Peak Oil News - The Next Step: Conversion to the Solar Hydrogen Economy

How long do you believe it will take to restructure the Petroleum Economy into the Solar-Hydrogen Economy?

This is a difficult question. The transition to the Solar-Hydrogen Economy is dependent on how fast we can mobilize industry and Government to restructure the Petroleum Economy and how many dollars are put into the transition. There is a way to estimate the length of time. For example, the total U.S. energy expenditures would be a good measuring tool for the transition time. Our total energy expenditures was $992 billion (2005) and represents about 8% of our GNP. Interestingly, there is a general curve that governs change in many processes both in science and human phenomenon. It is called the “logistic” or sigmoid curve. For discussion, this logistic model can be developed as a time vs. Solar-Hydrogen Economy growth curve.(see curves I and II). In terms of the Solar-Hydrogen Economy, currently, we are at 3.5% renewable energy expenditures, which is just at the middle of the exponential growth on both curves. I would expect the linear portion to start at 8% and continue until 93% is reached. At that point, it will level off asymptotically until we reach a maximum. You will notice that the Petroleum Economy curve finally levels off at $100 billion. We will still need some petroleum products such as lubricants and plastic monomers until the renewables can overtake these areas.

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