Stop Using the crude 'crude and coal'.

Much before the discovery of atom by Dalton or Thompson,  Avvaiyar - the Tamil poetess of  Pari  era talked of atom. While talking of the beauty of Tirukkural -one of the most important Tamil works, Avvaiyar tells the work is as such splitting of an atom and infusing  all the waters of the oceans. 

Indian philosophy continues to talk about the incredible powers of this invisible particle for centuries.  

In the 5th cent. B.C. the Greek philosophers Democritus and Leucippus proposed that matter was made up of tiny, indivisible particles they called atom, or in Greek "a-tomos". The reason why they assumed this is because nothing can come from nothing. Around 1803, John Dalton (1766-1844) developed the first useful atomic theory of matter. He imagined the atom as a sphere full of an electrically positive substance mixed with negative electron. Then in 1897, Thompson discovered the first component part of the atom: the electron, a particle with a negative electric charge. Discovery of the Atom

I too think that the power hidden in carbon fuels ( coal, crude...) must be there in all carbon matter. Whether it is water or wood we can take out the 'fuel cell' that can burn. Hydrogen  or Oxygen which is hidden must be separated and used and reused.
Also we are aware energy gives energy. At every source we have to reap and cap the 'energy' as we use. 

Let us see how a petrol engine generates energy.


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/4StrokeEngine_Ortho_3D_Small.gif


As we are aware the sun will not be there to give us solar power when we need it. The wind may not blow when we need. Though we continue to invent and upgrade solar or wind power generation technologies  they continue to be unreliable.

Researchers at the Stanford University are exploring the possibility of splitting water molecules and reversible fuel cells.

"Fuel cells use oxygen and hydrogen as fuel to create electricity; if the process were run in reverse, the fuel cells could be used to store electricity, as well.

"You can use the electricity from wind or solar to split water into hydrogen and oxygen in a fuel cell operating in reverse," said William Chueh, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at Stanford and a member of the Stanford Institute of Materials and Energy Sciences at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.  "The hydrogen can be stored, and used later in the fuel cell to generate electricity at night or when the wind isn't blowing." (Stanford report)

Days are not far off when we will stop digging deep and bring out the crude 'crude and coal'.