“If you’re interested, I actually thought a bit about the long future. There’s a couple ways out. Controlled nuclear fusion is one. Another might be large-scale hydrogen generation using solar. (Hydrogen burns too!) The problem with solar in general is that the sun is either not there (at night) or affected by cloud cover. But sunlight in normally cloudless areas (= deserts) can be concentrated and then focused onto advanced photovoltaics to generate a considerable amount of power. That power could be used for electrolytic breakdown of water, producing hydrogen. Vehicles can run on fuel cells. What do you think of that approach?”
Well, other than the simple fact that I don’t work for Marvel Comics you end up sounding like everyone else who thinks there is a simple fix for complex problems.
How can you possibly think that any earth-bound controlled fusion is going to come about in our lifetimes? Through what possible mechanism?
It currently takes the output of a major city to trap a fusion reaction long enough to count a few stray Fermions and you want to assemble a marching band of like warriors?
Hydrogen is everywhere as it tends to hang out with the best and the worst crowds one ever saw but the one thing you can bet on is that cowardly, volatile little shrimp won’t ever venture out on his own and by the time you chase him out of his cave to where you can illuminate the night with his own light he will have flown off into the sky, far away from your carbon-fueled match.
I lived in the southwest for over 25 years and the last I remember the hours after dark were still dark even out there in the desert where liars live or die depending or whether they have made friends with cacti or became adept at hitchhiking, other than that, maximum solar input will always occur after 10AM and before 4PM and that amounts to about 25% of the entire cloudless day that you assume will soon be relentless as the whole place becomes so drought-stricken as to be uninhabitable even for the most naive and ambitious sun-harvester.
Methane is the only suitable fuel using current supplies, ease of attainment and known resources which brings us right back to the first link in the carbon-paraffin fuel chain of Cn+H2n+2 - so your thoughts along the future look more like footnotes on a review of the history of this futile notion of reliving Captain Planet’s Summer Vacation.
Note that I said "long future". I didn't necessarily mean my (or your) lifetime. My horizon probably doesn't make it past 60 years.
I understand about solar for hydrogen production. The idea is (I've read this, it ain't mine) is that you generate hydrogen during the hot sunny day. Places this can be done: Gobi Desert, Australian Outback, northern Africa, SW USA, coastal South America. You can store hydrogen in tanks and transport it elsewhere.
As for the short-term future, we're going to have to burn increasingly expensive fossil fuels, improve extraction technologies for resources like the Bakken, and take a look at exotic alternatives like deep-sea methane.