Massimo suggests natural gas. I don't know how nat. gas supplies will hold up under a massive conversion to that fuel. I had not heard until recently about converting nat. gas to diesel.
I mean using it directly, not converting it to diesel. In Italy we already have plenty of places where we can refuel using natural gas. in my small city we have 3 such places and running on methane (that we have in Italy, we buy from Russia or Algeria via pipeline) is cheap and clean. The Multipla from FIAT or the Zafira from Opel (GM) all use Methane (that constitutues 90% of natural gas) or gasoline, you simply push a button to switch between the 2 tanks. We still need the 2 tanks because you could end up in areas where there is no methane. The network effect will help us improving on this side.
Nat. gas is a valuable feedstock for industrial use. I suspect that it has not been explored for as intensively as oil, so I have no idea when a Hubbert's peak would occur.
The difference is that liquid oil is needed to produce a lot more important things than burning it: i.. plastics. In addition to this if you dig deeper you never find oil, you find natural gas, because of the temperature of the earth. The numbers I know are very good for natural gas, over 400 years, meanwhile some geologist say oil production is peaking right now.
Massimo Portolani
I am sure we have an expert here. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
