The Four Ages of Energy
One way of looking back at the past is to look at fuel sources:
First there was the age of wood.
Then there was the age of coal.
Then the age of oil.
The next age will be the age of electricity.
This is the solution for many problems. For example transportation. A Plug in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) can do 50 miles on $US1.00 of electricity right now, no new technology needs to be developed. Kits can be purchased that allow people to install lithium ion batteries into a Toyota Prius and achieve this. Toyota plan to make PHEV available as a standard issue in 2009. This would remove the dependence many countries have on imported oil.
Electricity production needs to be made more efficient and less polluting of the environment. For example CO2 needs to be sequestered by coal fired plants and more nuclear plants need to be developed. Chernobyl brings back bad memories, but if all the accidents are taken into account, nuclear power is far safer than mining for coal, Chernobyl included.
Just as the stone age did not end because they ran out of stones, the oil age will probably not end because the earth runs out of oil. Electricity will overtake oil because of other factors such as global warming. There will be an emphasis on consuming less and less hydrocarbons such as using duel fuel in automobiles. http://www.dalefield.com/slspartners/df.html
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
Albert Einstein