Thread:Comments:Scientist demands end to America's 'addiction to oil'/Just my personal thoughts on the oil industry

Just from the diagram included in the Petroleum products article, I see that 81% of the contents of a typical barrel of oil currently go to fuel usage, which burns and then releases its carbon into the atmosphere. Understanding that oil is even used in the production of things like, say, electric cars, I think that a prudent step toward significant worldwide reduction of our oil usage would be if all our forms of public transport (trains, subways and automobiles at least) could slowly and gradually be converted to either fuel-cell or full-electric power sources. In order to get this done affordably, the changes need to be gradual, so that the cost to the consumer can be reduced to the point of affordability. I understand that a typical electric 4-door sedan runs about $40K as compared to a gasoline-fed model, which usually runs $20k or less, but I think that if the governments (or perhaps the auto companies?) offered rebates that would make up the difference to consumers, those $40K cars might just become reasonably affordable. As for the modes of transport that I haven't mentioned, here are my thoughts: Boats: 1. Personal-to-family-sized with outboard motors: I would hope that if there isn't already an outboard motor model that is completely electric, there will be one on the market soon. 2. Commercial fishing boats: I think that a good power source for some could be either burning fish oil, but also: While the boat is docked, hooking up their engines to a generator which charges the motors' battery with tidal energy. Another more crazy idea? Divising some way to capture wind power from a tropical cyclone. 3. Cargo ships: An absolutely necessary part of global trade. So what to do about their power supply? Some combination of tidal and solar might be feasible on the smaller-scale ones, but I'm thinking nuclear power is the way to go here.

Planes: Whoa boy, here's the big problem per unit. It takes a lot of energy to get up and stay in the air, which makes me understand why commercial airliners use gasoline, but per plane, they use up a whole lot more fuel than your average car. My remedy for this? Either a) less planes, which the airlines won't like, or b) we look at ways to convert the planes to some less polluting energy source. Again, I am in favour of some form of wind/solar battery system, combined with an air glider model once the plane has reached a safe altitude. Once the plane reaches its normal 35,000 feet or so, it should be above most of the cloud systems, so if the entire upside can be coated with solar-energy absorption materials, that may be very useful.

Trains: One answer: Electric-powered, magnetically driven.

It might take decades to convert the majority of the world's transport modes to non-oil consuming forms, but I think it is possible.