The present day world uses a huge amount of fossil fuels like petroleum products and coal to produce the required power for homes in Long Island, industries, transportation and for all kinds of motive power. Fossil fuels have a limited availability and also produce a huge amount of greenhouse gases, that are damaging the environment. There is, therefore, a concerted effort to reduce the dependence on fossil fuels and to start using renewable sources of energy like the sun, wind, the ocean, hydropower, and biomass among others.
Certain developed countries have already announced that petroleum products for transport will be no more available in their countries after 2050. There have been rapid developments in solar cells that produce electricity and increasing their efficiency that can help motive power to be used only for this free and renewable resource. The sun’s light to produce power is intermittently available and this does require better means of storage of power. Research is concentrating on more efficient batteries, the use of super conductors and other means that can help to store power efficiently. Electric vehicles are already being used in a limited way, and the day is not far off when they will make up the majority of all transportation vehicles. A fact is that the power from the sun in an hour is equal to the power that all the people on earth use in a year, and if technological and financial hurdles that prevent the use of this resource are overcome, fossil fuels can definitely become obsolete.
There have also been rapid strides in making plants that use fusion power from nuclear plants, and this can go a long way in reducing the need for fossil fuels to produce power. Using the wind, the tides and biomass are also contributing to reduce the need for fossil fuels and to hasten their obsolescence. Efforts are being made to install solar panels in space where sunlight is unhampered and sending the power generated to earth through microwave or laser. Superconductivity can also help to develop cables that allow power to be transmitted over large distances without any losses. This will allow power stations to be set up in desert regions like the Sahara where space is not a problem, and sunlight is available for a greater number of hours and days and the power so generated to be sent to Europe or other places that require the power.
Wind farms are also being developed that can be floated in oceans where the wind is a constant and this power can help to reduce the dependence on fossil fuels. Using hydrogen as a power source can also help to reduce this requirement of petroleum products, once the technology is in place to help convert water into hydrogen and oxygen. The production of oxygen itself can also help to reduce environmental problems from green gases.
Energy from renewables is a small percentage of that which is obtained from fossil fuels, and this ratio needs to be steadily increased before these fuels can become obsolete.