One solution to two problems

WITH reference to the article 'The last drop' (Insight, April 27), there are two problems, one being dwindling oil supplies, the other global warming.

But there is a common solution. We can look at the high level of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as a blight that must be removed, and, at the same time, as a bonus, providing a ready source of carbon from which, together with hydrogen, we can synthesise clean, carbon-neutral hydrocarbon fuels such as petrol, diesel and kerosene.

The technology exists – the synthesis is already carried out by oil companies to turn natural gas into more readily stored and transported liquid hydrocarbons. In the US an adsorption technique for extracting carbon dioxide from thin air is also being used. All we need is power, which will best be provided by massive solar installations in tropical desert regions. This will supply an abundance of affordable conventional fuel, and we can continue to live the lifestyle we've created on the back of fossil fuels.

The carbon dioxide that burning these fuels puts back into the atmosphere is removed and recycled – there is no further addition to the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Simply cutting back on fossil fuel use only delays the day when global warming wrecks our world, or the day fossil fuels finally run out.

David L McNeight, Stratos Fuels, Manchester

AS IF climate change wasn't enough incentive to wean ourselves off our addiction to oil, this week's shortages are a reminder that oil will peak, and we must prepare ourselves for a post-oil future. Now that Portobello in Edinburgh has become Scotland's first 'transition town', perhaps it is time for Scotland to become the world's first 'Transition country'.

Tim Gee, Edinburgh