Fossil fuels, although there was nothing for them to fuel at the time, first came into being about half-a-billion years ago, and accumulated, over that time, into the reserves which have been keeping us warm, or cool, or on the move, for the past century-and-a-half.

But what took half-a-billion years for nature to build up, has taken fewer than fifteen generations of human consumption to dangerously deplete.

We cannot hide from the reality that one day, the final drop of oil, scrap of coal, or breath of natural gas will emerge from beneath us. Fossil fuels are non-renewable. No second helpings from the trough.

And with the emergence of China and India as major economic forces, that energy consumption is expected to grow by half in the next fifteen years.

So, of late, the alternative energy movement has gained (non-coal-generated) steam. And with its new-found support may have come an unhealthy expectation of how advanced alternative energy is.

According to the Energy Information Agency, as of 2004, alternative energy sources such as hydroelectric, wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass powers were providing only six percent of U.S. energy needs.

Nuclear power as an alternative energy, with its attendant environmental and health threats, accounts for only six percent of the entire world’s energy consumption.

If humankind is to exit the 21st century in any sort of civilized state, alternative energy will have to fuel much more of his journey than it does at present.

Wind, sun, and water power are the alternative energy sources most ready to begin shouldering some of the load. They contain the energy; it remains to us to develop technologies to efficiently harness it and channel it to electricity generating-turbines.

Biomass–the technology created when man set fire to wood–is an alternative energy option still in its infancy, but may be what will eventually replace oil as the fuel that drives our vehicles. It has a great start in the ethanol already replacing some of the gasoline we use.

Renewable alternative energy is making headway–but it is not, by any stretch of the imagination, ready to replace fossil fuels.