Question: what will we use when fossil fuels run out ?

Vicki Stevenson answered on 21 Jun 2010:

Hi
We’ve got a lot of alternatives to fossil fuels. You’ve probably seen wind farms generating electricity, people are working on machines which can generate electricity from waves and tides. We also have systems which can generate heat and electricity from sunshine. Biofuels are another option for heating and are also useful for transport.
The big problem with most of these is that you can’t control when they happen and they don’t necessarily produce energy when we need them. Hydrogen is an option for storing the energy, so that we have it when we need it – it’s also a good option for transport. Batteries might be another option!

Fusion is another possibility – people are working on this, but the most optimist estimates for getting energy out of fusion is about 15 years – it will take even longer to make energy on a commercial scale.