Alcohol, maybe, but another solution seems more useful, long term.
Hydrogen-powered cars.
Now before you flame me that it is dangerous -- in a properly constructed tank,
it is less dangerous than petrol. It has a high energy/volume ratio (not quite
as good a petrol, when you include the tank sizes, but close), it burns clean
and is easy to produce in unlimited quantities: just build a few nuclear power
stations and electrolyse sea water, producing oxygen and hydrogen. Who knows,
you may be able to extract minerals from the sea water at the same time!
If society can get controlled nuclear fusion working (some projects working on
this, but underfunded), we should have clean nuclear power and then the
remaining oil can be used exclusively to make plastics (has anyone wondered
what
plastics will be made out of when the oil runs out -- this may be a bigger
issue
than energy problems).
Regards,
Simon
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