a smarter and more environmental friendly. Change has been embraced. The world knows now that it has to deal with the issues. America’s future is again safe and independent.

 

If you have any questions, please call Jay Leopold at 480-290-2040 or email Jay at jay@skypoweraz.com.

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