One Century Down, One to Go?

John Hofmeister, President of Houston based Shell Oil Company, was featured on the Charlie Rose show two nights ago. With current gasoline prices reaching $4/gallon in the US, it was fascinating to hear his thoughts on the future for energy consumption.

At the current rate, the United States consumes roughly a "swimming pool" amount of oil every second. Furthermore, Mr. Hofmeister estimated that the natural global petroleum reserves will be depleted in less than a century. With the acceleration of growth in emerging countries (China, India, etc), this may even be a conservative estimate.

With Ford and GM celebrating 100 year anniversaries in the last several years, what does this say for their future?

Is the internal combustion engine over the hill? Will it be able to make the switch to efficient alternative energy? Moreover, what is the source? Hydrogen? Celluosic Ethanol? Ambient Energy?

How will automotive design change to meet the energy crisis needs of tomorrow? If you have a suggestion, you may want to sketch it out and post it on the updated Local Motors website.

On another note, MIT has an interesting article on a new chip co-developed by Texas Instruments that's power consumption is so low that devices may even be able to be recharged using the owner's body heat!